When news broke of Jamie Briggs' resignation from the frontbench after an unseemly incident in a Hong Kong bar, there was sympathy from some colleagues. But not surprise.

"He is a loose cannon on the grog," one Liberal MP said. "It was always a question of whether he would work his way out of it before it got him into trouble."

In September, the day after Malcolm Turnbull rolled Tony Abbott as leader, Briggs was filmed being pushed into a party room meeting in a wheelchair. When rumours emerged that Briggs had injured himself dancing on a marble table in a ministerial suite, his spokesman said he had "seriously injured his leg while on a run this morning".