The final parliamentary sitting week of the year is here!
That odour you’re smelling is drip filter coffee to fuel late-night Senate votes and the faint whiff of desperation to pass as much of the government’s legislative agenda as possible.
Barring something spectacular, like a surprise extra week in December, MPs and senators won’t be back until February, and possibly not until the other side of an election, if Anthony Albanese calls one in late January.
Let’s survey the landscape and see what the government is most keen to get through, and how.
The Coalition is the surest path for Labor through the Senate, eliminating the need to negotiate with any pesky crossbenchers.
The opposition seems to be playing ball with the government to pass its electoral spending and donation cap bill. Rejecting any push for an inquiry into the bill, and not correcting the record when Labor talked up its chances of bipartisan support, point to a likely government win here.
The under-16 social media age ban is also a good bet to pass. A lightning-fast inquiry that gave stakeholders just one day to make submissions, and the Coalition claiming credit for having suggested it first, indicate this one is likely done and dusted.
You’d expect a bill introduced by the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, on Thursday to try to block legal challenges by people charged after an elaborate Australian federal police sting using the encrypted An0m application would also find favour with hard-heads in the Coalition.
The Albanese government has introduced some extremely tough migration bills, one to help it reimpose ankle bracelets and curfews on people released from immigration detention and to authorise payments to third countries to take non-citizens, and the other to give it more power to confiscate phones in detention.
If you think those sound like things Peter Dutton would do, you’re right. And so it came as no surprise when the Coalition suggested it would support the first bill subject to a one-week inquiry.
The parties are in negotiations for a grand bargain on home affairs.
It’s understood the Coalition are seeking amendments to toughen things further, legislate unfinished recommendations from the Nixon review as well as reviving Labor’s first deportation bill, which stalled when the opposition sought amendments in May.
But you never can be too sure. After Dutton repeatedly called to cap international student numbers, Labor was red-faced when the Coalition joined the Greens in opposing a bill to give the education minister power to do just that.
If Dutton senses there is more advantage in adding to the government’s problems rather than being part of the solution, he might just grab the opportunity. That episode called to mind Donald Trump ordering Republicans to oppose the Democrats border bill.
The Albanese government’s other potential Senate pathway is the Greens’ 11 votes and then three more crossbench senators.
The Greens say they have offered the government a pathway through the Senate for 20 bills, including a new offer to pass the Future Made in Australia legislation.
A Greens strategist says deals with the minor party are a way for Labor to “finish parliament with a win”, rather than allow Dutton to turn the final week into an “end-of-year dumpster fire”.
For much of this term, Labor has labelled the minor party obstructionist for its insistence the government tackle housing tax concessions in return for support on housing bills, and adding a climate trigger in return for support on nature-positive laws.
But last week the Greens radically revised down their demands on both bills – now asking for 25,000 new social and affordable homes and a few other bits and bobs in return for support on housing, and a ban on native forest logging in return for support on environment laws.
Negotiations did not restart last week between Max Chandler-Mather and the housing minister, Clare O’Neil, suggesting little has changed since Anthony Albanese declared in February that the Greens can simply vote for or against the Help to Buy scheme.
Chandler-Mather will appear at the National Press Club on Tuesday alongside the shadow housing minister, Michael Sukkar, just as the bill is going for a Senate vote.
More progress seems to be being made on the environment legislation, with talks between Sarah Hanson-Young and Tanya Plibersek continuing.
Things that seem stuck can get moving pretty quickly if the will is there. It depends how badly the government wants it.
But there’ll be no Christmas miracle big enough to save the mis and disinformation bill. The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, conceded defeat on Sunday, withdrawing it due to lack of support.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the inquiry into gambling led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy reported almost a year and a half ago, calling for a three-year phase-in period for a total ban on gambling ads to begin from December 2023.
All signs are there’ll be no bill this week, meaning it’s likely we’ll get halfway through the intended phase-in period without the government having legislated.
The evidence base for the underage social media ban is poor – and yet it’s that bill being rushed through parliament, not the partial gambling ad ban, much less the full ban.
As the final sitting week concentrates the mind, we’ll learn a lot about the government by what it values highly enough to push through.
Paul Karp is Guardian Australia’s chief political correspondent
