Parliament returns: let the battles begin

With Parliament resuming today and an election looming ever closer, 2018 is shaping up to be a bruising year in politics.

The main event: Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull.

Political games, policy contortions and party infighting look set to be the defining features of the start of the parliamentary year. Bill Shorten sought to get the jump on the government with last week’s ­National Press Club address. Light on detail but strong on positioning, the Opposition Leader announced Labor’s support for a federal corruption watchdog and followed up relentless summer campaigning by the union movement by putting wages and working conditions at centre stage.

The government is seeking to put economic management front and centre. Armed with Department of Finance mud maps showing that the May budget will probably be underpinned by ­improving global economic conditions, the Coalition hopes to cash in on its historical advantage on which major party is better placed to manage the economy. Whether it can stave off the Labor pivot to “fairness” when conducting a ­debate on the economy remains to be seen.

Equally, the task of convincing cynical voters that large company tax cuts have stimu­lat­ory benefits for the economy might be difficult as Labor continues to question the need to punch a sizeable hole in the deficit to deliver “the big end of town” tax relief.

The legislative agenda this week in the lower house will focus on the enterprise tax plan, as well as bank executive accountability. The latter represents the government’s attempt not to be wedged by Labor as being in the pockets of big business. There will also be ­debate about non-consensual sharing of intimate images, a serious social policy debate likely to pass with bipartisan support, with the week ending with another COAG meeting. COAG could be more interesting than usual as two of the nation’s laggard states (economically speaking) are going to the polls early this year. The governments in Tasmania and South Australia are facing difficult re-elections.

None of this will dominate question time, however, which is more likely to see Labor asking why the government won’t support its calls for a corruption watchdog alongside delivering hits on underemployment and low wages growth. Company tax cuts will of course also get a mention. For its part the Coalition will apply pressure to Labor on citizenship and spruik its recent Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Coalition strategists believe Shorten is vulnerable on citizenship because of his inflated rhetoric last year ­expressing confidence in his team.

The most interesting shift from last year to now is the rise and rise of industrial relations as a central policy debate. New Workplace Minister Craig Laundy might find himself in the thick of it over the next fortnight and beyond as Labor, somewhat ironically, targets the inadequacies of a Fair Work Act it legislated when last in government and the Coalition has been timid to reform.

“Wage stagnation and fall in use of enterprise bargaining ­demands action but the Turnbull government doesn’t have even a clue,” opposition industrial relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor told The Australian. “Labor will restore balance in workplaces and ensure workers get their fair share.”

Laundy is happy to fight Labor on its policy home turf: “Labor wants to tear down the independent workplace umpire that they created. If Labor is elected the ­unions will be back in charge. Small and family businesses and their employees will pay the price.”

These policy debates will be prominent between now and the next election, but before such ­battlelines are properly drawn, the Opposition Leader will need to navigate a course through at least one difficult by-election courtesy of the citizenship saga that has claimed another scalp.

Labor’s David Feeney won’t ­return this week, having announced his ­retirement from politics, unable to prove he’s not a dual citizen. His inner Melbourne electorate of Batman will be a tough hold for Labor as the Greens came close to winning the seat at the last election. When the betting agencies started listing their odds for the contest, they installed the Greens as favourite, and in the next month the national focus will again be on a prominent by-election contest following last year’s bruising Bennelong campaign, with former president of the ACTU Ged Kearney running for Labor in Batman in a “captain’s pick” by Shorten.

Signalling his commitment to Graham Richardson’s “whatever it takes” mantra, Shorten started the campaign by backflipping (he’s  arguably mid-aerial) on the Adani coalmine slated for North Queensland. If Labor is to defeat the Greens in Batman it needs to shift to the left to pacify potential Greens voters, so the political strategists tell us. Both major parties have made an art form in ­recent years of doing so when politics or economics demands it, ­despite the party of the left being demonised by both sides with their rhetoric. Shorten certainly didn’t acknowledge the Greens when ­announcing his policy on a federal corruption watchdog last week.

The policy plagiarism hasn’t gone unnoticed by Greens leader Richard Di Natale. “You engage in politics to implement your policy agenda, so we are pleased to see the old parties take up our proposals for a bank levy, negative gearing reform, a banking royal commission and now an anti-corruption watchdog,” he told The Australian. “This year we’ll be campaigning to stop the polluting Adani coalmine and get real action on climate change, end the corrupting influence of political donations, show more decency to asylum-seekers and a fairer tax system to tackle rising inequality.”

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese signalled his intention to use 2018 to test his own leadership chances by telling morning television last week that Labor should win Batman, seeking to set the benchmark higher than Shorten might otherwise like. If Labor is to retain Batman doing so will ­require preferences from conservative parties. The Liberals won’t run but Australian Conservatives leader Cory Bernardi plans to fill the vacuum with one of his candidates, and he’s unlikely to preference the Greens over Labor. Watching Shorten sop to the left on issues like Adani before being saved from a Greens onslaught by Bernardi preferences would be worth the price of admission for any political observer.

The Leader of the House, Christopher Pyne, clearly plans to contrast Labor’s challenges with a government “getting on with the job”. “While Bill Shorten focuses on the politics of chaos,” he says, “we will be focused on growing the economy; creating the jobs of the future and steering the ship of state through the choppy waters of the current geopolitical climate.”

Not that Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t have challenges of his own with the return of parliament. We know that conservatives within his ranks question whether the government is adequately appealing to its base, and Nationals are likely to continue raising concerns about regional Australia missing out on any benefits that flow from a ­return of consumer confidence. Tony Abbott, of course, continues to snipe and the small cabal of ­reactionary commentators aren’t going to let up on the Prime Minister simply because the next election looms ever closer. But government strategists are at least pleased that they aren’t the only party now under political pressure.

Key players: Anthony Albanese, Kristina Keneally, Christopher Pyne, Richard Di Natale.

The danger with the return of parliament for Shorten is that he loses momentum, especially if more by-elections follow courtesy of the citizenship saga, thereby distracting Labor from applying pressure to the government. Shorten’s parliamentary team has grown used to frontrunning, as the ­Coalition creeps ever closer to 30 consecutive Newspoll defeats, helped along by today’s numbers. But with the polls tightening, Shorten will be given little quarter by colleagues who know he’s not personally popular. Throw in factional fights in Shorten’s home state of Victoria and there is an outside chance that Labor won’t have as easy a time of it in 2018 as it did last year.

The manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, thinks that the government is too focused on the opposition rather than the job of running the country. “Parliament has settled into a strange pattern,” he says. “Our questions attack the government’s performance and their response is to only talk about Labor. If this keeps going we are in for another year where the government makes a deliberate decision to debate Labor rather than its own agenda.”

This is exactly what voters don’t like when they turn their ­attention to Canberra. If Burke is right, the government’s tactic is to convince the public not to risk a return to Labor, relying on the adage that negative politicking works.

“It’s a parliament with two oppositions and that won’t give the public much confidence in the current government,” Burke argues.

Away from the theatre of lower house jockeying in question time and media spin to try and win the daily news cycle, the return of parliament also sees an interesting contest emerging in the Senate. Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally will join Labor’s ranks, replacing disgraced former senator Sam Dastyari. Former independent senator Lucy Gichuhi has moved from the crossbench into the Liberal fold, leaving new Senate leader Mathias Cormann to convince 10 of the 12 remaining crossbenchers to support government bills to pass them into law, assuming Labor and the Greens vote the other way.

Cormann, also the finance minister, intends to focus on how Labor’s approach to economic management matches up with the Coalition’s. “The future job security, career prospects and wage ­increases of nine out of 10 working Australians depends on the future success and profitability of the private sector businesses across Australia which employ them,” he says. “It is very clear that an even more shifty and more socialist Bill Shorten will continue to pursue and expand on a cynical, populist, anti-business, anti-opportunity agenda which would lead to less investment, fewer jobs, higher ­unemployment and lower wages.”

For the government to implement its alternative agenda, ­including further corporate tax cuts, it will need crossbench support in the Senate. But the com­peting interests on the crossbench will be difficult to manage, even for Cormann, who is widely ­regarded as one of the government’s better performers.

Today Fraser Anning is expected to tell parliament he’s leaving One Nation, and while there has been speculation he might join the LNP, if he stays on the crossbench it’s worth keeping an eye on whether a loose alliance emerges between Anning and Conservative senator Cory Bernardi and Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm. Were they to work ­together and vote as a bloc, on the numbers they could stifle the government’s agenda.

Last year ended with the legislating of same-sex marriage and a repudiation of reactionary predictions that the PM wouldn’t survive until Christmas. This year the goodwill that went with the ­implementation of SSM will be in short supply. And with an election looming ever closer, no leader will be safe for long if they can’t stay competitive in the polls.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics at the University of Western Australia.