Barnaby Joyce has been comprehensively isolated by the Prime Minister after Malcolm Turnbull revealed Joyce would be taking leave rather than acting as Prime Minister next week while Turnbull visits the United States.
The move comes after the PM has stated all week that Joyce would be acting Prime Minister and retained his full confidence.
Turnbull’s statement came at the start of what proved to be a disastrous question time for Joyce as Labor, led by shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, zeroed in on inconsistencies between Joyce’s statement that he had not approached businessman Greg Maguire for free accommodation, and Maguire’s reported statements that Joyce had approached him. However, the opposition then moved on to the potentially far more damaging suggestion that Maguire had benefited from a Department of Agriculture function being held in Armidale at one of his properties, at a reported cost of $5,000, when Joyce was Agriculture minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister struggled to answer repeated questions about the function — plausibly given, as he correctly noted, it would be rare that a minister would sign off on such a small amount of departmental expenditure — amid visible gloom in government ranks.
Toward the end of question time, Labor turned its attention to the Prime Minister, asking for detail on Joyce’s compliance with the Statement of Ministerial Standards and Turnbull’s own knowledge that Joyce had been living rent-free. At one point, a visibly struggling Turnbull turned to Joyce for information, scrolled through his iPad at the Dispatch Box to find information and conversed with opposition interjecters while trying to find detail about Joyce’s statement about the accommodation. It was a deeply embarrassing performance for a Prime Minister who has been so very badly let down by Joyce.
Labor declined the perhaps obvious route of calling a censure motion at the end of question time. The damage had been done to both Joyce and Turnbull, and in the case of the former, it must surely, now, be terminal.
The only positives were that Speaker Tony Smith proved his mettle in resisting government pressure to rule questions out of order and refusing to provide protection for the beleaguered Joyce — and that, with Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop away next week as well, government Senate leader Mathias Cormann would be acting Prime Minister in Turnbull’s absence.
Given Cormann’s competence, solidity, political smarts and good sense, he’s exactly what this wretched, staggeringly inept government needs. If only he could act for longer than a few days.
Update
In an effort to staunch the bleeding and distance himself yet further from Joyce, the Prime Minister this afternoon called a media conference to announce changes to his Statement of Ministerial Standards, including a ban on sexual relationships between ministers and staff. Turnbull also gave Joyce a huge serve, saying
“the real issue is the terrible hurt and humiliation that Barnaby, by his conduct, has visited upon his wife, Natalie, and their daughters and, indeed, his new partner. Barnaby made a shocking error of judgement 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.”
Only a few days ago, Turnbull explicitly ruled out such a ban on sexual relationships, saying they were “not normally something you would be justified in seeking to regulate.”
What a farce we were all treated to in Parliamentary Q Time today.
Even if this beneficent business bud did offer board to Barnaby Beetrooter, he is incredibly imprudent (as if any more proof were required, of course) to have accepted it.
Even if he does not know anything about the $5000 for a government function at this friends drinking establishment, it is going to be practically impossible to convince anybody who counts, including in his electorate (30% of whom have deserted him) that he is in it for them.
Looks like BB has really and truly shot himself in the foot.
. . . and now we have the #bonkban. Hopefully, someone is watching for the shuffling of Ministerial staffers over the next few days, providing there is nothing to stop Ministers bonking each other’s staff.
No Richard he shot the sheriff this morning.
Turnbull is snookered.
He can’t govern without Joyce, he made a still undisclosed deal with Jo’s protegee to form government.
His cringing dog efforts in the early days about Turnbull being the boss man were cunning flattery.
Joyce’s brilliant tactic today claiming to represent the weatherboard and tin roofers of Australia would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sinister.
This country is being run by agrarian socialists, big business and the banks represented by people like Joyce.
To quote Bjelke Petersen “don’t you worry about that”.
Good story Bernard. Not sure if all that praise heaped on Cormann is justified. There’s more than a few skeletons in his closet.
But he does bring a rich mellow presentation to his repetition of the party lies and deceptions….he is really quite presentable if you can just suspend your belief systems for a while.
Indeed. I get the impression he could remain useful in a more moderate political environment but in the end he’s a right wing bigot.
Masterful performance by Mark Dreyfus in QT, he lined Barnaby up and shredded him. It seemed that the LNP were so totally rattled they rushed to Mal’s bonking ban. All looked very reactionary.
buggarmey joyce thrown under bus by P.M talkbull, I cant say how HAAAA HAAAA tragic this is, a man of buggermee`s integrity thrown to the HEEE HEEE , OOPS pardon me me I know this is no laughing matter, but I just cant stop laughing,( who writes talkbulls script), better than Seinfeld or faulty towers, now I wonder, while the new girls at home with the baby, who`s gonna keep an eye on buggarmee while he`s on duty at faulty towers, oops, I meant parliament house , maybe a tracking device that goes off if he gets any where near a female under the age of 70, it will he hard for a man of such natural beauty and character to ward off the smitten women eager to become better acquainted with Canberra`s version of Errol Flynn
Two things strike me about the leadership issues at stake.
Barnaby Rubble has such an inflated sense of entitlement that he thinks it is OK to beg sympathy with his final words, a “searing personal experience”. And the Nats think the “dust” will “settle” in a week. Nope, this ain’t dust and Barnaby is a multiple offender and is political burnt toast.
Malcolm, as usual, thinks the making of a New Rule will excuse both Rubble’s “appalling”, obvious, admitted breach of standards applying for decades and Truffles’ own leadership failure to immediately sack Rubble for behavioural breaches enforced multiple times since Profumo.
Both fail every test of leadership and demonstrate again that the quest to retain power corrupts all our leaders. Truffles’ New Rule on sex is as empty and tokenistic as his new rule on dual citizenship.
HMO is no better, distracted by petty Rubble technicalities when every decent Australian plainly sees our “leaders” are scum.