By Tony Wright
Sketch
The scene is tense in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's office.
PM Turnbull: Well, Jamie, what is it this time? I've only got a couple of minutes. Putting the finishing touches to Brough's career just in time for the election year.
Minister (at the time) Jamie Briggs: Do you remember that old song, Prime Minister? One Enchanted Evening?
Frontbencher Jamie Briggs said work took him away from home 165 nights last year.Credit: Andrew Meares
PM: Of course I do. Bit dated, of course. (Breaks into song): "One enchanted evening, you may meet at a stranger, across a crowded room."
Briggs: Exactly, Prime Minister. Except she wasn't a stranger.
PM: What the hell are you talking about, boy?
Briggs: It was in the exotic east, you understand. Humid night, a pitcher or two of Singapore Sling. Lights of Hong Kong dancing on the harbour. Seductive. Stirs a man, an evening like that.
Mal Brough and Jamie Briggs both stepped down on Tuesday.
PM: Yeeeessss?
Briggs: You know how it is. The old rule. What happens away is supposed to stay away. But it hasn't. Not this time.
PM: God. What was it? Dancing on a table? Crash-tackling a broken-down political leader?
Briggs: She had piercing eyes, you understand.
PM: She?
Briggs: I might have mentioned the eyes, PM. Enchanting. It was a straightforward compliment.
PM: Oh, good lord! And?
Briggs: It was, as I mentioned, a very crowded bar. Could have tossed the old arm around the waist to protect the poor thing from being crushed. Not by me, I hasten to assure! Purely a gentlemanly gesture.
PM: This is getting better by the minute.
Briggs: And I might have, er, planted a peck on the cheek as she fled into the steamy, sultry night, probably playing hard to get. The peck, you understand, was no more than a matter of, shall we say, endearment.
PM: Endearment?
Briggs: Seems to have been misinterpreted. I should, I suppose, mention she is a public servant.
PM: From where? Tell me it's Kurdistan.
Briggs: Unfortunately, one of ours. Rather senior in the civil service. Not given to welcoming the perfectly understandable longings that well up in a fellow on an away trip, apparently. Did you ever play rugby, PM? Sevens in Hong Kong? No, I suppose not. Anyway, there's been a complaint.
PM: Imagine that.
Briggs: Inappropriate conduct or some such public-servanty term. A bit awkward, really.
PM (to his ashen-faced chief of staff): Call the storeman! We need another one of those planks. Bloody hell. Two bloody fools overboard in a single day.
Briggs: But I paid for dinner. There's no gratitude any more. Tony would have understood. He played rugger. Jeez.