Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been accused of following Tony Abbott’s political playbook and reflexively opposing legislation as the government digs in for a parliamentary fight to pass its election platform.
At a joint party room meeting on Monday night the Coalition parties resolved to oppose three bills to be voted on by the Parliament in coming months, each a part of the platform the government took to last May’s election.
The Opposition’s move will add to the pressure on the government as it seeks to secure passage of its legislation in the Senate, where support has become less dependable following Senator Lidia Thorpe’s resignation from the Greens.
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‘Noalition’ returns
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rebuked Mr Dutton for his negativity and in doing so dusted off a nickname he had tagged Mr Abbott with when he was in the opposition leader’s chair nearly a decade ago.
“Those opposite have turned the Coalition again back into the noalition,” Mr Albanese said in a fiery response during question time on Tuesday.
“They not only want to bring Tony Abbott back on their Senate benches, but they want to go back to the policy where they just said no to absolutely everything.”
(The former prime minister – whom Mr Albanese also dubbed ‘one-trick Tony’ for his simple but effective political style while on the Opposition benches – has been sounding out Liberals about a bid to make a political comeback by filling an Upper House vacancy caused by the death of Senator Jim Molan.)
On Tuesday, the Opposition threatened to block the government’s plans to modernise a public information campaign for this year’s Voice referendum; a measure to reduce carbon emissions from Australia’s biggest polluters; and the national reconstruction fund.
The pollution reduction measures, a spokeswoman said, risked deterring foreign investment in Australia or sending large companies’ operations offshore, to countries with less stringent restrictions.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen issued a one-line press release in response that read: “Hypocrites.”
The reconstruction fund is designed to invest $15 billion in projects – selected by an independent board – to promote the development of medical science, quantum technology and renewable energy with the goal of boosting Australian manufacturing.
The Coalition wants a say in the industries that will receive support, but a spokeswoman said it was concerned about the potential that it is spending to add to inflation and could be misdirected by ministers.
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A right turn
Mr Albanese seized on the comments in an address to the Labor caucus on Tuesday morning.
“They have taken the message of the 2022 election to be ‘we’re not right wing enough’, ‘we’re not conservative enough’, ‘we’re not divisive enough’,” he told Labor MPs.
Mr Albanese disputed the justifications for opposing the manufacturing fund, which he said would combat future supply-chain disruptions like those that had driven inflation since the pandemic’s onset.
He also accused the Opposition of hypocrisy for suggesting taxpayer funds might be misdirected with reference to reports that the previous government’s bushfire recovery fund had targeted grants to Coalition electorates in NSW, where former deputy premier John Barilaro oversaw the allocation of grants.
“They show how out of touch they are,” he said.
“They’re prepared to put a political frame on absolutely everything, including the way that taxpayer funds are used.
“The reprehensible action of rorting bushfire funds based upon electoral boundaries is just extraordinary.
“The Nats (National Party) certainly show no bounds whatsoever.”
Working-class man
Addressing his party room, Mr Dutton accused Mr Albanese of making interest rate rises more likely and said Labor governments were by their nature fiscally irresponsible.
“The government has clearly forgotten about families across the country,” he said.
“Every economic decision they have taken has contributed to an upward pressure on interest rates, so it means people always pay more for their mortgages under Labor.”
As Mr Dutton drew his speech to its conclusion MPs responded with a chorus of ‘hear, hears’ of diminishing intensity: “We are the parties of families, we are the parties of small business and we are the parties of the Australian working class.”
