Beyond obvious criticisms over her biased management of the Parliament, she has also been exposed as an enthusiastic claimer of generous travel entitlements on dubious grounds. Her cavalier approach to ethical standards and pointed refusal to furnish proof of official business while attending the weddings of fellow Liberals has become a national joke. Illustration: Simon Letch The most egregious case was her chartered helicopter flight to Geelong, costing the taxpayer more than $5000, to attend a Liberal Party fundraising event. Until Thursday, this "serious error of judgment", as Abbott described it when reluctantly putting her "on probation", had occasioned no apology, with Bishop steadfastly maintaining she had done nothing wrong, and that repaying the money was apology enough. Ditto with at least two weddings for which she is now also repaying claimed taxpayer funds, augmented at the eleventh hour by a simpering apology. Ordinary Australians know they cannot claim tax deductions or refuse to supply receipts for example, so expecting them to grant a privileged politician the benefit of the doubt was ambitious.

Left unattended, the crisis surrounding Bishop threatens to consume the entire government. If Abbott doesn't know this by now, it is because he isn't listening. Insiders say he will never give his critics a scalp. Just as Howard believed privately that the republican-minded Costello would have to snatch the leadership, Abbott's instinct has been to tough it out, to never give the left a win. Bronwyn Bishop (left) at the wedding of Sophie and Gregory Mirabella, with Tony Abbott. Credit:Rebecca Hallas Removing her would be as simple as advising that she no longer enjoyed the confidence of the House. This is already true in fact. It's just that in the absence of Abbott's specific say-so, Coalition MPs, who control the Reps, will vote to keep her. Out in voter-land, the judgment has been made. According to an Essential Poll, just 19 per cent of voters think Bishop should remain in the job. That is just half of the Coalition's base vote, meaning that even 50 per cent of committed Coalition supporters believe the Speaker's goose is cooked. Bishop, who showed no reluctance to weigh directly into politics by publicly lecturing the head of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, recently, remains steadfastly determined and has obviously decided to ride this out. Yet this could change in an instant.

Abbott, who along with Christopher Pyne had been on Bishop's elbow as she was "dragged" to the chair after the election, has clearly given her comfort to believe that. And Pyne reinforced that confidence on Wednesday, declaring publicly that she was doing a great job and was "not going anywhere". Left unattended, the crisis surrounding Bishop threatens to consume the entire government. He called on his colleagues not to jump at the first whiff of grapeshot, noting such panic had hastened the demise of Labor in the previous term. But even Bishop's tin ear for public opinion detected that something had to give, prompting her to finally relent on Thursday. "There's no excuse for what I did with the helicopter," she told Alan Jones on radio. "I'll be repaying all expenses related to weddings which, while technically in the rules, just doesn't look right." You can hear the Abbott script already: 'It is time to move on. The Speaker has acknowledged her errors and made recompense. She has admitted mistakes, apologised, and taken her lumps. Australians are a fair-minded people, and they will want to give her a fair go."

It may be useful to measure such prime ministerial appeals to fairness, assuming they are offered, against some other examples – one being an absence of commentary, and the other a ready willingness to harsh judgment. First, the current case of Adam Goodes. While sundry racists and ratbags vilify the Sydney Swans player and former Australian of the Year (no less), the Prime Minister has been silent. That silence is a failure of national leadership on a question of fundamental importance to social cohesion and the specific place of the first Australians. Fairness for Goodes and the community he represents has gone unremarked in Canberra. More particular in Bishop's case is Abbott's own test of probity expressed from the opposition benches. Remember his words about Peter Slipper – now deleted from his website? Just in case you don't, here they are: "Well this does go to the integrity not just of the Parliament but of the Prime Minister and of the government. The Prime Minister cannot wash her hands of this business the way she has tried to wash her hands of the allegations concerning Mr [Craig] Thomson because Mr Slipper is no mere backbencher. Mr Slipper is the Speaker of the Parliament. Mr Slipper occupies a very, very important office. He is the guardian of the standards of the Parliament, the protector of the reputation of the Parliament." Update the names and Abbott's remedy for all this seems pretty clear.

Mark Kenny is Fairfax Media's chief political correspondent.