Should Bridget McKenzie survive this week of the blowtorch and somehow stumble into Parliament when it resumes for 2020 next week, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tony Smith, would require all his powers to resist breaking into nervous giggles.

Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie's sports grants troubles are eerily similar to those of Keating-era sports minister Ros Kelly Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

If Senator McKenzie survives as a minister, her adventures will inevitably evolve into a full-blown political offensive on Prime Minister Scott Morrison for failing to have her sacked.

And that will stir memories in the Speaker's chair.

Twenty six years ago, at the height of another political conniption over another sports minister and her prime minister, it was Tony Smith himself who invented the ruinous term “sports rorts”.