As MPs packed their wheelie bags and trundled off to the airport on Thursday evening, rain fell on a grey and gloomy capital. Nevertheless, there was a spring in their wheelies. Parliament had begun its long break before budget week (dignified hurrah!).
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As one colleague cheerily observed on Thursday afternoon, by the time everyone is back in town in May, Canberra’s still reasonably temperate climes will have turned seriously frosty. Indeed, while it may seem improbable – given the wild whirlwind of all those points of order, Blue Room press conferences and appearances at the “doors” – we are already one whole quarter of the way through the parliamentary year.
Doesn’t time fly when you’re having democracy?
So, at the risk of sounding like an old man in a rocking chair (pontificating about the meaning of things and how quickly time goes by), what have we learnt in these first five weeks?
1. Politics happens. This was a government that was going to be calm and methodical, and “not about the theatre of putting things on the front page”. Do you remember that? Those heady days last September when new Prime Minister Tony Abbott stopped doing press conferences and started governing? Yet, if this quintet of sitting weeks shows us anything, it is that politics has a way of making it to the front pages anyway. Whether it’s a deadly riot on Manus Island, the persistent hum of a conflict-of-interest for the Assistant Health Minister’s (former) chief of staff, whopping job losses around the country (and calls for a government response), Arthur Sinodinos’ name coming up at the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Australia’s chief law officer telling people they have the right to be bigots, or a rare and scary no-confidence motion against the Speaker.
2. Honeymoons are for honeymooners, not governments. The ALP was so much on the snout in September that the Coalition swept into power with a 35-seat lead over Labor. So you would have thought that polls would not be an issue for the Abbott government.
And yet, at the start of the March 17 sitting week, Nielsen pollster John Stirton wrote that the Coalition was having the “worst start, at least in polling, of any new government over the last 40 years”. Just this week, the latest Newspoll had Labor plainly in front, 52 to 48 per cent two-party-preferred.
But can we blame an overly negative opposition here? An unaffectionate media? Bung polling methodology? With the possible exception of the Madam Speaker issue, many of the issues bothering the Coalition have not been of the opposition’s making. As it turns out, calm and methodical government just might be one of those “good on paper” things.
3. Tony Abbott is more predictable and more complex than you think.
When Abbott announced he was bringing back knights and dames on Tuesday, it came as a surprise to just about everyone. And then it didn’t. This was the guy who had been a spokesperson for the monarchists before he entered Parliament. Then again, this was also the man who has been at pains not to give himself airs and graces in government. He’s sleeping at the Australian Federal Police College instead of a posh rental when in Canberra, for crying out loud. How does that square with these lofty new/old honours?
The PM has also given everyone head spins by referring to himself as a feminist, even when his Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash, has not.
4. No one knows what to do about Clive Palmer yet. The Palmer United Party leader and member for Fairfax has continued to blatantly not turn up to Parliament – doing things such as holding a press conference on the Gold Coast on sitting days. He has complained that there is not enough legislation happening and he is like a “jellyfish” as a result. He has also discussed the colour of his undies.
But we can’t ignore him as a zany sideshow. Come July, PUP is tipped to hold the balance of power in the Senate. The mining magnate has threatened to block the mining tax repeal if welfare payments to orphaned children of war veterans are not maintained. And he has made noises about spoiling the Abbott government's attempts to dismantle the renewable energy framework.
5. Plus ça change. For all the brand newness of the parliamentary year, there’s a lot that, well reminds us exactly of last year. And the year before. And even the year before that. Look at question time, where Labor tries to ping the government about its plans for workers and jobs, and the Coalition is hell-bent on talking about scrapping the carbon and the mining taxes, stopping the boats, Craig Thomson and how Labor stuffed up the economy. I mean, c’mon. Don’t the French have a saying about this?
Judith Ireland is a Fairfax Media journalist.
