Everyone knows the story of the boy stealing apples in the orchard. When confronted by the farmer, he simply holds the apples behind his back and declares, ‘Who? Me?’

Our current prime minister fits the description of that boy very well. But his colleagues are doing an impressive impersonation as well. As Chris Kenny would say, their theme song should be ‘Not Responsible’. The rule of thumb is never cop anything on the chin; rather blame someone or something else, preferably the previous Coalition government.

You really have to laugh. In the last election campaign, Albo made much of the fact that the buck would stop with him when in government. ‘If I become prime minister, I’ll accept responsibility each and every day, not always seek to blame others.’ Yeah, right.

It’s been a wild ride. I’m tempted to award a prize for the best alternative to the dog ate my homework. ‘I’ve been travelling in the car’ is a strong contender. This was the excuse pathetically given by the Prime Minister for not commenting on the arrival of an illegal vessel to our shores. I guess because he doesn’t have a mobile phone or a phalanx of minders keeping him up to date.

And then there was this clanger: ‘This is not my proposal, but the Australian people’s proposal’, thereby diverting blame for the thumping No vote he received in the Voice referendum.

To confirm that he is still in top ‘boy in the orchard’ form, Albo recently declared that, ‘I don’t comment on court proceedings overseas to which Australia is not a party.’ This was in reference to the absurd proposal of the dubious International Criminal Court to issue a warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, for war crimes.

Barely drawing breath, Albanese then started banging on about the overseas court proceedings involving Julian Assange. I guess he never actually promised to be consistent but that should surely be a sine qua non for any head of government.

Given that the leader sets the tone for the rest of the team, it’s hardly surprising that other team members would follow his lead in blaming anyone or anything other than themselves. Heaven forbid that they should actually take responsibility for their own actions.

How many times have we heard Home Affairs Minister, Clare O’Neil, blame the ten years of neglect by the Coalition government for her inept handling of her portfolio? (B1 also frequently uses the ten years of neglect line.) Gosh, she even had to commission an ‘independent’ review or two to criticise the handling of aspects of the migration program by the Coalition government, so we would be convinced. Of course, she had no idea what those reviews would conclude, no idea at all.

Her offsider, the hapless Andrew Giles, has developed one skill during his time in the outer ministry – attempting to throw his department under the bus for the multiple errors that he’s made. You know the sort of thing: the department didn’t tell me; the department failed to keep me informed; the department misled me.

As for the howler about drones tracking the movements of released asylum seekers, if he had thought this through, he would have quickly realised that it was an absurd proposition. But it probably sounded like solid precautionary action by one of the weakest ministers in living memory. That’ll show them a thing or two, he doubtless thought.

The fact that drones were not being used for this purpose was surely an acute embarrassment, even for a man of the left whose real aim in entering parliament was to usher in a gentle and compassionate treatment for asylum seekers, even ones who had committed heinous crimes. (Not their fault, you must understand.)

But here’s the thing: throwing your department under the bus carries real risks.  The bureaucrats will always know more than the minister and they don’t appreciate their hard work – pause here for laughter – being disparaged. There are plenty of examples littering the annals of political history where the careers of ministers have been ruined by revengeful Sir Humphreys.

Giles is also wont to blame Peter Dutton for his current problems. Dutton as home affairs minister simply didn’t cancel enough visas, evidently, even though he cancelled many hundreds of them.

One example of Dutton’s strength in this portfolio was his refusal to allow the father of celebrated Richmond footballer, Dusty Martin, to enter the country from New Zealand. Mr Martin had a criminal record as long as the Nile and Dutts would simply not be moved to allow him to enter the country, even to watch his son play a Grand Final.

And even ScoMo, who was as weak as water on most issues when he was prime minister, was not having a bar of the New Zealand government’s plea to keep Kiwi criminals in Australia if they had a strong association with our country. It was only when Albo came to office and the compliant Giles, who is a strong factional mate of the PM, sloppily drafted Ministerial Direction 99 to appease fellow lefty-luvvie, Jacinda Ardern.

And then we come to Billy Boy, Bill Shorten, Minister for the NDIS. He has been around the corridors of Parliament House for some time and so he knows all the excuses.  The recent information about the massive rorting of the NDIS and the infiltration of criminal groups has led Shorten to blame this entirely on the Coalition.

Well, he’s only had the job for two years. Who could expect him to have achieved anything substantial in that short time? (Speccie readers, perhaps.) The fact that Shorten emotionally rejected the Coalition’s sensible suggestions to stop some of the rot within the NDIS – independent assessment, benchmarking plans – is quietly forgotten.

Then comes the news that Services Australia engaged the services of a speechwriter for the minister costing the taxpayer a cool $620,000 for a two-year contract. Given that newspapers pay one dollar per word (or less or nothing at all), this sum was simply outrageous. We were also informed that all those zingers – yep, most of us missed them – in the minister’s speeches were his own work.  Obviously, zingers would have been extra.

But Billy Boy was not taking any responsibility for this outrage. It was Services Australia’s fault. He didn’t have anything do with negotiating the contract and he was unaware of the sum of money involved. Who? Me?

It’s a very long time since a minister resigned in response to an acknowledged mistake. Ian McLachlan, who is an old-school gentleman, resigned in 1998 as defence minister when he inappropriately received some information.

To be sure, there have been ministers sacked or demoted since that time, but the idea of a senior member of the government falling on their sword because of a serious error now looks like a remote possibility.  The most incompetent ministers will now grab any lifesavers floating by in order to retain the perks of office – and these days, these perks are substantial. Another case of following the money.