It was one of those sitting weeks in Canberra where the further out you zoomed, the better it looked.
On big picture issues, the Albanese government had much to cheer: a deal with the Greens securing passage of important climate legislation; inflation turning a corner; and the introduction of the referendum bill to enshrine an Indigenous voice into the constitution.
The corollary is that the closer you looked, the uglier it got – especially in respect to MPs’ behavioural standards.
On Wednesday seven Coalition MPs apologised for leaving parliament after the speaker had ordered doors to be closed – an incident in which some forced their way through a door, hurting an attendant.
Rather than simply take their lumps, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, countered by asking the speaker to investigate what he claimed was a similar incident involving Labor frontbenchers the week before.
The speaker, Milton Dick, who had said he was “disgusted” by the Coalition MPs’ behaviour, updated the house on Thursday that there was no equivalence.
The Labor members had been outside the chamber, coming in, so didn’t hear the speaker’s call. They used an open door, left when asked and nobody was hurt.
On Monday, the opposition claimed that Labor MP Sam Rae had sledged Liberal MP Angie Bell about her family situation.
During a debate about childcare, Bell said she didn’t know if Rae “reads the news, but the cost of early learning has already increased on your watch”.
Rae interjected with a reference to the fact that he has children. Bell wrote to the speaker asserting that Rae had said “at least I have my own children”, or at least that’s what Liberal MP Tony Pasin heard him say.
Rae later apologised for a disorderly interjection, but insisted he made no reference to Bell or her family.
Much like an incident in October in which Michelle Landry claimed to have been bullied by Anthony Albanese for an answer pillorying Peter Dutton about his pronunciation of Yeppen, the Coalition is determined to weaponise such incidents to argue a kinder, gentler parliament has not materialised.
The problem with attempting to achieve higher standards is that while the government has incentives to make parliament work, the opposition sees advantage in suggesting both sides are as bad as each other and politics is as nasty as ever.
This dynamic occurs not just on points of procedure and little parliamentary snafus, but in the broader debate about policy substance.
We saw that when the shadow attorney general, Julian Leeser, rose to ask questions of Albanese about whether the Indigenous voice would have input into interest rate movements.
These are damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don’t questions for the prime minister, who can be accused of neutering the voice or implying that interest rates don’t affect Indigenous Australians if he says no.
If he says yes, this proves the voice is a radical new constitutional body that grants First Nations people special rights.
This week Albanese labelled these and similar questions “noise” created by opponents “declared and undeclared” of the voice and urged the media not to assist.
Despite the incentives for dysfunctional politics, some on the opposition side have attempted to raise standards.
The Liberals’ Victorian leader, John Pesutto, attempted to expel Moira Deeming for attending an anti-trans rally at which a group of men dressed in black, described by organisers as gatecrashers, gave the Nazi salute.
For this he was rebuked by Dutton, who said it was “frustrating” that ahead of the Aston byelection the Liberal party was talking about “other issues” and not infrastructure cuts.
The Liberal leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, tried to draw a line under the Coalition’s relentless negativity on climate with a contribution in the safeguard bill debate just before 4am on Wednesday morning.
“I regret that internal debates over matters such as the net zero commitment or images of those holding lumps of coal undermined the credibility of these strategies and, with that, undermined the focus on the investment, the success Australia has achieved in a emissions reduction,” he said.
There were also a few shows of bipartisanship on display this week, with Liberal MP Bridget Archer and Senator Andrew Bragg attending the referendum working group barbecue. Liberal MP Warren Entsch also joined Labor’s Graham Perrett in a strong statement on International Transgender Day of Visibility.
On Saturday, attention turns to Aston, where voters in the byelection will give their verdict on the 10 months of the Albanese government and the Dutton-led opposition.
In the Liberals’ favour is the historic record of swings against the government at byelections, the high cost of living and cuts to local roads in the October budget.
In Labor’s favour, the popularity of Albanese relative to Dutton, their candidate Mary Doyle’s strong performance at the 2022 election, and the tag that Liberal opponent Roshena Campbell is a “barrister from Brunswick”.
If the Liberals can’t win a mortgage belt seat in Liberal heartland at a time of sky-high inflation and 10 interest rate rises in a row they are in trouble.
For Dutton, a loss or the Liberals holding on by the skin of their teeth with a swing to Labor would be a bad result.
But with lessons from the 2022 election still not learned, one wonders whether the best result for the Liberals long term might be to get a shock that forces a rethink about which issues voters want bipartisanship on and which are the fights truly worth having.
