Stuart Robert was off duty in China? Tell him he's dreaming

The first sign the government was not going to get the week it wanted came on Monday morning.

The Prime Minister was visiting a preschool in northern Canberra, in a new suburb awash with apartments that look suspiciously like they were made from Lego.

Malcolm Turnbull made the trip to Harrison to preach his "innovation nation" sermon and announce $8 million to help four-year-olds learn maths and science.

But while it was unsurprising journalists ignored the funding announcement to ask about the mythical GST rise, the government's sitting week strategising might not have predicted the inquiry shouted at the end of the preschool press conference, just as questions were cut off.

"Prime Minister, [what about] Stuart Robert?"

It floated across the playground, as welcome as a fly floating in one of Turnbull's pots of fancy herbal tea.

The PM artfully ignored the question and other similar inquiries as he was pursued under sun shades, past the sandpit and out the front gates of the Mother Teresa Early Learning Centre.

It is a small irony for ambitious politicians on the margins on the ministry that some only achieve prominence by way of a scandal.

Chances are, last week, no one outside Canberra had heard of Stuart Robert. Inside Canberra, he was largely known as a former army officer who has long coveted the defence ministership and, confusingly, has interchangeable first and last names.

Now, Robert is one of the most famous members of the government (albeit not with the global cache of Greg Hunt).

The Human Services Minister struck trouble over an ostensibly personal trip he made to China in 2014, when he was assistant defence minister.

He's been accused of misusing public office because while he was there, he attended a signing ceremony between Australian-owned Nimrod Resources (owned by his mate and Liberal Party donor Paul Marks) and a Chinese-government owned company.

It has since been revealed that the next day, Robert had a meeting with a Chinese minister and took Nimrod representatives along for the ride.

This started off a jig about whether this was stinky or OK. What did the Chinese have to say about it at the time? What box did Robert tick when he applied for his visa? Did he tell other government departments about his plans?

All week, Labor tried to skewer Robert with (unsuccessful) stunts to get him to make a personal explanation to the House, while pinging him repeatedly in question time.

Through this, Robert's defence centred around the argument he was on holidays at the time and travelled to China in a "private capacity" – paying for the trip himself. This idea was given time to marinate with Turnbull going to his department for advice on whether Robert breached ministerial standards.

Come Friday, Robert's frontbench goose was cooked, amid ongoing debate about his actions.

But does it matter whether Robert was in China on holidays or not? What kind of tiny fig leaf is it to argue that a minister is off duty?

Ministers should, of course, be able to take time off from work, but the idea they can take time of from "being a minister" is as silly as having a prize for the best minister in the world. (We'll skip over the obvious comment here re: who this was awarded to.)

The reason ministers are supposed to abide by strict standards is not just because they are senior members of the government, but because of the power, juicy information and influence they wield.

There's also the $300,000-plus salary, staff, travel entitlements and generous retirement provisions that come with the show.

You don't switch this off just because you're lying on a beach in Bali or hanging with an amigo in Beijing.

If you're on holidays as a minister, it simply means you'll either continue to take work calls anyway and your paperwork builds up in your inbox, or some other colleague will get lugged with signing off on your briefs and letters.

You still represent the government by virtue of your very existence and, importantly, you still have all that delicious power and influence others find so attractive.

Drink all the happy-hour martinis you want – it doesn't make a difference.

None of this is written in the black and white of the 11-page ministerial guidelines that were updated in September 2015. But it is clearly implied between lines such as, "the ethical standards required of ministers in Australia's system of government reflect the fact that, as holders of public office, ministers are entrusted with considerable privilege and wide discretionary power".

It also states, "there is some personal sacrifice in terms of time and energy that must be devoted to official duties ... and some loss of privacy".

It's a tough (and anxiety-provoking) truth that if you're a minister, what you do in your spare time is open to much more public scrutiny than that applied to other MPs and non-parliamentarians.

It's for this reason – and the enormous workload – that most people I know could think of nothing they'd like less than to be a minister or high office holder.

But as Jamie Briggs and Bronwyn Bishop have learnt, it doesn't matter if you're in a bar late at night or attending an after-work function in a hire chopper, just because you're not strictly "on duty" doesn't mean the rules stop applying to you.

It's actually not that complicated.

Indeed, as most four year-olds could tell you, it's just called being on your best behaviour.