Grattan on Friday: Albanese gets down and dirty in deal making and breaking as Senate rushes to Christmas finish

In the chaotic dying days of 2024’s final parliamentary sitting, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reverted to a role he played in Julia Gillard’s government.

He personally intervened in the wrangling and deal-making as the government battled to get as much as possible of Labor’s legislation passed.

The end of a parliamentary year is usually a mess. But 2024’s finale was beyond bad. A prime minister who likes to claim he runs an orderly government found himself presiding over a shambles, in which process was thrown to the winds and quick fixes and expedient capitulations became the order of the day.

Senators might have anticipated Wednesday’s suspension of the volcanic Lidia Thorpe, the Indigenous independent who last year defected from the Greens, would remove one distraction in a head-spinning week. Instead, it added a wild element to Thursday, when Thorpe shouted into the chamber from the press gallery: “Free, free Palestine. From the river to the sea”. Extra security guards were deployed to prevent a repeat.

Amid the rush, senators did take time out on Thursday to pay generous tributes to popular Senate opposition leader Simon Birmingham, after his surprise announcement he’ll leave politics at the election for the commercial world.

The week’s political mayhem delivered a big and unexpected win for Treasurer Jim Chalmers, but a major defeat for Special Minister of State Don Farrell.

After the Liberals in September refused to support legislation to split the Reserve Bank board and establish a special board to set interest rates, the plan appeared dead. But a late deal with the Greens has done the trick. Chalmers gets his restructured bank, after giving in to the Greens’ insistence the treasurer retain the current (never used) right to override the bank on rates.

Earlier in the week the Greens had agreed (without securing any concessions) to support Labor’s housing bills. It seems the minor party is putting on some pragmatic clothes ahead of the election.

Farrell unveiled his sweeping electoral reforms, designed to curb “big money”, just before the fortnight sitting.

The man they call the “godfather” thought, as late as Wednesday morning, that he would finally land what seems to have been only an in-principle understanding with the Liberals.

Then on Wednesday afternoon Opposition Leader Peter Dutton sat down with Farrell in the minister’s office. The Liberals wanted higher disclosure and donation limits. There was also argy bargy over the treatment of peak bodies such as the ACTU and the Business Council. Despite Farrell’s willingness to be flexible, the prospective agreement imploded.

On Thursday morning the government had to announce Farrell would continue discussions – which have been going on much of the parliamentary term – over the summer, with the hope of passing the legislation in February.

That’s assuming parliament comes back in February – Albanese said on Thursday night “we fully expect to be sitting in February” – and that the proposals’ critics don’t consolidate an upper hand. Reform of the electoral donations and spending regime has been a major Labor commitment. In the end the legislative push was left too late. A lot will have to go right for the measures (not due to start until mid next term) to be passed before the election.

The bill to ban children under 16 from accessing a range of social media sites, though passed, was also mismanaged. While many people will believe it’s good to have the legislation through, the process was appalling.

The ban is very controversial, with many experts highly critical. That made it all the more necessary for the legislation to have proper parliamentary scrutiny. More than 15,000 submissions were received by the Senate committee that looked at the bill. The committee took just one morning’s evidence on Monday, and on Tuesday tabled its report.

On Thursday, as it tried to accelerate dozens of bills through the Senate, Labor needed to use the guillotine to curb debate. But that plan was initially voted down.

Enter Albanese. In an extraordinary day of wheeling and dealing, Santa came early.

The support of ACT independent David Pocock for the quick passage of bills was secured with various bits and pieces including, the senator said in a press release, two “significant measures that will be announced in coming days”.

The Greens’ mood was lifted at the cost of $500 million for social housing upgrades. There was also an undertaking of “no coal, oil and gas funding in Future Made in Australia”.

Albanese was personally involved in the negotiations with Pocock and the Greens.

Some interpreted the government’s freneticism as indicating a likely March election. But that is an over-reading, even accepting the PM has left himself wriggle room. Clearing the decks (albeit partially) is useful if the PM wanted to call an election for March, but it doesn’t mean he will do so.

A March poll would involve the awkward problem of overlapping with the Western Australian election campaign.

Anything concerning WA is a trigger point for Albanese, who won a batch of seats there in 2022 and can’t afford too many losses in the state next year.

On Monday Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and the Greens reached a deal, reportedly agreed to by the PM, to establish a new environmental watchdog to oversee compliance with environmental laws. On Tuesday Albanese killed the deal.

WA premier Roger Cook – who earlier this month revealed his talk with the prime minister about election dates – explained at a news conference on Wednesday how he’d ensured the bill wouldn’t proceed.

Cook said he’d had a conversation on Tuesday “at the highest level of the federal government”. He had reiterated the WA view that the Nature Positive legislation in the current form should not go ahead. He’d been assured it would not progress this week.

Albanese had his own version on the ABC on Thursday night. The “legislation remains stuck in the Senate”, he said. “We didn’t have the majority for it.”

He added, “I was the negotiator.”

Once again Albanese has delivered a blow to Plibersek, whom he installed in the environment portfolio when she had expected to receive the education post, for which she had been shadow minister. For Plibersek this has been a character-building parliamentary term.