“Sometimes when you are down, and everyone seems to be kicking the poor dog when it’s cowering in the corner, it helps to have somebody reach out and say ‘keep going’,” McCormack says.

“Because I know what it can be like when you’re in that situation.”

It is two years and 344 days to the day since McCormack was sworn as Australia’s 18th deputy prime minister. It’s nowhere near Doug Anthony’s record of eight years in the role but it is somewhat of a quirky political milestone.

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It makes McCormack the longest-serving leader of either Coalition party since it came to power in 2013. Longer than Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott as leader of the Liberals. Longer than Barnaby Joyce or Warren Truss with the Nationals.

In that time even his closest political friends admit he has survived, more so than thrived, in the face of almost constant criticism from critics about his performance as leader. He has won two party room ballots since the election and some of his allies are in constant look-out for another.

His Black Lives Matter comments earned the wrath of Amnesty International and had some of his strongest supporters within parliament questioning his judgment.

“It’s easy to do the pile on,” McCormack says. “A pile-on generally only lasts one news cycle, 24 or 48 hours, sometimes for me a bit longer, but I’m still here. I’m not a quitter. Never have been.”

“You look at an interview you have and you think ‘maybe I could have been more careful with my words’, or ‘I could have done that a bit better’. I am far from perfect.”

And the ridicule isn’t only in the press or the party room. His own family Whatsapp comprising his wife, Catherine and adult children Georgina, Alexander and Nicholas, can also be a rich source.

The recent lampooning he’s received from satirical news site The Betoota Advocate is regularly shared in the group.

References to the deputy prime minister in the past months include him promising to have a COVID vaccine jab “directly into his brain on live television” to prove it is safe and his face wrapped in 48mm x 18.29m duct tape as the Liberals “put in place measures to protect their non-idiot image while PM is on holidays”.

“Nothing is off-limits to them,” he says. “It’s all fair game but if they think its unfair criticism they are the first to stand beside me or sometimes in front of me, in support. Catherine and the kids are my biggest supporters.”

Last week Barnaby Joyce, who resigned as Nationals leader in 2018 after it emerged he’d had an extramarital affair with his adviser Vikki Campion, again made his views clear that he was unhappy about the direction of the party and its place within the Coalition.

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“There is a problem, the problem needs fixing, it is in how the relationship works and for there to be a Coalition it has to be in form, it has to be in substance like it was in the past,” Joyce said.

“We have been doing it the polite way ... we’ve been doing it behind closed doors. We’ve been doing all the things they tell us to do but it’s just not working.”

Joyce has ruled out again challenging for the role but is unapologetic about his public criticisms. In an interview last week he said, as the longest-serving MP in the party room, he was entitled to speak his mind without touting for the leadership.

“I am going to make sure I’m still standing up for my party,” he said.

The pair, unsurprisingly, do not enjoy a close relationship. Colleagues level criticism at McCormack for not doing enough to bring Joyce and former resources minister Matt Canavan back into the tent.

The group, which also includes Llew O’Brien and David Gillespie, believe McCormack has not taken on board their concerns and they have only gone public as a last resort.

Others suggest nothing McCormack could do would please Joyce who believes his successor and his supporters played a role in his downfall by briefing the media. (Allegations McCormack has always denied).

McCormack says he has listened to them and reached out but believes, when in government, the Coalition must come first. He was reminded of that last week at the state funeral of former Nationals leader Doug Anthony.

“Who did Doug Anthony’s family turn to for the eulogy? None other than John Howard AC… a long-serving Liberal prime minister,” McCormack says.

“It was a Coalition send-off. We can’t govern without them, they can’t govern without us.”

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He says he often has differences of opinion with Morrison, but it “doesn’t serve the nation for me to publicise that”.

The majority of Nationals MPs believe he will lead the party to the election but can’t really be sure he could survive another challenge.

McCormack says his focus is on his job at hand. Building $100 billion of infrastructure across the country, creating jobs in regional Australia and speaking up for rural communities.

“You’re only a custodian of the position for as long as your party or your people want you for,” he says.