It seems entirely fitting, after events of the past six months or so, that the Nationals would rain on the prime minister’s pre-Christmas parade.



The end-of-year reshuffle was supposed to be part of the the Turnbull government’s orchestrated efforts, since prevailing in the New England election, to shift the daily narrative from rolling clustercuss to comeback.

Just in case we all missed the edict that the official story out of Canberra was now to be a comeback story, one Daily Telegraph drop at a time – Barnaby Joyce was carried into parliament, practically on a litter, when he managed to hold the seat he’d lost for a few weeks because he didn’t bother to check his New Zealand ancestry.

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After the return of the prodigal son, we had the triumph lap on same-sex marriage.

Last Saturday night, the triumph tour touched down in Bennelong, where Malcolm Turnbull gave himself a gold star for holding the Sydney seat when in fact John Alexander had held the seat, in part because he increased his personal margin at the last federal election when the government nationally had gone backwards, and because local voters really weren’t buying what Labor was selling.

Alexander was even gracious enough, after letting the prime minister take the podium first at his victory celebration, to forecast the “renaissance” of Turnbull’s leadership, again, just in case we’d all missed the new reality. Hint, hint guys.

So I think we’ve now established Triumph™ was supposed to be the end of year theme.

But the triumph was cruelled ever so slightly by a rolling bunfight which erupted on Tuesday morning after Barnaby Joyce took the decision to hip-and-shoulder-charge the Victorian National Darren Chester out of the cabinet.

The official version of the story is Darren had to go to allow the new deputy leader, Bridget McKenzie, to take her place in the cabinet, because Victoria. Too much Victoria. Not enough Queensland. And we need Queensland, because, Queensland, and the LNP is so hard done by in Canberra.

The unofficial version of the story is Chester got the boot because, among other thought crimes, he worked to put McKenzie in as the party’s deputy leader, when Joyce wanted someone else. Someone from Queensland. Matt Canavan, to be more precise.

Chester himself – a very nice bloke, entirely civilised, thoroughly competent – politely, in very calm fashion, took no prisoners as he assumed his new status as feather duster.

“Look, I’ve had better days than this,” Chester noted. Dignity demanded nothing less.

Malcolm Turnbull – who may have resented the Nationals making a hash of his reshuffle after their stellar contributions throughout this year, including but not limited to failure to check their own constitutional compliance; George Christensen’s many feelings and periodic confessions to Andrew Bolt; the banking royal commission Liberals had resisted for two years; and playing public chicken with his leadership when Joyce was unfortunately detained in Tamworth – made sure he gave Joyce zero cover for dumping Chester.

The prime minister made it clear he thought Chester a fine fellow and his early involuntary retirement from the cabinet all very unfortunate. Implied but not stated was: you know, Nats, [eye-roll].

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“Plainly, the Nationals have a very large component of their party room comes from Queensland and, uh, Barnaby was keen to see that reflected in their representatives in the cabinet,” Turnbull said, providing the eloquent clarity no one actually needed, given the source of the unseemly shove was already entirely clear.

Before Joyce returned to Canberra after the New England contest, Liberals were sweating on his return, fancying he might be able to restore some order.

I wrote at the time that hope was futile because the factors making the Nationals restive were bigger than the capacity of their leader to contain them.

What I should have written at the time was the prospect of Joyce restoring order anywhere was always a vain hope, given who he is, and given the saturnine, push it to the brink mood he’s been in recently, and given where politics currently is – marooned in the knockdown clown territory that gives voters the creeps.

Also notable on triumph day was Liberals forming an honour guard to usher George Brandis out of politics in the direction of his new diplomatic post in London, kindly waving the attorney general off before his new gig was even official, almost as if people were concerned he may change his mind.

Brandis’s many contributions were eulogised eagerly by colleagues in the spirit of “here’s your hat George, what’s your hurry” – proving that old adage true: if you want a friend in politics, get a dog.