The Albanese government is on a winning roll. It’s got momentum, it’s had big victories and confidence is overflowing in the parliamentary chamber as MPs look forward to the Christmas break.
Much of this is well justified and a demonstration of Anthony Albanese’s growing authority as Prime Minister and his ability to use the pressure of the parliamentary and political processes.
But it’s not all ho-ho-ho and off to Christmas we go for Labor, with two dangers looming over the final parliamentary week: the public’s continuing concern about the cost of power and understandable confidence morphing into arrogant hubris.
Albanese, Tony Burke and Mark Dreyfus have had wins on industrial relations and an anti-corruption commission, as well as on other promised changes to childcare, climate change and workplace protections.
The industrial relations deal brokered with independent senator David Pocock allows Labor to pass new laws before Christmas, as promised, and claim “not to be wasting a day” in its central appeal to “get wages moving”.
Peter Dutton’s recent focus on the fears of business, especially small business, over the expansion of multi-party bargaining will have to shift back to energy costs.
Unlike Labor’s oft-repeated election promise to “get wages moving”, the now unspoken promise of a $275 cut in household power bills will again be a Coalition target as Jim Chalmers and the cabinet energy sub-committee try to provide relief to businesses and households under the crush of a rising cost of living.
Labor may have a lot of its ducks in a row but energy remains Albanese’s ugly duckling and the next few days will test the public’s degree of interest in industrial relations changes versus the cost of electricity and gas.
Albanese also intends moving a parliamentary censure motion against Scott Morrison for his secret swearing in to several portfolios that a review found “corrosive to public trust”.
Albanese doesn’t need to punish the former prime minister for what seem to have been bizarre and unnecessary actions because Morrison has already suffered reputational damage and is effectively a spent political force.
What Labor wants to do is use a censure motion to extend the damage to the Opposition Leader and his colleagues who are the real political competition.
Albanese wants to cast the same lack of transparency to Dutton, telling parliament on Monday the Coalition continued with “a cult of secrecy and a culture of cover-up”. “It’s about the parliament and the Westminster system that underpins our democracy,” he said.
The danger for Dutton is obvious but there is also a danger for Labor. Pursuing a political point to the extent of having a parliamentary debate and vote smacks of overkill when Labor has said it won’t waste a moment in fighting to ease cost-of-living pressures.
Confidence is understandable, hubris is a mistake.
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