It was Mr Morrison’s clearest error of judgment since last year, weeks after he became Prime Minister, when in an attempt to win the Jewish ethnic vote in the Wentworth byelection he made a half-cocked announcement that he was thinking of moving Australia’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Loading Since then Mr Morrison has shown exemplary discipline, especially during the election campaign, but over the past week he has shown a poor understanding of the constraints on a prime minister. The case goes back to late September when Mr Taylor, who is also in charge of reducing carbon emissions, sent a letter to a Daily Telegraph journalist accusing the environmentalist Ms Moore and her allies of rorting their travel budget and wasting carbon. In fact, it was Mr Taylor who was wasting his time as minister attacking someone in local government. It was a facile stunt not worthy of student politics and it also turned out to be based on a lie. The premise of the letter was a table with some crazily inflated numbers on Ms Moore’s expenses.

When Ms Moore pointed out the numbers were way out, Mr Taylor claimed he had downloaded the table from the council’s website. But that explanation is almost certainly untrue. Loading After an uncomfortable delay, Mr Taylor issued a grudging Clayton’s apology which still failed to give any explanation of who had cooked up the fake table. It might be that Mr Taylor got the table from somewhere else and neglected to check it, which would be bad enough. Or it might be that he or someone in his staff produced the table themselves knowing it was a fake, which is arguably fraud. The ALP asked NSW Police to investigate and this week police issued a statement confirming they had set up a “strike force” to look into the matter.

When the ALP asked Mr Morrison in Parliament whether Mr Taylor should stand down, the Prime Minister should have been extremely cautious. Mr Morrison may not have wanted to give the ALP a scalp but he had no reason to get involved personally. This is not the first time Mr Taylor has been in trouble. The Energy Minister has already faced scrutiny for several instances where he used his status as minister to lobby for family and business interests. Another reason for caution was that while the letter seems trivial it is a scandal with a very clear computer trail which could prove very embarrassing. Yet Mr Morrison decided he should personally call NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, who he has previously said is a friend. It was unnecessary and created the perception that he was trying to use his position and personal connections to influence a criminal investigation.

If Mr Morrison wanted more information about the investigation it would have been appropriate, at most, to ask public servants to make inquiries. Loading Mr Morrison has often made a virtue of his personal, practical approach but in this case he ignored the procedures that must be observed in criminal investigations. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he would not have called the commissioner. The Herald would argue that Mr Morrison should, in fact, be personally concerned about what went wrong in Mr Taylor’s office. Mr Taylor’s explanation so far has been nonsensical and it raises questions about his credibility.

If ministers can disseminate fake news with impunity it undermines faith in government. Many voters will likely not be too concerned about the latest tit-for-tat scandal in Canberra and Mr Morrison probably does not have too much to worry about. Yet the past week provides a warning to Mr Morrison about how good luck can turn. The dispirited opposition has given him a fairly easy run since the election but this week has given Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese a few wins. The answer for Mr Morrison must be to set an agenda and maintain better control of his government and himself.

The Herald's editor Lisa Davies writes a weekly newsletter exclusively for subscribers. To have it delivered to your inbox, please sign up here