After the mess, budget test comes next

After a fortnight of mess and mistakes, Scott Morrison was keen raise his own spirits and those of his colleagues during question time on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

Thank God it’s Friday — or at least Thursday afternoon — was the palpable feeling in the ­closing hours of the last parliamentary sitting before the May budget after weeks of fraught, ­feverish and downright salacious alle­gations and revelations.

The feeling of relief was stronger within the Coalition as Scott Morrison rallied his spirits and troops after a fortnight of mess and mistakes in the face of weaponised political campaigns based on the “toxic culture” of Parliament House aimed at the government.

There was also a welcome feeling of “going home time” and moving away from the seamy side for Labor as Anthony Albanese broadened the opposition’s question time focus from sleaze to fundamental economic issues such as JobKeeper, disaster relief and a budget agenda.

During this two-week sitting, the Prime Minister has looked rattled in public and unsettled in parliament. With Labor and the media sheeting home ultimate personal responsibility for gross sexual misbehaviour in parliament to Morrison, he has looked angry, defensive and forced into cabinet changes.

The personal distress, anger and discombobulation for Morrison is undoubtedly genuine ­because he sees the disgusting behaviour as both “a mystery” and “incomprehensible”, yet it hasn’t helped him keep ­command.

Far from it. Morrison has made errors of fact, got the tone of his responses wrong, appeared confused on details, been caught in detailed questions of who knew what when and forced to set up inquiries and shuffle his cabinet.

The upshot of all the alle­gations of historical rape, gross sex acts in parliament, a claim of rape in a minister’s office and subsequent media pressure is that two cabinet ministers are losing their posts and probably had their careers blighted for life.

The Opposition Leader summarised it all as the House of Representatives rose for the autumn break: “This is a stale government disintegrating before our eyes”.

Albanese, with a straight face, had the audacity to hang the salacious focus of the past weeks on the Coalition and claim it had no broader agenda to help people’s lives.

In the face of this irony, Morrison was able to pull an old John Howard parliamentary trick out of his hat — complete with checklist — of praising all his ministers, including the two being shifted, for the great jobs they do.

As he gave positive thumbnail sketches of the ministers seated behind him and in the Senate, Morrison seemed to raise his own spirits and those of his colleagues after a tough month.

But the big budget test is next.