The only Joyce I'm talking about today is Alan Joyce, said Scott Morrison, almost pleading for oxygen on Friday morning.
Flanked by the Qantas boss as well as acting Prime Minister Mathias Cormann, and Small Business Minister Craig Laundy, Morrison had neatly captured the government's dilemma - caught between Barnaby Joyce's intransigence and the clear political case for his removal - between the internal politeness required of the Coalition arrangement, and the harsher external politics of public opinion.
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The political reaction to Barnaby's resignation
Politicians around the country react to the resignation of the deputy prime minister.
The ministers were in a Qantas hangar to push their case for big business tax cuts, but instead faced a fusillade of questions about "Barnaby's" troubles, which had inconveniently multiplied overnight to include an as-yet untested allegation of sexual harassment lodged with the WA Nationals.
Such was the power of the Joyce distraction that it travelled too, swamping Malcolm Turnbull's message in Washington DC even as he insisted he would not elaborate on his pre-departure comments.
![Hat's all folks: Barnaby Joyce has gone bush.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180226184332im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/h/0/w/k/r/a/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.p4z1hq.png/1519507971022.jpg)
Between Joyce B and Abbott T - the latter having dramatically stepped up his attacks on Turnbull, Morrison, and other ministers - the government was in disarray. So much for rising above it all on the world stage. So much for taking control via a rigorous new code-of-conduct banning sex between ministers and their staff.
So much indeed for the forlorn hope of banishing the embattled Joyce to the backblocks to get him out of the spotlight. It would be from there, as it turned out, that the quirky Nat would continue his bizarre, and ultimately self-destructive public relations blitz.
Fellow Coalitionists say it was Joyce's insouciance as much as anything else that finally cracked their resolve. His daily interviews kept the story alive, crystalising in their minds the harsh realisation that their loyalty was not being reciprocated. Too much brand damage in defence of one person's career.
The prospect of any recovery for Turnbull's poll-lagging government had been surprisingly feasible just two weeks ago. Joyce's shambolic public careen scuttled that.
![Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull outside the White House](http://web.archive.org./web/20180226184332im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/h/0/w/i/u/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.p4z1hq.png/1519507971022.jpg)
Yet for all of Joyce's defiance, his extraordinary public stand-off with Turnbull, and his apparent refusal to account for the extreme political pain caused to his socially conservative party, Joyce's final act was comparatively clean.
There were no tears, no roiling anger at the press or singling out of colleagues.
Apart from a dig at colleagues backgrounding reporters, Joyce remained largely positive thanking his party, praising his supporters, while acknowledging the enormous strain placed on his family - his partner and their unborn child, his daughters and his former wife, Natalie.
With that, Joyce's career in Canberra had peaked. Flamed out. He had fought hard, vowing to stay and fight, doggedly resisting calls to quit right up until he stopped fighting at all.
Like Abbott before him, he will now go to the backbench. And like Abbott before him, he will become a magnet for comment, for difference, for any signs of discord. After all, it was his persona as a political maverick that propelled him forward in the first place, separating him from the pack.
For Turnbull, this will be difficult. While Joyce avoided rancour, his statement also glaringly avoided paying tribute to his Prime Minister.
Indeed, he did not even advise Turnbull in advance of his resignation - the man with whom he served supposedly hand-in-glove for the past two years.
The major act of the Joyce "affair" may have now played out as it always would. But Labor will not let it rest. Forensic questioning is certain to focus on travel, accommodation allowance, free rent, and other aspects of public expenditure relating to Joyce, to his staffer-turned partner, and to other ministers too, such as Matt Canavan.
That Turnbull wanted Joyce gone was clear when he branded his personal decisions "appalling and shocking". But the political cost of his hands-off approach coupled with Joyce's blunt denial were unnecessarily high.