Inbred Tomato splatters all over Do-nothing Malcolm

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Pass the popcorn:

The funny part is they’re both right!

At The Guardian it’s war:

Those close to Joyce said Turnbull had “turned a friendship into a purely business relationship” and his “extraordinary” statement had only “served to bring the Nationals closer together against our Coalition partners”.

“Have you ever heard Turnbull deliver such a characterisation of that nature against his actual opponent, Bill Shorten? No. Because he hasn’t,” one Joyce supporter said. “What he did yesterday was extraordinary. He gave no heads up that it was coming. And you would think, with the relationship they shared, with the friendship, Malcolm would have come to Barnaby and said ‘mate, I’m sorry, but I have to do this’. And he didn’t.

“Barnaby has been a good deputy. And when Malcolm has been under siege for decisions he has made, Barnaby has rallied behind him, as a good deputy should, he’s defended him, he’s kept the troops in line. They had a good working relationship, but more than that, they had a friendship.

“But on this issue, Malcolm Turnbull has decided to end that side of the relationship. It is now one which can only be purely business. He’s decided, or his office has decided, to do that, that he can’t have Barnaby around anymore, and that is what he came out and said yesterday.

“He’s rolled the dice to try and force him to go, he’s shown he is happy to convert a friendship to a pure transactional relationship, he’s put at risk and immense pressure on the Coalition agreement, and he has declared it open season on being able to comment on each other’s leadership styles.

“Well, Barnaby has stayed very quiet on that in the past. But with Newspoll No 30 coming up, there is nothing stopping the deputy prime minister from telling Malcolm Turnbull that he needs to ‘reflect’ on his leadership style and future.

“That is what Malcolm Turnbull has done.”

Shorten is in raptures:

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Bill Shorten says the government is in a “full-blown political crisis” and has demanded Malcolm Turnbull sack Barnaby Joyce from his cabinet.

“If Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t have the courage to sack Barnaby Joyce then Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t have the courage to be prime minister Australia,” he told reporters in Melbourne.

“If Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t sack Barnaby Joyce today this government is over.”

The Labor leader said the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister “are now at war each other”.

“Frankly the way each of them are behaving neither are fit to hold high office.

“Yesterday Mr Turnbull declared war or Mr Joyce, today Mr Joyce declared war on Mr Turnbull.”

Flanked by deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek, Mr Shorten said Australians “have right to be angry and frustrated”.

The Australian is in meltdown. Dennis Shanahan:

The Nationals are now divided like never before, the partnership at the top of the Coalition is broken and there will be more recriminations and turmoil to come.

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And PVO:

Barnaby Joyce’s hysterical response to the Prime Minister’s move to tighten up the ministerial code of conduct is nothing more than a cynical ploy to retain his job.

That Joyce could call a media conference and admonish the PM for the hurt he has caused to his family is surely the best example ever of jumping the shark. The Nationals have long been searching for an issue they can fight on to show that they are prepared to stand up to their senior Coalition partner. Who ever would have thought it would manifest as the right to sleep with your staff free of Liberal Party interference.

The Deputy PM hopes to distract from his own poor conduct and use the PM’s intervention to stir up parochial Nationals sentiments.

But the ploy should fail — it is Joyce not Malcolm Turnbull who has killed stone dead the government’s momentum this year. It is Joyce not Turnbull who has done the wrong thing, in multiple respects. The Deputy PM should have the decency to go quietly.

Fat chance. Do-nothing himself responded by dividing the Inbred Tomato from the Nats:

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The die is cast now for a battle to the death.

Tony Abbott anyone?

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.