Anthony Albanese’s seating blueprint for power
There’s no better signifier of Anthony Albanese’s power than the seating plan for the House. But where individual MPs are seated in this chamber is just as important as where the bulging Labor majority lands.
What’s the length and breadth of a prime minister’s power? For Anthony Albanese, it’s about as long and wide as three quarters of a horse shoe.
That’s how far the 94-strong Labor majority will stretch around that half circle of seats in the House of Representatives when they entered the post-May landslide parliament on Tuesday.
You can’t get a better signifier of power than the seating plan for the House.
The Labor MPs encroaching on the opposition’s side of the chamber.
The Teals and other miscellaneous crossbenchers all scrunched up together on one section, when they used to have platinum-economy aeroplane room at least on each side of their seat.
And Sussan Ley’s poor old Coalition, taking up less and less space in both the chamber and the national conversation.
But where individual MPs are seated in this chamber is just as important as where the bulging Labor overflow lands.
Right behind Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers in this new House seating plan are the most feared and bloodied Labor warriors of all: the leader slayers Ali France and Sarah Witty.
Ms France – who defenestrated Peter Dutton in the biggest election scalp since John Howard lost in 2007 – will sit just one row away from the PM beside new Petrie MP Emma Comer in a clear signal that federal Labor now rules southeast Queensland.
Ms Witty – who ousted Greens leader Adam Bandt – sits to Ms France’s right and next to her is Trish Cook, who took the WA seat of Bullwinkel and solidified the west as a quasi-one party state.
But the sheer size of the Labor mega-majority is as good for keeping internal rivals apart as it is for showing off.
The Treasurer is seated as always right near the PM, but his old mate and new cabinet secretary Andrew Charlton is way up the back and around the chamber bend with other assistant ministers.
The nation’s most recent victims of Labor factional disease, Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic, have both been physically distanced from the frontbench but spared the ignominy of being made to sit near the crossbench.
Ley is also trying to use the seating plan to send a message to the viewing public.
Behind the first female opposition leader are two Coalition women – Flinders Liberal Zoe McKenzie and Mallee National Anne Webster – to try and show voters that the opposition really has changed (just don’t say the q word).
The Senate seating plan also sends quite the message about power.
Right behind the left hand of the PM, Senate leader Penny Wong, is his fixer Murray Watt.
His senate hardheads Katy Gallagher and Don Farrell are on the far corner, plotting how to get the Greens to bend.
But the senate seating plan most of all shows what a tough time Ley is in for in this parliament.
In the rows right behind opposition senate leader Michaelia Cash will be the two women who got demoted or pushed out entirely by the new Liberal leader.
Recent defector Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in one row, and former Lib frontbencher Jane Hume at the back.
Now expect a lot of cameras in the senate to be focused on that one, two combination.
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