Something’s changed in parliament of late. While the public politicking between the Coalition and Labor remains as poisonous as ever, on the legislative side they’re finding uncommon common ground.
Anthony Albanese’s “No-alition” label for Peter Dutton and his team is being less readily applied, with the opposition willing to deal itself in on key government legislation it had hitherto refused to pass in the Senate.
First there was a successful negotiation that sealed legislation to put the CFMEU into administration. Then, after weeks of stonewalling and stalemate, there was agreement on the legislative package to reform the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
As the parliamentary sitting fortnight ended, the government and opposition camps seemed optimistic that the bill to overhaul funding arrangements for residential aged care was likely to go the same way.
So, why the switch to collaboration? A few reasons.
In some of it, there’s a touch of the Paul Keatings and his 1992 taunt to then Liberal leader John Hewson: “I want to do you slowly”. That’s certainly the case in relation to the CFMEU. While the Coalition had no particular desire to stop an administrator from being appointed, it didn’t mind stringing things out for a couple of weeks and leaving the Labor government to roast a bit longer. It extracted the odd extra undertaking, such as a three-year-minimum administration term and permanent bans on some officials, before folding its tent.
In the Senate, the government’s in an either-or situation. The numbers mean it either needs Coalition support to secure a majority, or that of the Greens and a few crossbenchers.
From Labor’s viewpoint, not having to always give ground to the Greens and the crossbench is cause for cheer, so the Coalition’s newfound mood for compromise made for a welcome change. The government’s delighted to be able to occasionally tell the Greens, in particular: thanks, but no thanks.
Sometimes it suits the opposition equally well to shut out the Greens and independents. On these recent bills though, the considerations were closer to home. Politically speaking, the risk analysis on blocking some bills in the Senate had shifted from benefit to relative – and possibly actual – political cost.
The decision to support the NDIS overhaul took a bit longer to reach than the one about cracking down on the union. This is not out of any love for the current state of the NDIS but rather the opposite. The Coalition tried to pare back ballooning spending in the national scheme when it was in office and Labor derided the move, refusing to back it. Some admit it grates a bit to have to back Labor doing it now.
But with the Greens’ disability spokesperson, Senator Jordon Steele-John, resolutely opposed to Bill Shorten’s plan and refusing to compromise, the only way the scheme’s cost was going to be reined in was if the Coalition moved.
They’ve found an upside to their capitulation. They’d sooner Labor tackle the problems – and wear any residual opprobrium from the disability sector – than they have to do it. This way, all the hard work can be done and the cost estimates in better shape by the time they get back to office. Happy days.
Overall, they’re undertaking careful calculations on each emerging bill about the opportunity cost of digging in v giving in. Will it hurt them more, politically, to block these bills, or to back them? The Coalition leadership knows there’s a point at which saying “no” could start to cause damage and saying “yes” – with caveats that allow them to claim some credit – becomes the least bad option.
In an interview for the Australian Politics podcast this week, Liberal frontbench senator Andrew Bragg insists the Coalition simply wants to “work with the government where they have good ideas”.
“I think the government have put forward some good ideas on NDIS, and we were happy to work with them on the CFMEU matter,” Bragg says. “So, I mean, we’re not there to oppose everything. We want to help where we can.”
The shadow assistant minister for home ownership says it’s not that the “No-alition” tag was biting.
“We always want to try and be constructive. I mean, I want to try and make a productive contribution, not just try and wreck things … I think people who give us these jobs expect that we try and be collegiate and try and work together on common policy areas.”
What he says about expectations is quite true. The message coming from the people who give them these jobs is a not-insignificant factor in all of this – and, actually, a pretty interesting one.
Social research is showing that, aside from those on the activated outer edges of the political debate – on the left and right – the vast middle-majority of Australians is monumentally over politics. The cumulative effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather events and the cost-of-living crisis has taken its toll. People are exhausted, beaten, and lacking in a sense of control. On the whole, it seems they’re mostly not listening to political leaders and not interested. As one observer puts it: “Their horizon is the end of the week.”
When they do look up, they take only snapshot impressions of politics – an overall sense of it, based on whichever random thing has managed to catch their attention. They’re not wanting to see more bickering and brawling, more name-calling and cat-calling and point-scoring and grandstanding and sending things off to inquiries. They’re saying: “Ahem, just effing do your jobs. Just get on with it. That’s why you’re there.”
This is not lost on Peter Dutton and co. The “No-alition” tag might not be biting now but they know at some point, if they don’t find ways to be seen to be constructive for those moments when people look up, it will.
So they’re trying to find the right side of the line between holding the government to account by refusing to wave things through and being marked down as obstructionist contrarians.
However, this rush to cooperate should not be mistaken for the start of some new era of bipartisanship. Just like the government, the opposition will continue to base its judgments on its own political interests.
For example, on the government’s two housing bills stuck in limbo, it seems the answer is still “no”.
There’s one other reason for the occasional change of heart and it applies in the case of the NDIS bill. Peter Dutton explicitly backed an NDIS restructure in his budget reply speech in late 2022, arguing the “important program” must not be allowed to become unsustainable.
“The Coalition is prepared to support sensible government proposals to strengthen the NDIS and ensure its sustainability,” he said at the time. “This provides structured reform of the budget and certainty to people with disabilities and their families.”
Some in the opposition wish he’d never said it. But he did, and so they’ve had to relent.
Unfortunately, their discomfort over inconvenient undertakings isn’t quite over yet. Dutton did a similar thing in his 2023 budget reply speech, on aged care.
“Aged-care funding is not a magic pudding,” he said last year. “A respectful, dignified, world-class aged-care system is only funded by residents or taxpayers. I want to work with the government to ensure that our aged-care system remains sustainable. I am a person of my word.”
And then, for good measure, he reiterated his support for “sustainable funding in the NDIS”.
Expect the Coalition’s support for the government’s aged-care bill any day now.
