Burqa with the works.

Not to borrow from our accursed American cousins, but I’m going to miss Barnaby Joyce when he’s gone, so I’d like to give thanks, while he’s still with us, for all the years of entertainment he’s provided. All for the low, low price of the millions of dollars we paid him, and the trillions he’ll eventually cost us thanks to the destructive consequences of his decades-long denial of climate change.

For me, Barnaby will be forever remembered as the bloke who couldn’t hold his drink, keep his pants on, or accept the science that spelled disaster for the people he swore to serve in the dust-choked margins of rural Australia.

This week’s announcement that he was dumping his political party of 30-plus years must have come as a terrible shock to anyone not paying attention when he dumped his wife of several geological epochs because someone younger and hotter came along. I will confess, with not a little shame, that my favourite part of that story was his former wife Natalie throwing herself into competitive bodybuilding to acquire a revenge bod that looked an awful lot like a hard middle finger with abs.

But the old Boner’s still got it. He gave it to us old school this week as he abandoned yet another lifelong commitment and dangled the possibility of a hot new situationship, this time with Pauline Hanson, who served up a course of her famous ‘Burqa with the works’, chips, scallops, and sandwich-press wagyu.

That wagyu steak (and we will totally get to that protein panini, I promise) was, for me, the most shocking yet unsurprising aspect of Barnaby’s open flirtation with the former fishmonger.

Less surprising, and not even a little bit shocking, was the reaction of his former comrades, who went from not talking to him for months on end to talking about nothing and nobody else all week. The only people more shocked by Barnaby’s exit than his former colleagues were literally no one. Nationals leader David Littleproud, who had settled comfortably into dealing with Joyce the same way he deals with the accelerating climate catastrophe, by pretending neither inconvenience is there, accused Joyce of breaking a contract with his electorate, adding a little passive-aggressive hot sauce:

“The Nationals supported Barnaby through the tough times, including his darkest moments.”

A tactically brilliant, if slightly underhanded, reminder that there have been so very many darkest moments.

A former senator and party elder, now safely consigned to the outskirts of influence, John “Wacka” Williams, famous mostly for calling himself “Wacka”, described Barnaby’s defection as an act of ‘treason,’ which says a lot about how much safer the country is now that the Honourable Wacka is no longer in a position to decide what words or laws mean.

But seriously, those steaks, man.

There hasn’t been nearly enough discourse—truly, shame on all of us—about Pauline Hanson’s two- or possibly three-course dinner date with Barnaby, thankfully preserved for the National Archive in a 38-second video.

At the one-second mark, observe the steaks, marbled in the manner of a fine Florentine sculpture, being stripped from the plastic wrap like Laura Palmer in the pilot episode of Twin Peaks. That the tectonic slab of red meat may have hailed from the estates of Gina Rinehart adds a nicely neo-feudal piquancy, I think. But I must ask: was that a hint of brown? A pre-sear, perhaps? Or merely an oxidised sigh of prime Angus accepting what’s coming next.

It’s possible that quite a bit more planning went into this dinner than we’ve been led to believe. If those steaks were pre-seared, as the suspiciously bronzed hue suggests, then we’re no longer looking at a casual office cook-up, but a full-blown gastro-strategic operation.

Also: I do not care for the forlorn presence of a clearly used Chux wipe, languishing like a bacterial time bomb in the prep area. Pauline no longer runs a commercial kitchen, but she would be familiar with the exacting standards required of such, and a used cleaning cloth sitting right next to the raw/pre-seared/undead beef is a health inspector’s nightmare fuel.

The inspectors might be coming anyway, given that she appears to be cooking a hell of a slap-up meal in her Senate office. One wonders if a Freedom of Information request might reveal any complaints from neighbours about any eau de barnyard oozing under their doors.

Skip forward to the 11-second mark, where she appears to be using a toasted-sandwich maker like a backyard hibachi. There’s some juice on the hot plate, bubbling away like unresolved trauma, but again, I worry she cannot generate enough heat for a decent sear, which raises once more the troubling hypothesis that the meat was seared in advance, possibly at home, possibly under the sullen gaze of a hungry Labrador.”

If I might be so bold, Senator, should you be looking to seduce the former Nationals leader, politically, of course, you might consider a sous vide machine. Low and slow all day, followed by a dramatic high-heat finish. Perhaps one of Graham Richardson’s blow torches could be found in storage. Otherwise, there are any number of well-reviewed appliances for this, though I would personally go for a George Foreman Grill simply because I’m sitting here deep in my office napping chair dictating this ridiculous column, and frankly, I am unwilling to rise and Google anything at my desk across the room.

Continuing. At the 24-second mark, we get to the carbo porn: cheesy baked potatoes that Barnaby is spooning out for himself with the vigour of a man unfamiliar with restraint. These must have been prepared well in advance. French-style gratin does not simply materialise, least of all in a Senate kitchenette. J’accuse le microwave! Unless, of course, Senator Hanson has added an air fryer to her parliamentary expense account, in which case I retract my scepticism and demand a full audit. A pasta salad and a pub-standard green salad complete the mise en scène, though Joyce, perhaps mindful of leafy greens’ long-standing bias against him, gave it a wide berth.

It takes only thirteen seconds for the red wine to appear, though the pristine glass suggests it may just be set dressing. Hard to believe a glass of plonk could last that long.

And then, at the denouement, a mystery: the pie. At first glance, it flirts with sweetness, perhaps a blueberry or rhubarb number, the latticework suggesting something that might be found cooling on the windowsill of a 1950s housewife fantasy. But permit me, if you will, an alternate reading. Consider, just for a moment, that it’s not blueberry or rhubarb, but steak and kidney! That those aren’t pastry strips but thick-cut chips in grid formation. If so, then I must say: hats off, Senator! I think I just felt a faint stirring of respect twitch in my soul. But don’t worry, I’ll get that checked.