Backbenchers call them the Gumby ministers. The reference is to Monty Python’s sketch about a dim-witted brain surgeon and his bone-headed patient, a devastating critique of the duds on Tony Abbott’s front bench.

T.F. Gumby, sporting a toothbrush moustache, wire-rimmed spectacles, Fair Isle vest, trousers rolled up to the knees, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, gumboots and a knotted handkerchief on his head, stomps into a Harley Street surgery backwards shouting, ‘Are you the brain specialist?’ The brain surgeon, dressed identically down to the moustache shouts, ‘No, no, I am not the brain specialist.