I find it hard to believe that:
- Stuart Robert visited China with a major Liberal donor without the imprimatur of Peta Credlin and other control freaks in the office of then-PM Abbott (including Abbott himself); and
- Robert met with government officials in China without the knowledge, and at least the tacit approval, of then and current Foreign Minister Julie Bishop; and
- the press gallery and the Opposition remain focused on Robert himself and "ministerial standards" without looking to those further up the line from him; and
- Prime Minister Turnbull would, with everything else he has on his plate, divert the head of his department to a minor administrative matter; and
- Robert is probably the most promising ministerial-quality MP the Queensland LNP sends to Canberra; and
- almost inevitably, the press gallery and the Opposition will accept a behind-closed-doors assessment from a bureaucrat as the last word on this matter, and go galumphing off after some other non-story.