“It wasn't wrong to get her the job, because they weren't in a relationship.” “So why did you get her the job?” “Well their relationship was causing so much trouble, Brian!” Barnaby Joyce reacts on Friday to Malcolm Turnbull\'s remarks. Credit:AP

Hard to shift a wombat The Prime Minister, meanwhile, with crazy-brave bravado did what needed to be done on Thursday, giving his Deputy Prime Minister a public bollocking without precedence in Australian history, noting he had displayed such “a shocking error of judgement”, inflicting “terrible hurt and humiliation” on his family by having an affair with a staffer that “set off a world of woe for those women, and appalled all of us”, that he needed to go away and “consider his own position”. Translation: “Are you and the Nats kidding, Barnaby? Here’s a sword, now go away and do the honorable thing, and fall on it, or I will continue to publicly humiliate you. This is a captain’s call, if you will, and my view is that you are no longer fit to be vice-captain.” And we have all seen the results, the response of Barnaby Joyce. Publicly humiliated, he first snarled like a rabid dingo before retreating to dig in like a wombat in Mallee scrub, and will be hard to shift from here. In short, it has to be Bill Shorten’s dream scenario. With a government at war with itself, a Prime Minister and Deputy PM fighting like cats in a sack, what are the chances the Australian people as a whole will say, next election, “Hey, let’s give this mob another go, it worked out so well last time!”

As to the PM’s #bonkban, good luck on enforcing that one! The attitude of too many politicians seems to be, in the words of Jack Nicholson at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, “What’s the point in being the President, if you can’t go through the typing pool?” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull making his captain's call on Thursday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Perpetual gesture of sympathy An interesting point was made by a commentator who will remain nameless – let’s just call him Paul Murray – concerning this week’s gun massacre in America, with 17 killed in a Florida school, by the usual crazed gunman with absurdly powerful weapons that he purchased with staggering ease. Murray’s point was that if the same thing happened in France, or Britain, we would light up the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House to show our sympathy, whereas, for the Americans, there is nothing of the kind – and there should be. The obvious problem, Paul, is that if we lit up the Opera House and the bridge for every gun massacre in America – at a time when The Washington Post reports that every day in America two dozen children are shot – it would be in an all-but-perpetual state of red, white and blue. Of course, the Americans have our deepest sympathy for their ongoing tragedies. But all these years on, equally manifest is our frustration at their staggering incapacity to do something to help themselves beyond the usual “Now is not the time to discuss gun control” and “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.”

Joke of the Week Neil Armstrong, they reckon, in the latter stages of his life, developed something of a light patter filled with jokes about being on the moon. They were deliberately not that funny, and when no-one would laugh, he would trail off, “Well, I guess you had to be there ...” Quotes of the Week “I thought that was completely unnecessary and all that is going to do is basically pull the scab off to everybody to have a look at.” Barnaby Joyce fires back.

“Voters have a right to expect two things from politics. One is that the Australian people will not get screwed by their government and two, ministers will not screw their staff.” Senator Cory Bernardi of the Australian Conservatives. Charmed, I’m sure. “I don't want to lose one of the best politicians we've had in my lifetime. Are you going to shoot your best horse because he jumped the fence and was found in the neighbour's paddock?” Senator Barry O’Sullivan defends his leader, Barnaby Joyce. “Barnaby made a shocking error of judgment 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.”

Malcolm Turnbull, in surprisingly strong language, publicly spanks his deputy. “I tried to negotiate less grey hair. I tried to negotiate smaller ears. Struck out on that as well.” Former American president Barack Obama, joking about his new official portrait, which will hang in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. “I hope one day to actually slow roast him over ... I mean to have a nice chat with, ah, the smell of lamb.” Peter Campion, father of Vicki Campion, on his view of Barnaby Joyce.