Humble servant of the Nation

Barnaby Joyce, Malcolm Turnbull split in spectacular style

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Let me take you back. Way, way back to the evening of December 2, 2017. The Prime Minister and his deputy stood arm in arm at the West Tamworth Leagues Club. Joyce had just won the New England by-election by a thumping margin and Turnbull declared he was “putting the band back together.”

Ah, good times.

Alas, rock stars and politicians are, if nothing else, a difficult and unpredictable lot. Velvet Underground reformed and got halfway through a European tour in 1992 before the band’s two enormous egos, Lou Reed and John Cale, remembered why the band had split up in the first place. The two men hated the sight, let alone the creeping presence, of one another. The tour and the reunion ended abruptly, and Reed and Cale went their separate ways.

The Turnbull-Joyce combo did not come to grief because of crippling personality conflict. although it may do so at some time in the near future. But back then the band had only broken up when Joyce discovered his unfortunate New Zealand-news. We subsequently learned the High Court did not so hold and Joyce was off to a by-election that on the parliamentary numbers at least, threatened the Turnbull government’s majority.

Full column here.

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