James Campbell: Four clear winners emerged in first Question Time of new parliament
There were four clear winners in the first Question Time of the new parliament and that list doesn’t include either Sussan Ley or Anthony Albanese.
Opinion
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For those watching the first Question Time, the answers are: Mary Aldred and Zoe McKenzie on the Liberal side and Ali France and Jess Teesdale for Labor.
These women, I should explain, are the lucky MPs who, as the occupants of the four seats directly behind the despatch boxes, will have some of the most scrutinised roles in Australian politics for the next three years.
Listening to frontbenchers speak is by definition a non-speaking part, but because of the amount of screen time, no less important for that.
On the government side the job is to convey to the viewer at home that the minister doing the talking has everything in hand and Australia is lucky to have their services, while for the opposition it is to look by turns worried, angry or incredulous.
And winners of the QT today were clearly France and Teesdale for maintaining looks of semi-rapturous delight for almost 90 minutes, whereas their opponents, particularly McKenzie, looked at times as though they would rather be anywhere else.
And to be fair it is hard to blame them.
Whereas before May the ranks of Coalition MPs would have stretched off into the distance to McKenzie’s left, the opposition benches now trail off quickly into Teals and independents.
Conscious perhaps that crowing would be a bad look, government ministers were as understated in their replies as the blokes were in the dark blue suits which made them look like 1960s IBM men.
New Opposition Leader Sussan Ley asked only two questions – one about housing which went nowhere – and one about Labor’s tax on unrealised capital gains which was taken up by the others.
As an attack line it was OK though Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien probably revealed more than he should have by asking if the government had any plans to tax “the family trust” before remembering there’s not a lot of them in punter land and adding “the family home”.
Sadly for conservatives it was hard to disagree with the Prime Minister’s reply “I’ll give a big tip …. the time to run a scare campaign is just before an election not after one.”
Originally published as James Campbell: Four clear winners emerged in first Question Time of new parliament
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