Scott Morrison’s absence is a mixed blessing as parliament resumes

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will join parliament via video from quarantine. Picture: Adam Taylor/PMO

The Morrison government faces a rocky two weeks, with parliament returning on Tuesday as Scott Morrison wings his way back from Britain and Europe.

Some Liberal MPs are understandably nervous about Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack leading the government for three days in question time considering the politically delicate issues in play.

Next week the optics won’t be much better, with the Prime Minister beaming into parliament via video from quarantine for the last session before August. But some may argue it might be a good time for the PM to be physically absent from the chamber.

The fate of the Biloela Tamil family will be known on Tuesday following a string of phone calls back and forth overnight between Shark One and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke. One can also assume the outcome is a solution that will involve them being released from Christmas Island.

Labor hasn’t needed to lead the charge on this. Irrespective of the humanitarian arguments on one side and the integrity of the government’s immigration and border policy on the other, the fact that it has been allowed to drag on for so long is not only ridiculous but ensured it would eventually become another political problem for the PM.

The hitch is that the Liberal base may not like the outcome.

That being said, the only time Anthony Albanese and the opposition appear to get any traction is when parliament is on.

With Labor’s main game being to put the PM under maximum pressure, Morrison’s absence this week may well work to his advantage.

As messy as it will appear if any of the usual shenanigans make the nightly television news, serious questions from the opposition to the Acting Prime Minister don’t have the same gravitas as those put to the Prime Minister himself.

Albanese will try to make these last two weeks before the winter break look as chaotic as possible. He will continue his attack on the vaccine rollout and quarantine, the two issues that put the government under pressure two weeks ago and likely facilitated the fall in Morrison’s approval numbers.

And he won’t be able to resist the temptation to go after coal, with the G7 communique seeking to end its career as a fossil fuel energy source.

And then there is always Medicare if all else fails.

But it is what has been happening outside of parliament the past few days that is telling.

Albanese hit the campaign trail in earnest, dropping into the marginal Labor seats of Lilley in Brisbane and Gilmore and Eden Monaro in NSW on his way back to Canberra from Queensland, where he had been watching the footy. These are three key seats that Labor needs to work on to hold, with Lilley being the most marginal seat in Queensland. Whether the election is October or March, it is clearly game on.