OK Malcolm. Paying attention? Here’s the lesson: you are on your own side, you are on the same side as all the other people who sit with you and behind you in Parliament. No self-inflicted wounds. No creating hostages to fortune. No sacking of ministers, or anyone else, until the costs of not doing so are clearly overwhelming. That’s the lesson. Now a working example.

Exhibit A: Jamie Briggs. No doubt a story so terrible that if we heard it all, we would personally take every action to ensure that he was ostracised from decent company and run out of Parliament. At that point, out he goes, but not till that point is reached. Hasty action makes you look like a clown. This is where have now arrived at because of your intemperate actions. Although the heading looks OK – Journalist Samantha Maiden accepts Peter Dutton’s ‘mad witch’ text apology – the first paras in the Malcolm-friendly Oz are a bit of a worry:

Labor has lashed out at Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s “boorish” and “unbecoming” text after he called a female journalist a “mad f.king witch”, urging Malcolm Turnbull to explain the cabinet minister’s behaviour.

Mr Dutton has come under fire for the text message he accidentally sent to News Corp Australia’s Sunday political editor, Samantha Maiden, over her coverage of fallen junior minister Jamie Briggs’s late-night bar incident with a female public servant in Hong Kong.

Mr Dutton has apologised for calling Maiden a “mad f.king witch” after she reported yesterday that Mr Briggs had sent colleagues a photograph of the diplomat who complained about his behaviour, which ultimately led to his resignation from the frontbench.

Dutton would not have emailed anything had you not created the Jamie Briggs saga. You are not the calming influence you need to be. I know you thought Tony Abbott should have sacked Bronwyn Bishop the moment he had heard about the helicopter ride. Maybe, but who knew then how it would unfold? How’s Tony Burke going, by the way? You remember, it was only last August: Tony Burke: Taxpayers slugged $2.2 million for travel costs including charter flights on VIP jets. Let me just give you a para from the story to help you remember:

The Western Sydney MP — who led the attack on former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop for hiring a charter helicopter for an 80km flight to attend a Liberal fundraiser — is a prolific entitlements seeker.

So Malcolm, if you are going to jump at every shadow, you will be an even bigger disaster than even I had thought you would be. From this moment on, you are in 100% defend-your-ministers mode. If Peter Dutton goes, so will you.

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.

Now being reported at The Australian: Eric Abetz: now bring Tony Abbott back to cabinet

Liberal senator Eric Abetz has called for Tony Abbott to be brought back into the cabinet after the sudden departure of two frontbenchers embroiled in controversy.

Cities Minister Jamie Briggs was yesterday forced to resign in disgrace after admitting an “error of professional judgment” in relation to an incident involving a young female public servant in Hong Kong while Special Minister of State Mal Brough stepped down pending the outcome of a police investigation into his role in the Peter Slipper affair.

Very messy and not a good look. I’m still not sure what Briggs had done, but I have to say that he would have to be off his rocker if he was a member of the cabinet and tried any of that Bill Clinton stuff.

The events described are from a fortnight ago and the significance is that they have surfaced at all. This is an actual, no two ways about it criticism from the left of our new Prime Minister and reported in The Australian, PM’s Literary Awards: Turnbull snubs Adler, makes strange speech. It’s not often you catch me agreeing with Louise Adler, but on the issue of parallel imports, this is one where the contractual obligations imposed by publishers should be left alone by the government. This is from a story about Malcolm Turnbull stiff-arming the Yarts Community.

He [being the PM] dismissed Adler’s call — and bravo to her for having the guts to raise the issue — to rethink plans to scrap the parallel importation restrictions that protect Australian writers and publishers. “Even if territorial copyright were to crumble”, he said, Australian writers would “stand on their merits” and their works would “sing across the world and across the ages”. That just sounds glib.

If you think Malcolm understands any issue at all, you are a very optimistic man. It took two weeks for the story to appear which of itself might indicate that the Oz may not be quite as accommodating next year as it has been this year.

I looked at this and thought that there had to be something wrong. It couldn’t be this easy to defraud the government of $16 million, but it is. And these have been picked up only because they were so greedy. How many are around that only defraud the government of a million or two?

Six people have been charged in Melbourne’s western suburbs for allegedly submitting fraudulent claims for taxpayer-funded family day care payments worth nearly $16 million[!!!!!].

Australian Federal Police have also seized assets worth $1.1m that are believed to be proceeds of the alleged crime, including two Melbourne properties, a “significant amount” of funds in bank accounts and two luxury vehicles.

The AFP arrested the alleged scammers with a range of serious fraud offences after executing a number of search warrants yesterday. . . .

“It will be alleged that members of this group have repeatedly submitted false claims on behalf of family day care centres in Melbourne’s western suburbs, particularly to exploit the Grandparent Child Care Benefit scheme,” AFP Manager Criminal Assets, Fraud and Anti-Corruption Commander Peter Crozier said.

“This scheme helps grandparents with the childcare costs for grandchildren in their care. It covers the full cost of fees associated with up to 50 hours of childcare per child per week.”

So you tell me how this could happen? The supposed moral of the story is exactly the other way round.

“Perpetrators of fraud are on notice: you will be caught and there are severe consequences, including the possibility of jail time,” Senator Birmingham said.

“This tough stance is necessary to ensure our taxpayer dollars are directed to those operators doing the right thing, compliant with Family Assistance Law and delivering high quality, flexible and affordable child care to families.

What it really says to me is that these Commonwealth programs are run by such dills that there is money there just for the taking if you are larcenous enough to try your luck.