Federal MPs will take a seat in the House of Representatives on Tuesday for the first time since March 28 and all eyes will be on Labor’s supersized caucus and how Sussan Ley performs in her first parliamentary shift as the nation’s first female leader of a depleted Liberal Party.
While being unoccupied for a whopping third of a calendar year may seem a long time, the first post-May 3 election sitting day was not actually required under next month, but a triumphant and vindicated Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made the call to come back earlier.
So, what can we expect from the 48 Parliament and a second-term Albanese government which holds the largest majority in party history?
First of all, the optics will be confronting, particularly for Coalition supporters, given Labor won 94 of 150 lower house seats in its landslide victory, while a battered and diminished Opposition holds only 43 and the crossbench 13.
Mr Albanese has spoken of being “energised” heading and determined to implement a positive agenda, including by exercising a “progressive patriotism”.
While Labor’s expanded majority means some MPs will spill into the middle ground where the crossbench sits, pushing the crossbench onto opposition seats, manager of opposition business in the HoR, Alex Hawke, said the Coalition retains an “important role in the democratic system”.
“Regardless of our reduced numbers and the lessons we have to take from the election … we still have a very important job to do and that function is to keep the government on track,” he said.
He also said the Coalition partnership is “rock solid” after a temporary split between the Nationals and Liberals post-election and despite it not having yet bedded down a net-zero policy or the latter having emerged from its “existential crisis”.
The seating arrangements have also been released with Labor’s two tall timbers, 2.02m tall Hunter MP Dan Repacholi and 2.1m tall Leichardt MP Matt Smith, sitting side-by-side and Sarah Witty and Ali France, the MPs who beat former Greens leader Adam Bandt and Liberal leader Peter Dutton, respectively, sitting behind Mr Albanese and the 16-person front bench.
Meanwhile, the sheer number of seats won by Labor means its legislative agenda will sail through the lower house to the 76-seat Senate, where it has five more spots than last time and options to the left and right.
Given it now has 29 senators, Labor needs only to win the support of either the Greens, who will hold the balance of power with 10 senators, or the Coalition, to negotiate the passage of its agenda.
The most glaring current example of how this would operate is Treasurer Jim Chalmer’s contentious superannuation setting changes in that the Coalition has ruled out negotiating on the policy as a point of principle, while the Greens are yet to finalise their support but have offered in-principle support.
A third, but unlikely, scenario is that should both the Greens and the Coalition not get on board a bill, the government could still get it passed into law by gaining the support of independent and minor party senators.
The election result has, however, effectively sidelined crossbenchers like David Pocock, Labor wantaway Fatima Payman and Jacqui Lambie whose votes the government courted in the previous parliament.
Greens senator Nick McKim said on Monday that the party would hold Labor to account, particularly after the prime minister urged it, along with the Coalition, to respect the mandate handed to them by voters.
“I wasn’t that happy with the PM telling the Senate and the Greens to get out of the way shortly after the election,” he said.
“We haven’t been put into the Australian Parliament to get out of the Prime Minister’s way, we’ve been put in there to hold him to account. We do expect him to deliver, and we expect him to engage in some of the meaningful issues.”
Meanwhile, Greens manager of business in the Senate, Sarah Hanson-Young, flagged using the party’s numbers to block Labor policy in demanding bolder action on things like housing reform and a climate trigger to be embedded in environmental reforms.
The government is expected to register two big wins early after the Coalition said it would wave through legislation to be introduced this week wiping 20 per cent from HECS debts and improving childcare standards by cutting funding to centres that fail to meet national standards.
However, it will face sterner tests on some agenda items, including policies that failed to progress into law in the last parliament, including the superannuation tax changes, revamp of the nation’s environment laws and emissions and cultural heritage provisions.
The prime minister told a meeting of the Labor Caucus on Monday afternoon that the second term was about “delivery” and making “a real, practical difference to people’s lives”, he also said if the party remained disciplined and focused it could maintain or even extend its majority.
“People don’t expect perfection. They understand that the world will throw things at us, but they expect that we will put them first, rather than be focused internally on what goes on in this building,” he said.
“Take a moment to really think about the significance of it.
“A lot more people try to get here than do get here. And, more often than not, Labor has been at the other end of the corridor. Which is why we should never, ever, ever take it for granted.”
Down the corridor is exactly where the Coalition, without Mr Dutton for the first time in 20 years, a few hours earlier held its first joint party room meeting since the election during which Ms Ley told her troops that she was up for what many consider right now to be the toughest job in politics.
While saying that the Coalition would better choose its battles and not stand in the way of laws it believed to be in the national interest, Ms Ley said it would unapologetically fight Labor legislation “not in the interest of Australians … every step of the way” and told colleagues to get ready to take the fight up to the government.
The opposition were branded the ‘Noalition’ by Labor last term for its trait of standing against the vast majority of government policies, even if arguably constructive, under Mr Dutton.
“The real work in the parliament of Australia will start this week, and I’m up for the job. I’m excited, and I know all of you are too,” Ms Ley said.
“Our job is to represent the millions of Australians who voted for us, but also the millions who maybe didn’t but still expect us to be the strongest, best opposition that we can be.
“We are here for the values that we have always stood for as a Liberal Party. For hard work, reward for effort, a government that gets out of the way. Our policies are up for review, but our values are not.”
The meeting room was a little shellshocked, however, by a bombshell dropped in the morning media with the first news poll conducted since before the election showing support for the Coalition has slipped from 31.8pc since the May 3 bloodbath to 29pc.
The two-party preferred results were also poor reading for an Opposition hoping to land punches on the government this week with Labor extending its lead from 43pc to 57pc.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce admitted that the results of both the election and the latest poll were “brutal”.
“I think the first thing you do is you be honest about them,” he said.
“Obviously, it’s going to be a hard time in that joint at question time. I think the Coalition’s role, I hate to preach here, is you have to find issues which are binary, which you are fully for, and the Labor Party is fully against.
“If you try and work on nuances and amelioration and views of a different issue, that’s not good. That’s why issues such as net-zero, I say: find a point of division. You don’t believe in net zero, they do believe in net zero.”
Memories of the Albanese government’s mid-term slump in the last parliament, that saw many question whether the prime minister would keep his job, are such a fading memory that house speaker Milton Dick, who will find out on Tuesday if he retains the role following a vote, felt the need to lay down the law to his own MPs in urging them to not take the large majority as a cue to make things “personal” and reminded them to “show respect” to the Opposition.
There were 235 temporary suspensions for an hour or less handed out in the 47 parliament, with 47 of those to Labor MPs, for breaches of parliamentary standards.
The pomp and ceremony on Tuesday begins at 9am with a Welcome to Country ceremony in the Great Hall of Parliament House, to be followed by a traditional smoking ceremony on the forecourt and Governor-General Sam Mostyn receiving the Royal Salute and inspecting the Guard.
She will then address both Houses, to be followed by a 19-gun salute.
New parliamentarians will kick-off the official parliamentary business with maiden speeches after 5pm and both the lower house and senate will sit for three days this week and four days next week.
