The overshadowing turned out to be the sort of thing that might happen if a giant pterodactyl flew out of the sky just as you were organising a garden party. A formerly little-known Nationals frontbencher named Andrew Broad was suddenly vaulted to front-page fame, and the TV and radio bulletins couldn’t get enough of his predicament. Broad had fallen on his sword, as it were. A Hong Kong “sugar baby” was said to be involved. Had Broad actually called himself “James Bond”, as alleged in a magazine article? And that message he was claimed to have sent boasting about being an Aussie lad who could ride a horse and was expert at certain other athletic pursuits? "[Broad's] resignation does not help the chaos and dysfunction at the heart of the government": shadow treasurer Chris Bowen. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Oh, my.

The economy? Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann may as well have stayed in bed. “Who broke the story?” demanded an excited Labor staffer, preparing to send congratulatory messages to whatever political sleuth had unearthed this latest apparent bombshell for a government already riddled with self-inflicted shellfire. “New Idea,” came the answer. Anyone monitoring New Idea’s website might have been startled at the sudden explosion of online traffic from the Adelaide Convention Centre. Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek quipped that the Morrison government apparently would do anything to draw attention away from the Labor conference. She managed to keep a straight face.

Indeed, the Coalition had tried every devious trick to undermine the Labor conference. There was the initial theft of the scheduled July date, seen by the ALP as an attempt to push the conference, which always has the potential to break into an embarrassing factional blue, to the end of the year and thus closer to the election. The result is that there’s not a delegate willing to cause a stoush, and leader Bill Shorten has been sailing comfortably. Labor leader Bill Shorten with Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and opposition spokeswoman for families and social services Linda Burney on the second day of the party conference. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen On Sunday, just as Shorten was preparing to give his leader’s address in Adelaide, Prime Minister Scott Morrison thought it would be a fine time to announce a new governor-general in Canberra. It fell a little flat when commentators weren’t particularly inspired by the choice of another military general.

And then, on Monday, came the government’s much ballyhooed mid-year economic and fiscal outlook. And, unfortunately, New Idea. No one in the Labor Party, of course, was willing to be quoted regarding whether or not the article might be accurate. Labor treasury’s spokesman Chris Bowen would go no further than saying of Broad: "His resignation does not help the chaos and dysfunction at the heart of the government." Quite. And anyway, no one could know the veracity of the tale.

Broad, he of the sword, had already said something about possible criminal behaviour by the person making the allegation, and that it had been reported to the Australian Federal Police, before the inevitable “I will not be making any further comment.” Loading Back at the conference, uncharitable types burrowed into their mobile archives and came up with a tweet that Broad had shot into the cybersphere some months ago when Barnaby Joyce was the National immersed in news stories of the day about his away-from-home love life. “Quote from the late Billy Graham,” Broad had tweeted, citing a famed moraliser. “When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost, when character is lost, everything is lost...Telling words for the leadership of the National Party.” No one could possibly comment.