It could be a lack of sun in this seemingly never-ending Australian winter, but some weird things are happening on the fringes of federal politics.
When you have a political advisor getting his kit off with his mates in a foreign country - and a Muslim one at that - in the name of celebrating a win of an Australian F1 driver, you have to wonder 'what were they thinking?'.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was understandably unimpressed.
Only days earlier a former young Liberal MP thought it would be a good idea to go off on an unauthorised trip to war-torn Iraq on some sort of "Boy's Own" adventure, and then tweeting about getting caught up in cross-fire.
Again Bishop was unimpressed.
Not to be outdone, the prime minister and his deputy were quick to blame a blackout across South Australia on the state Labor government for relying too heavily on renewables.
The fact 20 transmission towers laid crumpled after being ripped out of the ground by a freak storm seemed to pass them by.
SA Premier Jay Weatherill was unimpressed.
Thankfully the return of parliament next week may bring back some normality.
Rest assured the arguments look set to be the same as they were two weeks ago, adding to the stability.
Labor is expected to formalise its rejection of a plebiscite into same-sex marriage when caucus meets on Tuesday, armed with responses from its series of roundtables with the LGBTI community and opinion polls supporting a free vote in parliament.
An Essential Research poll found more than half of its respondents want the coalition government to agree to a vote in parliament compared with less than a quarter who thought Labor, the Greens and the Xenophon Team should support the plebiscite.
Likewise, this week's review of the big four banks will not have deterred Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's demand for a royal commission into the banking industry.
"A three-day inquiry, where Labor MPs are allowed 12 minutes to ask questions, that's not an inquiry, that's a whitewash," Shorten says.
Labor was never going to be happy with the result of bosses of the ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac facing a government-majority committee.
It wanted to ask questions about individual cases where wrongdoing has hurt customers, of which there are many, and were never going to draw a satisfactory response in that setting unlike a royal commission.
Government members of the House of Representatives economics committee stuck to more general questions about the industry - interest rates, credit cards, financial planners and a proposed industry-funded banking tribunal as way of quickly dealing with customers felt hard-done by.
The bank chiefs expressed sorry for their past misdemeanours many, many, many times during the 12 hours of questioning over three day, insisting they had fixed or were fixing the problems.
There were promises about cutting exorbitant credit card interest rates, but don't expect the banks to pass on interest rate cuts in full more generally when the Reserve Bank changes the cash rate.
ANZ boss Shayne Elliott explained changes in the cash rate were only one ingredient in setting interest rates for home loans.
Australian banks did not have sufficient deposits to fund the demand for borrowing, and were required to source funds from both domestic and international capital markets at competitive rates.
"So when the RBA changes rates it directly impacts some but not all of our funding cost," Elliott told the hearing.
Two weeks earlier new Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe had told the same committee he wasn't surprised the banks didn't pass on the entire 0.25 per cent cut because the central bank took into account the decisions of the banks in adjusting their margins.
It was the banks' decision not to pass on the August rate cut which finally forced Malcolm Turnbull to hold some sort of review of the banks having stood firmly against a royal commission for months.
Has it been a success?
Perhaps.
Until the next financial scandal at least.
