Another week of parliament is over and there’s just one week of joint sittings remaining, which one dismayed Labor MP said on Thursday “leaves one more week to see how much further [lower] the bar can go”.
The bar in this case meant the “political” debate. It was somewhere at the bottom of Lake Baikal after the Indigenous voice referendum. After the past week, it’s firmly in the Earth’s core. After Labor capitulated to the opposition’s demands to toughen the restrictions on people the high court have ordered released from indefinite detention, the Coalition under Peter Dutton is gathering steam for round two.
There are some in Labor who remain hopeful the court will ultimately put a stop to these draconian measures, with the government still able to say it cooperated and “did everything it could” but gosh darn it those pesky courts keep upholding the constitution.
Then there are others, bruised and battered by the voice referendum campaign, community pressure for the government to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and frustration at the “slowly steady” approach, who are getting sick of a lack of fight back.
The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, has been leading the government’s charge against Dutton but other than Anthony Albanese’s fiery response to the opposition leader in the chamber on Wednesday (a speech we are told came from “a true place of anger”) Labor has been taking the Michelle Obama route (they go low, we go high, yadda yadda). But in the true tradition of midterm governments long past the honeymoon phase, there’s increasing agitation for some fight.
And with Dutton now seen to be dictating the government response to the high court decision, there are plenty in caucus sick and tired of playing nice. With one week to go, the tone of debate is expected to further deteriorate as frustrations boils over.
If you have a go, do you get a go?
And speaking of frustration, the former prime minister Scott Morrison is bored of sitting on the backbench and feels as if he has done his time in silence – so you’ll be hearing a lot more from him from now on. Sources close to Morrison say his exit from politics is shelved for the time being. The private sector has not exactly been beating down his door and the speaking circuit has a full roster of former leaders wanting to inform well-paying guests how they’d respond to global and domestic issues. Not only has the New Daily noted his increased profile in recent weeks, Dutton was photographed chatting to his predecessor in the chamber on Thursday. This is the political version of a hard launch.
But the biggest sign Morrison feels he has done his penance isn’t in the media interviews, the tour de regret documentaries or the brotherhood of the travelling former prime ministers – it’s in his question time interjections. Morrison has gone from silent and glued to his iPhone with his head stuck in papers to heckling while glued to his iPhone with his head stuck in papers.
Dutton is yet to name his shadow assistant treasurer or shadow finance minister (positions Stuart Robert held before his resignation). Morrison has experience holding several positions at once – so watch that shadow frontbench.
Nationals noise
The Nationals’ side of the shadow frontbench was pretty rowdy on Thursday night after the House returned to vote on the detention legislation with David Littleproud, not one to be known as quiet, setting off decibel warnings on Apple watches, heckling Adam Bandt as the Greens leader tried to deliver his speech. Littleproud was warned by the speaker, with the intensity of his interjections raising eyebrows from his own side of the chamber, as well as Labor and the Greens.
Perhaps he was just a little frustrated at having to cut short the birthday celebrations for a Nationals staffer. A select group of Littleproud supporters were spotted at the Kingston hotel, along with a cardboard cutout of the birthday gal having a grand time in the short break between the House of Reps adjourning and then returning for the legislation vote.
House MPs sitting past 8.30pm is rare these days, with the switch to “family friendly” hours (although the Senate isn’t quite so lucky) so rowdy evening chambers have been few and far between this year.
Zed’s not dead
Someone keen to return to the Senate, family friendly hours or not, is ousted Liberal ACT senator Zed Seselja.
So keen is Seselja to be back among the warm embrace of the red chamber he has committed the ultimate ACT sin – moving over the border to Queanbeyan so he can run in the New South Wales Liberal senate race. And in a bid to garner support from NSW Liberal branch voters, he’s managed to get some of the band back together (Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor) to convince them he is the man to win “the war on woke”.
Seselja’s sell seems to be “I want to come back and this time I’ll be even more conservative” – and he’s hoping that’s enough, despite having the worst ever ACT Senate primary vote on record, and having to skip over the border to do it.
The Former NSW minister Andrew Constance remains the frontrunner, although there is a bit of a push behind Monica Tudehope, who was an adviser to former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet and daughter of former NSW finance minister Damien Tudehope. After Constance lost a Senate spot to Maria Kovacic, it is now seen as his race. There was talk Tudehope could challenge former Morrison bestie Alex Hawke for the seat of Mitchell, although it seems she chose to focus on the Senate push.
Picture imperfect
Hawke was widely ridiculed during the week for releasing a “vote for me as your Mitchell candidate” brochure where he had Photoshopped himself in to a family pic of his wife, Amelia, with their four sons. This really could be considered a statement on the family life of a male politician, if you think about it.
One more (joint) week to go.
