Peter Dutton conducted a ‘doorstop interview’ at Parliament House on Tuesday. That in itself is news, at least for the media. The Opposition Leader doesn’t hold many press conferences at Parliament House these days.
The last was on July 2.
The door stop on Tuesday was at 1.45pm… just 15 minutes before Question Time starts, and he had to be in the chamber.
The topics? Well, here’s the list at the top of the transcript from his office:
Topics: Labour’s embarrassing international nuclear censure; Labour’s energy policy is faltering; Labour’s international student cap mess; the Coalition’s plan to revive the dream of home ownership and boost construction across Australia; Labour’s Big Australia policy; electoral reform; The Labor Cost of Living Crisis; Labour’s continued immigration and visa violations; lack of leadership from the Prime Minister.
You may notice a certain tone in the descriptions. The color and politically disciplined message in such descriptions, especially those of Dutton’s office, have always been a wonder to behold.
We are now just a week away from the end of this year’s parliamentary sessions. All week, Parliament House has been operating with a frenetic attitude that reflects the widespread perception that Parliament will not return next year, either for the scheduled February fourteenth sessions or for the proposed early budget on March 25th.
Whether that is the case is another story. This is the story of politics as it unfolded this week, brooding under the anticipation of next year.
As is probably clear from the opposition leader’s subject descriptions, the purpose of the ‘doorstop’, which lasted less than fifteen minutes, was to attack the government, rather than necessarily setting out his own detailed plans.
We know very little about the coalition’s policies
Oppositions are supposed to criticize and question government policy. But if the Prime Minister does indeed decide not to bring Parliament back, and instead goes to the Governor General as early as January 17 to have Parliament dissolved ahead of the March elections, that means we could have just over three months are on the way. from election day.
Yet we know all too well what the coalition’s policies will be, and Australia is about to enter its great summer slumber.
The four issues considered the battlegrounds of the 2025 elections are: the cost of living; housing; energy and climate change; and immigration.
‘Ground to make up’: Treasurer Jim Chalmers makes the cost of living affordable
According to the Liberal Party website, general cost-of-living policy prescriptions include “cutting back on wasteful spending” (unspecified).
On housing, there is a plan to “unlock up to 500,000 new homes by funding essential infrastructure” and ongoing plans to help people access their super.
Dutton is expected to reveal some more details about the coalition’s nuclear energy policy. But at this stage it seems more likely that questions will be asked about the relative costs of government policy.
And even with all the other questions surrounding nuclear energy, this is not something that will be supplying power to the grid at any time if Dutton or any of his colleagues are still in parliament.
Finally, there is immigration. Dutton reiterated this week that the coalition would reduce both permanent migration and the number of international students, even as the opposition announced it would not support the government’s legislation to cap international student numbers.
“We believe, as I have said before,” Dutton told the doorstop, “that depending on the economic conditions at the time, we will adjust the NOM (net overseas migration) accordingly and based on the mess that we inherit of this government. That is the approach we will take.”
Loading…
The NOM or net overseas migration is not actually a target, but just a prediction based on all the temporary visas – students and skilled workers – that come in demand here. So it remains entirely unclear how the Coalition will determine this, or curtail it, apart from reducing the number of workers and students on which business, agriculture and our tertiary education sector depend.
Nevertheless, Dutton stated that “if the Prime Minister is too weak and too insipid to deal with it, if the Prime Minister cannot make decisions that are in the best interests of our country, then I – and we will – make the decisions that are best are for our country. It is necessary to solve the housing crisis that Labor has created by bringing in 1.67 million people in five years* (*noting that Labor has only been in power for two and a half years), and we will get our country back on track get a track.’
The problem of the established order
That brings us to the Prime Minister – who has been involved in the international top season – and the government.
If Peter Dutton has dominated this political narrative this week, it is because this year, like this week, he has dominated the political agenda, even with his rare appearances before the Canberra Press Gallery.
Countless observers have noted what a problem its current position in global politics is, and that’s even more striking when you consider how much of an asset it was 20 years ago.
APEC and the G20 were all about the ‘sideline’ talks
The established power used to be a devastating platform from which to project your power and influence, rather than now a millstone weighed down by the practical aspects of actually governing a country, rather than making sweeping, populist statements for which you is not held accountable.
Even leaving aside the Prime Minister’s oft-noted lack of ‘cutting through’, the government’s management of these last crucial weeks of Parliament would have to be described as confusing at best.
Parliament is embroiled in a tsunami of legislation that has been waiting for ages, or has been introduced at breakneck speed, but apparently everything now has to be dealt with in just one remaining week.
Yet this week the government has chosen to prioritize electoral “reforms” – which will boost public election funding for the major parties – at the expense of legislation on cost-of-living measures such as tackling scams, a much-vaunted mandatory code of conduct for the food and grocery sector, and the indexation of university fees.
It’s hard to see those priorities as anything other than cowardly and vulgar. Stalled housing and environmental laws could still get through after the Greens seemed to realize they had apparently gone too far in their demands.
Loading
The government has also alienated the cross-banks
Apart from leaving attentive voters with the perception that Labor has put its own financial interests ahead of those of the electorate, the government has alienated the cross-benches who it will need not only next week, but possibly next year if it finds himself in the minority government.
It seems likely that a lot of legislation – such as the Future Made in Australia program – will never get through this parliament.
And the Albanian government’s agenda for this first term shows how difficult it is to get ambitious programs like the National Reconstruction Fund up and running and deliver results within the short timeframe of a parliamentary term.
In Parliament this week, Treasurer Jim Chalmers released a report to the nation on the economy and there is a lot of selling for the government.
But you can only sell things to an audience that listens. And a government that doesn’t want to upset people is outdone by a man with simple and angry messages.
Laura Tingle is 7.30’s chief political correspondent.
Leave a Reply