There's a prime ministerial rite of passage that happens when a leader goes bush.

Hyperlocal questioning often forces the PM to think on their feet, which alone is enough to send terror through any media adviser.

But it can often unearth quite telling insights into how a prime minister thinks.

Such questioning is how we learned that Anthony Albanese is fond of a glass of milk between slices of salami.

"Salami and milk actually works. It works really well," he told Hit 99.7 FM in Griffith on Friday. 

"It's like a taste cleanser in between salami varieties."

There's also something of a political palette cleansing underway more than three months since Australians went to the polls. 

Voters turned their backs on Scott Morrison and an almost-decade-old Coalition government.

With a vote for change, Albanese rode into office with public goodwill but inherited an economy with soaring inflation, stagnant wages, surging petrol prices and a weary population in its third year of a deadly pandemic. 

Governing became harder as an energy crisis took hold and links in supply chains continued to break as war in Eastern Europe dragged on. 

But when Morrison's secret ministerial moonlighting was unearthed a fortnight ago, the daily business of governing finally became just that little bit easier for a party still finding its feet in power. 

Albanese seized on the revelations, hammering his predecessor and ordering a range of inquiries into how a prime minister could have secretly taken control of five ministries without the public, let alone the bulk of his cabinet, knowing. 

He was given a gift when the solicitor-general, the nation's second law officer and someone independent of party politics, dubbed Morrison's actions legal but fundamentally undermining "the principles of responsible government".

The Prime Minister has successful strung the saga out, spacing his responses to the scandal. But signs are emerging he is fast becoming aware there are risks in pushing the inquiry too far. 

Friday afternoons are often reserved for governments to "take out the trash", hoping the public is largely tuned out from the news.

It's when you announce emission reductions aren't what you'd hope or a mate is suddenly getting a plum government job.

That Albanese's office called a sudden press conference for 2:30pm on Friday tells you it both wanted to announce the inquiry but not have it up in lights.

His government is all too aware that in the minds of voters, cost of living pressures outrank almost anything a former prime minister might have done.

It's also conscious of not wanting to look like it's laying a steel-capped boot into a man down (although few in Labor are willing to swallow Liberal accusations along these lines — it was Tony Abbott, after all, who called two royal commissions that would get his Labor predecessors into the witness seat).

The Morrison sideshow has been fun but next week's jobs and skills summit is core business for a new government wanting to stamp its credentials. 

The two-day summit won't include Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. He's declined to attend but is now awkwardly left to contend with his junior Coalition counterpart, Nationals leader David Littleproud, saying he intends to go. 

In not going to the summit, Dutton strips himself of the ability to trash it from personal experience. It's an option that Littleproud will have, not to mention an ability to claim he engaged in a spirit of bipartisanship. 

It's not just Albanese who is undergoing a bit of cleansing in the prime ministerial suite. 

The Liberal Party, too, is wading its way through the joys of a post-election cleanse.

It's out with the old leader and in with the new — and arriving as a well-defined political figure means Dutton easily differentiates himself from Morrison.

He hasn't had to build a profile under the former leader's shadow like a lesser known politician would have. 

But that definition means many voters have likely made up their mind about the man, potentially making the battle for attracting swing voters in the political centre harder to achieve.

He also needs to find the balance between defending the Coalition's legacy of government — particularly keeping the good ship government afloat during the dark storms of the early pandemic — while also distancing himself from the most recent Morrison revelations. 

A Liberal this week pointed to Dutton's conservative credentials as something that might help him as Liberal leader.

Morrison, with his convention-breaking ways — bulldozing, if you will — increasingly has little claim on the title conservative.

"Real people aren't focused on the secret ministries," a senior Liberal said this week.

"The people most annoyed are conservatives."

The appointment of former High Court justice Virginia Bell to investigate Morrison's secret appointment will ensure the saga has several more months to go at least.

Whether or not Morrison chooses to partake will be an issue Dutton will likely have to contend with.

Albanese, under criticism from Liberals that he's too focused on the past, insists his government can walk and chew gum.

He was in Griffith on Friday morning for a News Corp "bush summit", where he went out of his way to remind those present he understood the pain they were going through in an ever-increasingly expensive world.

The PM was too busy to stay and attend the Griffith Italian Festival (hence the salami chat on the radio) but did have time to request a Beyonce track (it was R'n'B Friday).

He hadn't heard of the song they picked — her latest Break My Soul.

Bills, Bills, Bills — from her former band Destiny's Child — might have been a more appropriate choice.