The resignation of former minister for industry, science, and technology Christian Porter isn’t just about the bad look, political optics. Mr Porter accepted anonymous donations of undisclosed value to help pay the substantial legal bills incurred during the now settled defamation case against the ABC over historical and unproven sexual assault allegations.

Accepting money from unidentified donors made Mr Porter’s position in cabinet untenable because it compromised basic integrity standards. That inevitable reality was more or less acknowledged by Sunday’s resignation announcement, which occurred without waiting for the results of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet investigation Scott Morrison had requested into whether any formal breach of the code of ministerial conduct occurred.