Remember way back on Thursday, when ministers dreamt Barnaby wasn’t an issue?

Before things all turned to custard, Michaelia Cash took a touchingly glass-half-full approach.

Optimism in action. Jobs and Innovation Minister Michaelia Cash’s press conference on Thursday:

Cash: (Barnaby) Joyce has addressed all of these issues. What I am focused on, and I can assure you when I leave this place and go and talk to the average person in the street, what they are focused on, is: Michaelia, you are the jobs minister, can you tell me how many jobs your government has ­created? … There’s a lot of white noise in this place but I am not being distracted by it.

Journalist: Hasn’t the Deputy PM distracted the government’s agenda or policy agenda for the week, though?

Cash: At the end of the day you guys report what you guys report.

Malcolm Turnbull shifting the focus a little later that day:

This week most attention has been ­focused on Barnaby Joyce and his conduct.

Turnbull then innovatively doing a job on him:

There has been a lot of discussion about whether he complied with ministerial standards. Whether he complied with the requirements for disclosing use of government entitlements. Barnaby has given me — as I said in the house — an unequivocal assurance that he has complied with the ministerial standards and with both the use and reporting of ministerial and other entitlements. But I think we know that the real issue is the terrible hurt and humiliation that Barnaby, by his conduct, has visited on his wife Natalie and their daughters and indeed his new partner. Barnaby made a shocking error of judg­ment in having an affair with a young woman working in his office. In doing so, he has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us.

But you’re right, minister Cash, there’s nothing to see here. Oh, ­except for Turnbull’s press conference in Hobart yesterday:

Barnaby has got plenty to reflect on.

And the man of the moment himself, Barnaby Joyce, during his press conference in Canberra a bit later:

In regards to comments by the Prime Minister yesterday at his press conference, I have to say that in many ­instances they caused further harm. I believe they were in many instances inept and most definitely in many ­instances unnecessary.

The Australian media diarist Stephen Brook, yesterday:

The ABC will review a comment piece by chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici after pulling it off its website. A news story on the same subject — an investigation into the amount of corporate tax paid by companies — was updated with extra ­information and context today after widespread criticism of the series, ­including by PM Malcolm Turnbull. The two stories were published online on Wednesday and sources said the comment piece contained errors of fact in tables and graphs, but the ABC did not confirm this. “The analysis piece did not meet ABC editorial standards and has been removed for further review,” ABC News said today.

The Australian Financial Review’s Joe Aston on Twitter, yesterday:

So @abcnews has now taken down Emma Alberici’s risible “analysis” of Australian company tax.

Former journalism academic Wendy Bacon, tweeting to Aston:

Just read your ridiculous column/­diatribe. Why shouldn’t we discuss how people carry forward & man­ipulate losses. I’m just sorry that ­@abcnews has caved & taken @EmmaAlberico down.

Emma Alberico, tweeting to Bacon:

I’m not Emma Alberici, please stop tagging me as her!!!!! My last name ends with an ‘o’!!

Alerted by others to her mistake, Bacon stands firm:

Yes I realise but reluctant to take down now.