The government used the incident to hijack the business end of the parliamentary week, aided by independent MP Andrew Wilkie, who on Wednesday moved a motion to ''admonish'' Conroy. This afforded a large dispatch box opportunity for Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison to fulminate on Conroy's disgraceful behaviour. Much umbrage was taken, as loudly and long as possible. Conroy's stupidity provided precisely the distraction necessary for the government. Other than budget appropriation bills, the government had precious little legislation before the House. Last weekend Immigration Minister Morrison was forced into a very public backdown after he admitted giving out misleading information over the death of an Iranian asylum seeker in riots in the Manus Island detention centre. And this week Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash appeared before a Senate estimates hearing to be grilled over the matter of her former chief of staff Alastair Furnival. Furnival resigned after his links to the junk food industry were reported by Fairfax Media. This followed a decision by Nash's office to remove a website about healthy food choices seen as hostile to the snack food industry. Her answers to the close questioning of senators John Faulkner and Penny Wong were at times Alan Bond-esque.

She refused to say whether she had offered the Prime Minister her resignation over the incident. Senator Nash also said she had ''no recollections'' of any conversation with the Prime Minister's Office over the revised statement she gave to the Senate, in which she admitted that, although she had told the Senate mere hours before that her chief of staff had no links to the fast food industry, in fact he had a shareholding in a junk food lobbying firm. It was also unclear why Nash had told the Senate Furnival had ''no links'' to the junk food lobby when she admitted she was well aware of his professional history. She said she believed there was a ''separation'' between Furnival and his lobbying interests. She did not elaborate. Things grew more complex when a photo surfaced of Furnival sitting a few seats away from the Prime Minister at the latter's announcement of a $16 million grant to the Cadbury chocolate factory in Tasmania. Furnival was working for Cadbury at the time. Prime Minister Tony Abbott denied any suggestions of impropriety and declared the matter over, pointing out that, unlike in the case of the errant Craig Thomson, the former Labor member for Dobell, his side of politics had acted quickly at the first sniff of improper behaviour. Furnival had resigned. It was a strange comparison and logically inconsistent - if Furnival had not done anything wrong, why did he resign?

But despite the rich material, the opposition struggled to land an arrow on the government over any of these issues, because the sins and bogies of the past kept getting in the way. Earlier in the week, Labor had made a weak attempt to grill the Immigration Minister in question time, and he had responded with a strategically excellent attack of his own. He reminded the opposition, and the public, that not only had Labor reopened the Manus Island immigration detention centre, it had appointed the contractors who had overseen the recent violence. The minister also made much of a review into the July 2013 riot and fire at the detention centre on Nauru. The government has had the results of the review (which was commissioned by the previous Labor government) since last November but they were made public only last weekend. Morrison was able to reverse the attack on Labor, and make the point that while Labor criticised him for not making enough information available about the Manus riot, it had taken previous immigration minister Tony Burke a week to announce a review into Nauru. The ghost of Thomson also haunted the house, with Leader of the House Christopher Pyne moving a motion of regret over the May 2012 statement Thomson gave in Parliament, in which he denied credit card rorting allegations against him (now proven) and blamed other people for setting him up.

It was blatant politicking designed to wedge Labor, which was forced into supporting the motion. Loading The nostalgia didn't end there - the overwhelming majority of Dorothy Dixers during the week were on the carbon tax, with Abbott constantly linking the sluggish economic growth and job shedding of recent times to the constraints of the carbon tax on the economy. At some point the government's free pass will run out, a tipping point will be reached and the public will decide it's time for Abbott and his ministers to take responsibility for their own government rather than using Conroy, the carbon tax, Thomson et al as human shields. But it is unlikely to happen any time soon.