Christian Porter (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)

The most corrupt government in Australian federal history does has some standards around accountability and integrity. It’s just that — like Bridget McKenzie — you have to have particularly awful judgment to be in danger of breaching them. And in the case of industry minister and professional man-child Christian Porter, judgment is very much the operative word.

Porter, for all his legal and political experience, has zero judgment. He believes it’s appropriate to remain a minister while unresolved allegations of historic sexual assault — vehemently denied — remain over him. He believed it was appropriate to pursue the ABC for defamation despite it never naming him in relation to the allegations. He believed it was a good idea to engage a conflicted lawyer on his team. And when his lawyer was knocked out and his case ran into the sand — fancy a defamation case that doesn’t win in Australia! — he cut bait and settled for his costs being covered, insisting at a media conference that he’d inflicted a major defeat on the ABC. Into the bargain, he wanted the ABC’s defence locked in the vault.

Even his mates at News Corp didn’t like that.

Porter’s latest spectacular misjudgment was to believe it was appropriate, even under the Commonwealth’s absurdly lax transparency requirements, to maintain that he’d been gifted money for his legal expenses from an anonymous source and, well, what’s a bloke to do?

Porter thus appears to have blindsided his colleagues and perhaps even the prime minister, who has once again reached for the Gaetjens Option — asking his home handyman Big Phil to fix a major problem. Gaetjens is notionally examining the ministerial code of conduct to see whether Porter breached it. Given section 2.2.1 says…

Ministers are required to exercise the functions of their public office unaffected by considerations of personal advantage or disadvantage. Ministers, in their official capacity, may therefore accept customary official gifts, hospitality, tokens of appreciation, and similar formal gestures in accordance with the relevant guidelines, but must not seek or encourage any form of gift in their personal capacity.

…it’s hard to see how Porter hasn’t breached it. But Gaetjens understands the political needs of his boss and can work at lightning or glacial speed as required. Likely, this one will be an hours or days job, not the year-plus Brittany Higgins effort. And it will be determined by a simply political calculation: are the Liberals’ small chances of hanging on to the seat of Pearce in WA greater or smaller with Porter?

The man is already damaged goods in a state with a rampantly popular Labor premier and a likely swing against Morrison — Porter opting to help Clive Palmer try to force open the state borders won’t be forgotten. His chances won’t be helped by being haunted by demands to reveal who his anonymous benefactor is at every campaign stop.

But what if the WA Liberals — improbably, of course, given their shambolic state — can conjure a presentable female candidate for Pearce instead of Porter? You’d have to reckon she’d perform better than that bloke, even if she lacked his personal name recognition.

On that basis, Porter might be told to out his anonymous benefactor or go to the backbench, from which vantage point he should consider pursuing other opportunities. It’s pretty clear that leaving the lingering smell of an anonymous donor over a government already well-known for rorting and corruption isn’t an attractive option for Porter’s colleagues.

Or the anonymous donor could spare Porter the trouble and out themselves. A media mogul. A prominent businessman. A longtime WA Liberal backer, a Chinese billionaire with close ties to the CCP — who knows?

But that won’t change that Christian Porter has no judgment and shouldn’t be in a ministry even as bereft of talent as this one.