It is not widely known, but the Therapeutic Drugs Administration has approved the release to the general public of a number of herbal remedies from the East. One whose recent release seems calculated to deal with ministerial embarrassment has been touted as a treatment for ‘wetness and dryness in the third engine.’

While this almost poetic description of a mystical therapeutic medication has the similar conjuring-up power of rhino horn and tiger nuts, it also satisfies in a prosaic (not Prozac) way, the inner desire to recognise that one does indeed have a third engine; even if it leaves in limbo the ultimate challenge of distinguishing between the wet and the dry condition of said third engine.

My own investigation of this anatomical feature and its bi-valent condition came to a grinding halt at the unexpected response when I innocently enquired of a colleague where she might find her third engine. ‘He’s mowing the lawn,’ she exclaimed with a laugh. There was no room to enquire about his wetness or dryness since the condition of her third engine suddenly seemed irrelevant.

But then, as if by a miracle, there came the announcement a week or two ago that Barnaby Joyce had left his wife and children and had commenced co-habitation with his ex-staffer who was, he hastened to add, preggers.

In Barnaby’s small overly joyous declaration, I thought I detected the Doppler deep-state ripple of the third engine; the same third engine that my colleague had supposed was then mowing the lawn. As she explained some days later, her third engine was actually mowing her neighbour’s lawn. (It is of course, only an inference but I think she needs someone else to mow her lawn.)

But I digress. As painful as the Barnaby story is for many, and that pain was apparent when the Prime Minister kicked him to the kerb last Friday, it should not be allowed to impede what is, if not therapeutic then a continued philosophical search to prove the existence of the third engine.

And there in the facts laid out in Barnaby’s confession, I suddenly saw all the evidence I needed. But not only that. If I am correct, and I think I am, surely the cause of his problem was third engine wetness and the confusion that it causes. If ever there was a need for a herbal remedy for wetness in the third engine and the continued attention of the TGA to our need for herbal remedies, it was discernible in the state of confusion that Barnaby showed in his announcement.

Yes, he did apologise to his partner, his wife and his children; and yes, apologies to the stolen children had worked seamlessly for the ALP (even though the apologist had not actually done anything to apologise for (ignoring the pink batts) and if he had asked those responsible for their permission they would have told him to bugger off). But why would anyone think that an apology for being a bastard while celebrating a new relationship and the prospective birth of a child with the co-respondent would also work was more evidence of confusion?

Barnaby’s confusion was palpable as wetness in the engine so often is. And it was left to Malcolm Turnbull to apply some dryness. Having only two engines himself and an excess of dryness, it took a week for Malcolm to realise that his initial support for Barnaby could not be maintained in the face of Fairfax, ABC, ALP and Greens concocted dryness. It is a matter of fact that wetness does not exist in engineless, left wing organs who simply throw out both the baby and the bathwater with a therapeutic termination.

In the end, extra dryness was delivered by the Prime Minister’s edict who showed his own to the whole federal cabinet. Barnaby is returned to dryness if only that of the New England Tableland where it is meteorological. The whole federal cabinet now has a dry third engine. Some welcomed the dryness. Others, recognising that you can’t prohibit something as powerful as wetness in the third engine, simply retreated to the closet.

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