Political veteran Mike Smithson takes a look at a tumultuous week in state politics, raking up stories of old traffic fines, dodgy documents and a shock Cabinet reshuffle.

Whether a political land mine or a simple trip wire, the state Liberals have a historic way of tossing a grenade in their own direction.

Star recruit Frank Pangallo has become the latest soldier to suffer a self-inflicted wound in the trenches, but his lesson is one from which we can all learn.

His reliance on Artificial Intelligence to do the work for him is understandable, but not the sensible way to push a rigid political agenda.

Pangallo can take some salvation that his mistake was far more forgivable than a past major Liberal parliamentary blunder dating back to 2009, when one of the great ‘gotcha moments’ left the party dismally embarrassed.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, Frank’s faux pas was dramatically publicised by Leader of Government Business Tom Koutsantonis, just before he was drafted back into the Treasury ranks in last week’s cabinet shakeup.

Pangallo had relied on AI to prosecute a theory of linking the desalination plant to our algal bloom crisis.

One of the state’s foremost marine experts, Professor Mike Steer, blew that theory out of the water claiming there was no scientific relationship between the two.

Frank had persisted with it being evidentiary rather than........

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