As questions about Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s character continue, and rumblings of disunity grow within Coalition ranks, federal Parliament will return tomorrow for the first sitting weeks of 2022. It’s a fortnight which will give the government little room to hide, with leaked texts still high in the news cycle.
Beyond the internal fighting is some crucial policy, with a deeply contentious religious discrimination bill at the top of the legislative agenda. But the bill brings more confusion and disunity — Liberal moderates are still concerned about protections for LGBTIQ students.
Nobody likes Morrison
Last week the Coalition registered the worst Newspoll performance in years, and Morrison got a ripping at the National Press Club.
And the question of whether the prime minister’s colleagues actually like him just won’t go away.
On Friday we found out Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce had called him a “hypocrite and a liar” in a text sent to Brittany Higgins. Joyce has apologised and offered a non-accepted resignation. There will be tense words at the Nationals’ partyroom this afternoon, but no leadership change this close to an election.
Then, last night, former NSW premier and Gillard-era foreign affairs minister Bob Carr claimed Defence Minister Peter Dutton leaked the “psycho” texts reported by Ten’s Peter van Onselen last week. Dutton swiftly denied it and said Carr’s tweet was “baseless” and “untrue”.
Carr has since doubled down, insisting his source is solid, and Dutton has the numbers for a leadership challenge.
Dutton has been pretty active in the media over the past week, and he and Morrison publicly disagreed over using troops to bolster the aged care sector.
While winking about a leadership challenge is probably a bit of Canberra bubble nonsense at this point, the simmering disharmony within Coalition ranks is still very real.
Religious discrimination fight
The disharmony is more evident on the policy front — the religious discrimination bill divides the Liberal broad church. After its hasty introduction late last year, the government hopes to get it passed this week, and it’s up for debate tomorrow after two parliamentary reports into it were released on Friday afternoon.
Labor MPs and senators on both the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights offered broad conditional support for the bill. But Labor is reserving its position until it sees the latest draft, which is likely to be presented to the joint partyroom tomorrow morning (Labor’s caucus and cabinet meet this afternoon).
It’s within that joint partyroom where the government faces its biggest challenge over a bill it hoped could wedge Labor, and further damage the opposition’s standing among religious voters.
This morning Tasmanian Liberal MP Bridget Archer said she would vote against the bill. She and other Liberal moderates are concerned about a clause which would exempt “statements of belief” by religious people from all other anti-discrimination laws.
That clause was also a concern for Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, who issued separate comments in the Senate report, calling for it to be removed.
Another sticking point for Liberal moderates is ensuring protections for LGBTIQ students and teachers. This would require changes to the existing Sex Discrimination Act. But while Morrison last week suggested that protection would come alongside the current bills, Assistant Attorney-General Amanda Stoker caused confusion when she told the ABC the religious discrimination legislation would need to be passed first.
Any move to stop faith schools expelling gay students could win support from wavering moderates like Archer, Warren Entsch and Trent Zimmerman. But it will also infuriate conservative Christian groups who are the bill’s strongest backers.
Time is quickly running out for the government to reach an agreement. The Senate sits for just three days this month (next week is estimates), before returning for another three during budget week in March.
Given all that division, and with the opposition benches likely to push further amendments, the government might just decide a fight over religious discrimination is all a bit too hard.
