The part that gets me about all this is that Malcolm has such a political tin ear that he is quite content to create havoc in his own parliamentary party for no political advantage that I can see. There are lots of different issues but I will mention only one. Comes the next election, he will be very happy to have as many of his colleagues back as he can get. He thinks he’s on his way to an increased majority. I think it may be one of the closest election in years. If this is how to win more seats in South Australia, then there is a new world of political calculation I am not yet acquainted with.

Here are the further details so far as they are known. The photo is from an article up on The OZ website along with the heading, Jamie Briggs defends conduct over photo of public servant. How many hundreds of photos do politicians take just like this? How many nights out are there just like that? The further details:

Disgraced junior minister Jamie Briggs has confirmed to the Sunday Telegraph that he forwarded a photograph identifying the female public servant who lodged a confidential complaint about his behaviour in a Hong Kong bar to some colleagues.’

After publicly stating he had chosen not to name the woman to “protect her privacy’’ Mr Briggs has confirmed the photograph of the public servant published on the front page of The Weekend Australian was taken on his own mobile phone.

The Australian pixelated the image to protect the woman’s privacy but it was forwarded by Mr Briggs to his colleagues without an attempt to protect her identity.

The former minister did not leak the photo to The Australian but confirmed he had “sent it to a few ­people prior to the complaint and following’’.

He sent the photo prior to the complaint. And after the complaint became public, why should he not have sent the photo to colleagues as well. The name of the woman involved is no doubt now known across the entire public service by everyone in Canberra. Anyway, here is what he said.

“We interacted between the three of us and with others in what I believed at the time was an informal manner,” Mr Briggs said in announcing his resignation.

“At the conclusion of the evening, the public servant left to return home and my chief of staff and I returned to our hotel together. At no point was it my intention to act inappropriately and I’m obliged to note for the record that nothing illegal has been alleged or in fact did occur.

“However, in the days following the evening, the public servant concerned raised concerns about the appropriateness of my behaviour towards her at the venue. I’ve apologised directly to her but after careful reflection about the concerns she raised and the fact that I was at a bar late at night while on an overseas visit, I have concluded this behaviour has not met the particularly high standards for ministers. Therefore, the proper course of action for me is to resign.”

Labelling his behaviour an “error of professional judgment”, Mr Briggs publicly apologised to the public servant, his colleagues and the Australian community for his actions.

“(This has) given me cause to consider aspects of my behaviour, which I will address,” he said.

Unless there is more to this story than I have so far heard, there is nothing to this story at all, certainly not enough to create the lasting enmities that this one is very likely to do.

And to all this may be added this: Peter Dutton sorry for ‘mad witch’ attack on reporter. Or more accurately:

Senior cabinet member Peter ­Dutton has apologised for calling a female journalist a “mad f. king witch” over her coverage of fallen junior minister Jamie Briggs’s ­exploits in Hong Kong.

The Immigration Minister ­yesterday admitted that he sent the message to the political editor for News Corp Australia’s Sunday papers, Samantha Maiden, after she ­reported Mr Briggs had sent colleagues a photograph of the diplomat who complained about his behaviour at the Stormies Bar in late November.

It is understood Mr Dutton ­accidentally sent the text message to Maiden instead of Mr Briggs in what was intended as a show of support for the besieged South Australian MP.

This all distracts from how empty Malcolm’s economic understanding is. This is just as sad as it gets, a man with no plan hoping for the best: Households to drive the economy in 2016. A consumer-led recovery! There are no words.