The prime minster was overshadowed by his deputy while selling his economic message in Toowoomba

“I’ll tell you how this game works,” Barnaby Joyce told the faithful. “He’ll listen to my answer and then repeat it and refine it.”

Joyce gave his answer and turned to the prime minister expectantly. But even Malcolm Turnbull can eventually read a room.

“Very well said, I’d say.”

And then he shut up.

Turnbull, never happier than when waxing lyrical about innovation, technology and any chance to prove his smarts, was not who the Queensland Liberal National party faithful had paid their $150 to see.

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That honour went to the man next to him, the man they called senator for eight years and desperately wanted as the member for Maranoa. The man who carried his Akubra hat into a room filled with check shirts and RM Williams boots and fitted right in.

But the prime minister was the one the party was selling, so they brought their greatest showman to show off their wares.

Joyce could name-drop with the locals and sprinkle G-rated pub banter across his speech, could say “fair go” without looking like he practised it in a mirror. And Turnbull, having delivered his 2018 scene-setting script to a politely interested, if not engaged audience, where the men crossed their arms and the women smiled politely, eventually realised the secret to success – in this room at least – lay with his deputy.

But, like all great epiphanies, it took some time.

It came after the half-hearted standing ovation following his speech, where LNP MPs jumped to their feet in a bid to encourage the rest of the room, which eventually lumbered up with the enthusiasm of a pregnant elephant being called to pull a cart.

It came after John, one of the paying faithful, asked whether the government would back small projects such as his pumped hydro plan, as well as the big ones, and was given a lecture on how much the prime minister knew about water. As the crowd’s eyes glazed with a glint to rival the CWA’s award-winning toffee, Joyce stepped in.

“I’m generally swimming below it [water] and Malcolm has a tenacity to walk on it,” he joked. The haze went away, as Joyce continued talking plans and support for projects that develop regional communities.

“Water is wealth, that’s how you drive an economy,” he said.

But it wasn’t until Shane asked about decentralisation, and why regional communities were always hearing about city dwellers who did not want to move, that the prime minister saw the light.

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While his speech had been for the majority (and handed to media organisations the previous night), this moment was for the 250 or so local believers to hear from their Nationals leader.

“I might defer to Barnaby on this one,” he said.

But habits are hard to break and when Peter, who wanted to ask about power reliability, also slipped in the words “digital connectivity” at the end, Turnbull filled the room with his knowledge of the NBN. Joyce jumped in again. And then once more before proceedings ended.

There were no more standing ovations. But while the prime minister was accosted for selfies, his deputy was surrounded for chats.

“Well, that was almost worth the $150,” one man said as he walked out of the room. “But I got to have a chat to Barnaby, so there’s that.”

In the end, with the biggest Akubra in the land shielding him from the rain as a sudden winter descended on the Darling Downs, even Joyce, who ambled out of the hall after Turnbull had already been spirited away, had to admit that, in this crowd, he had higher billing.

He put it down to local interests – the dog fences, the inland rail, shearing.

“I suppose I had the advantage, I was senator here for eight years, seven months and a day and that was an incredible honour,” he said, while someone went looking for the wallet he’d left on the table.

“I know these people. I represented them and they voted for me. So I’ll always hold them in the highest respect and, I suppose, it gives me a bit of a leg up.”