Hugo Kelly writes:


Mark Vaile and Kim Beazley would
both have been pleased, for different reasons, with Barnaby Joyce’s
headline hogging. Vaile’s Question Time blunder was buried by the
furore over the feisty new
Nationals senator, while for Beazley, John Howard and his cadre’s
overblown attacks on Joyce swamped any positives the government hoped
to get out of day one of its control of the Senate.

Joyce has commanded more
media attention than many of the government’s ministers, including his own
leader and deputy PM Vaile – no doubt feeding the jealousy in the ranks that led to
yesterday’s stream of criticism from his new Coalition colleagues.

But by
making the government the issue, as Louise Dodson points out in today’s SMH, Joyce is thwarting the Coalition’s plans to target the Opposition as weak and
vacillating under Kim Beazley.

Vaile’s blunder, meanwhile, might have led political coverage in
today’s papers, but for the Barnaby storm. In Question Time, Beazley
asked Vaile if he guaranteed the Coalition would “protect as minimum
conditions of employment four weeks annual leave, personal and carers’
leave, parental leave including maternity leave, maximum ordinary
working hours of 38 hours per week, public holidays, meal breaks, and
smokos.” Vaile replied: “The answer to the question is ‘Yes’.”

Howard pointedly declined to give
any such commitment. Leading to headlines like this in The Age: “PM, Vaile split on IR
deal.”

Beazley
will be hoping for more Joyce mayhem. Vaile will be hoping it’s a one day
wonder.