This was supposed to be the government's first great political triumph - the death of the carbon tax.
Nothing defined Tony Abbott's remorseless drive to power more than his campaign against the "toxic" tax. If mandates mean anything, last September's election delivered one to axe it.
The government has since invested huge parliamentary time - including a fruitless 33 hours and 52 minutes in the previous Senate - in trying to repeal the tax.
With Clive Palmer and his PUPS on side, thanks to the government agreeing to its amendments toughening rules regarding corporations passing on savings to consumers, the numbers were at last there in the new Senate.
Thursday would be the day. The government had even set a deadline for the start of the voting - 10 minutes before high noon.
But nothing is certain in this smorgasbord of a Senate.
About 9.15am PUP presented the government with a revised set of amendments - its third in all. The government agreed to them. The matter still seemed under control. The debate rolled on towards its deadline.
Then Clerk of Senate Rosemary Laing raised what the government said was a "technical" issue - apparently the amendments could be seen as raising tax, a power that under the constitution can only be initiated by the House of Representatives.
Mathias Cormann gamely talked on and on in the chamber as government negotiators and the PUPs tried to sort things out.
As Penny Wong sneered, the government was simultaneously guillotining and filibustering.
The clock ticked on and at 11.50am the voting started.
There was confusion - with several senators asking just what they were voting on - and song.
A young man in the gallery gave us "We shall overcome" in a pleasant light tenor before being hustled out.
The government, with the help of PUP and its ally Ricky Muir, won the first two votes, on Labor and Green amendments.
Then it was time for the PUP amendments.
PUP Senate leader Glenn Lazarus moved across from the government side of the chamber, where he'd sat for the previous vote, to his proper position on the opposition side, to announce he was withdrawing his amendments.
That was the death knell, and on the final division the government failed by two votes.
It was greeted in virtual silence, with neither side of the bitter divide quite able to believe what had happened.
This isn't the end of it and the government will probably prevail.
But it's a reminder of just how infuriating the government will find this Senate.
And Abbott, who was winging his way back from the Pilbara as the votes were taken, must have felt like telling the pilot to turn around.
For him, it was triumph frustrated.
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