While Joyce is often hailed as “the best retail politician in Australia”, he is just as spectacularly accident prone – recall the Gina Rinehart cheque; recall also that he was actually ineligible to serve in Parliament, having not renounced his New Zealand citizenship, and then compounded the “farce” by remaining in cabinet, having forced Matt Canavan to stand aside from his portfolio, while under consideration by the High Court.

There was also Barnaby’s “train wreck interview” about the government’s release of private information; the “forced” resignation of Paul Grimes as secretary of his department; his failure to release the cost/benefit analysis of moving the Australian Pests and Veterinary Medicines Authority to his electorate; his inconsistency on the value of wind farms, praised in his electorate, but attacked in South Australia; his support for a banking royal commission against government policy; and a host of others.

And then, his most significant and revealing “accident” of all, the moral issue aside, his total mismanagement of his marriage breakdown, and the subsequent questioning of him as to whether he had breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct, and parliamentary disclosure requirements. This revealed an appalling series of poor judgments.

Barnaby just doesn’t get it. He has thought it was always reasonable that he operated under a different set of rules. Didn’t we know whom we were talking about? He is Deputy Prime Minister. What’s private is private. And similarly other selfish, self absorbed, arrogant, thoughts and sentiments.

Is it any wonder, after all this and not forgetting the legacy of the Nationals' role in costing Malcolm Turnbull the leadership to Tony Abbott over climate policy the first time around, that Turnbull basically said, in the end, “Enough is enough”, too much damage has been done to the government, Barnaby should “consider his position”.