Anthony Albanese loves winning, whether it be elections or tennis. As poll after poll this week showed Labor regaining ground, One Nation faltering, and the Coalition’s backslide continuing, the prime minister exits parliament on its final sitting day before winter as winner of the match.
But the government lost a few games this week. On policy – particularly social policy, an area that is conventionally Labor’s strength – it is being tested by the unholy alliance of the Coalition and the Greens.
Thursday’s question time, the day after parliament’s mid-winter ball, and following weeks of debate over the federal budget, was the final hour of sport in parliament before tired MPs go home for five weeks over the winter break.
It was a slow and tense start but took a rambunctious turn when the prime minister was asked a question about the previous night’s event, when a tech founder won the charity auction of a tennis session with the prime minister. The winner intends to rally against the budget’s tax changes.
Albanese wasn’t ruffled. “If I was someone on that side, led by this leader of the opposition, I wouldn’t be mentioning last night,” he mocked, a thinly veiled reference to the roast Angus Taylor delivered the night before (an off-record speech that was panned for falling flat when it found its way to gossip columnists). He landed his first point.
He then turned to Andrew Hastie, who earlier in the day confirmed he was sticking around parliament to fight One Nation. “Good luck to you, and certainly if it’s you or One Nation, I’m for this bloke,” Albanese said to Hastie. “Good on you for standing up to them.”
A compliment at first glance. But if you consider that the prime minister’s endorsement is not the path to success on the opposition side of parliament, it was a calculated way to undermine the Liberal leadership aspirant. Point two.
And then the prime minister really roared. “I’m quite happy that more money is going to charity. But let me make this point as well: if it’s a choice between someone who’s in the sector somewhere and who’s got enough money to buy billboards and spend all this, or first-home buyers struggling to get into a home, I’m for the first-home buyers,” he yelled, in the style of a stump speech.
“I’m for the people who have a right to have the security of a roof over their head. And let me tell you this – the more they [the opposition] go down this road, the more aces we will serve up.”
Point three.
But his humour belied the fact that, after passing its budget tax package, the government lost three points on its policy agenda. Albanese and his ministers had seemed frustrated as they were taken to task on a raft of substantial policy problems – from aged care to HECS and private health rebates for older people.
The first blow was on gambling advertising reform, when the Coalition and Greens teamed up to send Labor’s already-delayed package to a Senate inquiry over winter. Gambling has been a sensitive issue in the Labor caucus, where plenty want stronger action. Some Liberal MPs are pushing the opposition to take a hard line and seek amendments. That would create an uneasy wedge for the prime minister.
The Greens and Coalition then did it again with Labor’s social media amendments. Labor wanted to shove through stronger penalties and expanded powers to enforce its social media ban – a legacy reform undermined as teenagers keep circumventing it. These amendments will also go to an inquiry, amid concerns that a big stick approach is yet to prove its effectiveness, and warnings not to repeat the hasty passage of the original laws.
Communications Minister Anika Wells laid into the Coalition over the issue. “They did a deal with the Greens political party to send a four-page bill with two simple goals to a two-month Senate inquiry. A bill that Australian parents implored this Parliament not to treat like a political football,” she said, citing parents whose children had died by suicide.
This infuriated Liberal MP Simon Kennedy, who yelled out while Albanese was speaking a few minutes later: “Don’t you care about suicides from gambling?” Kennedy was ejected from the chamber as punishment, but it delivered an uncomfortable moment for the government.
The final point came on aged care. Labor was handed an even greater embarrassment on Thursday morning when the Greens and crossbenchers voted in favour of a Coalition bill to wind back the government’s use of automated assessment tools in aged care – a rare defeat for the government in the Senate, and the second time it has happened on aged care.
The government still has the numbers in the lower house, so the bill won’t become law, but Labor caved to the parliamentary pressure and will introduce its own laws to deal with the issue during the break.
“Under Labor, aged care wait times have blown out to over a year. More than 200,000 Australians are waiting for care,” the opposition leader said, in his first question of the session. “Today, Labor was defeated in the Senate, which passed the Coalition’s bill to put people back in charge of aged care decision-making.”
That handed Taylor his point for the day.
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Natassia Chrysanthosis Federal Political Correspondent. She has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect viaXoremail.
