Have Malcolm Turnbull and Christopher Pyne cancelled a week of Parliament so the government can survive a week with Barnaby Joyce and, potentially, other MPs in the House? Credit:Alex Ellinghausen That remains possible when the House of Representatives returns the following week, whatever Turnbull might wish. The more pressing matter is whether the government, already missing Barnaby Joyce and John Alexander, could lose more of its numbers to the dual citizenship fiasco. The real issue, then, becomes of vastly greater magnitude of threat to the Turnbull government. The Senate has already agreed, in an attempt to deal with the dual citizenship shambles, that Senators should produce proof of their citizenship status by December 1. The current proposal is that the House would agree to the same timetable, but it hasn't been debated or voted upon.

If this were to be set in stone on the first day the House was due to return – next Monday, November 27 – all MPs would have to produce their evidence within a week of Parliament...and the House would still have a week of potentially tumultuous sitting. Labor would undoubtedly do all it could to ensure the quickest possible timetable, because it suspects there are more dual citizens within government ranks than have been revealed. If that proved to be the case, those who couldn't prove their constitutionally legal status could be required to resign straight away. And that would leave the Turnbull government desperately exposed by the second week of sitting. Should just a few extra dual citizens be revealed, the government wouldn't have the numbers to withstand a parliamentary assault from the opposition (assuming the opposition didn't also produce several dual citizens of its own). The opposition could then win a vote of no confidence in the government....and the Prime Minister would have to visit the Governor-General and request an election be held forthwith. But if the House's penultimate sitting was cancelled, leaving only one week before the end of the year, as Turnbull has now managed?

Why, the December 1 citizenship timetable wouldn't be agreed. It would be pushed out till 8pm on Tuesday, December 5, at the earliest. The opposition, thus, would have only two days before the end of the parliamentary year to try to bring down the government. And, given those two days would most likely be devoted to completing the same-sex marriage legislation Labor says it wants resolved, a strike against the government would look overly opportunistic - or Labor mightn't get the chance to find a no-confidence trigger, anyway. As a bonus for Turnbull, the squeeze on time also predicates against a move for a banking royal commission. Meanwhile, any Coalition dual citizens that were revealed could have their matters resolved through by-elections before the House returned - which, at this stage, is set down for February 5 next year. Loading And that all adds up to very pressing reasons why Turnbull would risk public and political derision by cancelling a week's sitting of the House of Representatives.

He wants to survive.