‘This is a surrender from this government’: Just 14 sitting days in 2019 before election

Scott Morrison’s government has been accused of “surrendering” after it was revealed we’ll see very little of our MPs before the election.

It will be the incredible shrinking federal parliament, all but disappearing before your very eyes.

Parliament might sit for just 10 days early next year before we head into an election campaign with a May polling day.

At best, it will sit for a puny 14 days before being shut down for the general election.

Next week will be the Parliament’s last for this year, so we might have a mere 18 days - tops - of MPs turning up for work in Canberra between next Monday and mid-June when a regular roster of sitting days resumes post-election.

The sitting schedule has been designed to limit exposure of the minority Morrison government to Labor and Green attacks while it is at the mercy of frisky cross benches in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

The schedule leaves no room for major legislation as the government avoids being embarrassed by its lack of majorities in both Houses of Parliament.

The Government will have to park legislation on such matters as energy policy, tax reductions and a national corruption watchdog in the hope it will be able to get them moving again if re-elected.

But there will be space for the delivery and promotion of the April 2 Budget, which the government believes will strengthen its re-election chances.

The release of the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outcomes (MYEFO) on December 17 - the halfway report on the last Budget’s - is expected to point to a beefy surplus which would be detailed and cake rated by the government on April 2.

The House of Representatives will sit for a mere seven days in February. It will return for three days in Budget week. Then there will be a one-week break.

Parliament is scheduled to come back for four days from April 15, but it is likely by then the election campaign will be under way, heading to a May 11 or May 18 polling day.

The House of Representatives is then not scheduled to reconvene until June 17.

“This is a surrender from this government,” Labor front bencher Tony Burke told parliament on Tuesday.

Government leader in the House Christopher Pyne said today the Budget had to be brought forward from its usual date in May because the election had to be called before May 18.

“This is not an important issue to the mums and dads and individuals going about their usual business today,” he told ABC radio, calling interest in the number of sitting days “white noise within the Canberra bubble”.

It is usual for a low number of sitting days in election years.

Parliament sat for just 48 days in 2013 and 51 in 2016, compared to 61 in 2017 and 75 in 2015.