EMBARRASSMENT was the keynote of the week, not least for poor Alistair Coe who felt the back of PM Tony Abbott’s hand when he said that if the ACT Libs won the local election next year they’d repudiate any light rail contract signed by Labor.

Opposition deputy leader Coe looked stunned. “No contracts have been signed,” he said, which only encouraged Transport Minister Simon Corbell to whip out his ballpoint. “We plan to sign early next year,” he chortled.

ABBOTT was red-faced himself the following day when the much respected Fairfax writer John Garnaut revealed the PM’s response to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s inquiry about what drives his China policy. “Fear and greed,” he said. If words are bullets in the world of international diplomacy, Mr Abbott can’t have many toes left. Indeed, the Australian polity once again this week marked his disapproval rate at 60 per cent.

BUT Labor leader Bill Shorten could only be excruciatingly embarrassed by that other important figure in the Fairfax poll: his own approval rating was minus two! Not surprising; he comes across as about as authentic as 59-year-old Defence Minister Kevin Andrews’ curly black locks.

SPEAKING of Mr Andrews, surely he too had to be embarrassed when he couldn’t even name the leader of ISIS, the actual enemy he was sending another 300 Australian soldiers off to fight (as trainers, you understand, not actual combatants). Actually, on the same day the “New York Times” declared: “The current, woeful state of the Iraqi military raises the question not so much of whether the Americans left too soon, but whether a new round of deployments for training will have any more effect than the last.”

EVEN WA Premier Colin Barnett looked slightly embarrassed when taken to task after berating Victoria for not supporting his claim for a bigger share of the GST after he’d donated to their Black Saturday bushfire appeal.

AND what about Woolworths – those fresh food people – jumping on the khaki bandwagon with their Gallipoli ad claiming it was “fresh” in our memory. Its ad agency was so embarrassed they all hid under their desks and hoped the phones would stop ringing.

SOCIAL Services Minister Scott Morrison is much harder to discombobulate, though even he took days to come clean about his decision to make Christian Scientists the only group permitted to endanger the community by refusing to have their kids vaccinated. I wonder how they’d go if they were called Muslim Scientists.

ONE doesn’t like to belabour the point, but just when we planned to set course for Ona Coffee in distant Fyshwick to sample the work of Sasa Sestic, newly crowned the best barista in the world, he’d resigned. “My coffee competition chapter is over,” he declared. “I need to quit my job.”

SO too, one suspects, should the ubiquitous Dr Karl who had been trumpeting the virtues of the Abbott Government’s climate change-free Intergenerational Report for weeks before he noticed the omission. He said he’d now donate his fee to charity; but the campaign rolled on regardless.

Some weeks you just wish you’d stayed in bed.

robert@robertmacklin.com