And the party faithful were expecting the two federal representatives. Apologies for absence were received from Mr Marshall but not the other two, according to the chairman of the meeting.

“We have an apology from Adam Marshall. I don’t know about the other two. That’s a disappointment”, said chairman, Archie Cameron.

“I don’t know what’s happened to our federals”, he said.

Nobody quite knew how the confusion with Mr Joyce’s office had arisen. It was a mystery.

After waiting a few minutes, the meeting proceeded. Officers were reelected.

In the general part of the meeting, Mr Cameron said that Mr Joyce had “acquired a new partner and a son” and added: “This is a personal matter with no place in the public domain”.

On Wednesday morning – the morning after the Glen Innes meeting –  Mr Joyce’s office said he had sent an apology. He had been in Armidale on Monday, Tenterfield on Tuesday and Scone on Wednesday and just hadn’t been able to get to the Glen Innes meeting.

Having expressed disappointment at the absence, the meeting moved on to discuss the threat to the Great Barrier Reef and the brightness of the aviation warning lights on the towers in the Sapphire Wind Farm.

Vice-chairman, Mike Norton, said the brightness of the lights was “terrible” and a blight. He feared that this eye-sore would spread as wind farms expanded down the east.

There was also concern about recent bad publicity surrounding the trade in live animals, particularly exports to the Middle East where they are then slaughtered according to Muslim ritual. Some of this reaction had been “knee-jerk”, according to Mr Cameron.