Now that Barnaby is back in charge of the pork barrel what does that say about us

I believe Catherine Marriott

I believe all the women whose names are not in a public space

Extraordinary isn’t it we have two unresolved sexual harassment allegations against two sitting federal politicians and both the women have the same first name C/Katherine?

Extraordinary isn’t it both these men seem bullet proof?

One of them is now sitting on the special cabinet taskforce for the status of women.

“When good men and women do nothing” comes to mind

Why don’t good men and women speak up

Life is a balance.

Everyday we make choices

We think about our high-profile government appointments

The impact on the organisations we advocate for

The impact on our businesses

The impact on our mental health

The impact on our families and friends

The list goes on

We all learn to live with our choices in different ways

For me it’s the impact on the young – what message are we sending the young people who make up 20% of the population but are 100% of the future.

These are the values of the young people I work with. This is why I cant sleep at night when their future is threatened by the choices others are making

What the journalists are saying

None of this caper – the behaviour, the leadership spills, the dodgy standards – serves rural people. Source

Five reasons why Barnaby Joyce is a terrible, horrible, no good choice for the Nationals Source

So what has Mr Joyce’s re-appointment taught us? That any transient focus on women is now over. Shade’s been called on our time in the sun. Source

As always Annabel Crabb tells it in a way that makes me smile despite my heavy heart

Helluva Week To Give Up Sniffing Glue

If the Second Coming of Barnaby Joyce (now reinstated as Deputy Prime Minister after a National Party coup against serial Elvis-impersonator Michael McCormack ) seemed like a weird development to you on Monday, have some pity for the quarantined Prime Minister, who effectively viewed the event helplessly through plate glass like Dustin Hoffman in the concluding scenes of The Graduate, unable to intervene as Barnaby made off with his Coalition bride.

“It’s not about me,” said Mr Joyce in his inaugural press conference after his restoration to the leadership, struggling at times, one imagines, to make himself heard over the hysterical laughter of anyone who’s ever met him.

So it’s goodbye McCormack. Less than a week after encouraging regional mice to relocate to the apartments of inner-city activists and scratch their children, he’s now National Party history and will record no more raps like this one.

His colleagues, having just rissoled Mr McCormack, observed the lovely tradition of listing all the things they respected and loved about him as he dragged his carcass from the chamber. Politics, eh? Full of adorable people.

Building A New Cabinet: Weatherboard And Iron Required

Mr Joyce, in his not-about-Barnaby way, is widely expected to use his new position to boot non-signatories to the Barnaby Fan Club out of his way, most notably Veterans Affairs Minister Darren Chester who has long proved immune to Mr Joyce’s musky charms. There is some consternation within the ranks of veterans’ families at the thought of a SIXTH minister in the portfolio at this highly sensitive time. No doubt this will prove central to the decision.

Mr Joyce’s swearing-in, which featured two men and a flat-screen TV (a nightmare family-values scenario I’m sure I dimly recall from an Eric Abetz speech) also provided what is believed to be the first TV footage of his son Sebastian not to cost the Seven Network $150,000.

Why Do We Care?

For a PM attempting to undertake a certain degree of fancy footwork around his government’s position on climate and its yellowing fortunes with women, the return of Mr Joyce is like Rodney Dangerfield turning up in a leaded-petrol monster truck.

Brett Worthington summarises the new challenges facing the locked-down PM here, while Insiders host David Speers says we need to read the National Party tea leaves.

Not everyone restrained themselves to tea while celebrating the Joyce victory, it seems, but equally there were women in the party profoundly unhappy. Indeed, the party’s WA leader has had it up to pussy’s bow with the Joyce shenanigans.

The Joyce Redux emboldened various chaps in the Coalition party room to complain about the budget’s spending on child care (outsourcing the care of children, which should be done for free by our wives as nature intended) while Senate leader “Adventures With” Bridget McKenzie judged this an opportune moment to blow up the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Elsewhere, a forensic investigation commenced into how many of Barnaby’s backbench fulminations would survive into the Not-About-Barnaby new age; would he continue to support residency for the Biloela family, for instance? There have been no signs of that yet but the family has received a three-month bridging visa to work and study in Perth.

What is the call to action do you think here?

Are we supporting the whistleblowers enough?

What does that support look like?

Whatever we are doing its not enough YET.