Grattan on Friday: New parliament presents traps for Albanese and Ley

Anthony Albanese hasn’t been in any rush to convene the new parliament, which Governor-General Sam Mostyn will open on Tuesday.

It’s only mildly cynical to observe that governments of both persuasions often seem to regard having pesky members and senators around too much as a hindrance to business. Accountability is all very good in theory – facing it in practice is another matter.

In this first fortnight of the new parliament, however, much of the attention will be less on the government than on the opposition. Liberal leader Sussan Ley has handled her early weeks without tripping. But her critics hover like crows on the fence in lambing season. Angus Taylor, who narrowly lost the leadership ballot, retains his ambition. The right-wing media wait for Ley’s mistakes.

Ley will need to maintain a strong grip on her team’s messaging, especially on foreign and defence policy, or the Coalition will open itself to criticism.

Taylor, now the defence spokesman, attracted attention this week when he went out on a limb on Taiwan, telling the ABC, “we should have a joint commitment with them [the US] to the security of Taiwan”.

Ley, who says she wants to avoid unrelenting negativity, must choose the Coalition’s targets carefully. It has been presented with some useful fodder with the (inadvertently) leaked Treasury brief to the re-elected government that urged the need for tax rises and spending cuts. This is manna from political heaven because it is on the Coalition’s favoured economic ground, and raises issues for which the government doesn’t have immediate or clear-cut answers.

As important as Ley’s own performance will be, so will that of shadow treasurer Ted O'Brien. Taylor’s handling of the job last term was a serious weakness for the Coalition.

Facing a well-prepared and confident counterpart in Jim Chalmers, O'Brien must find his feet quickly. Sensibly, he has hired on his staff an experienced, credible economist, Steven Hamilton, who has been an assistant professor of economics at George Washington University in Washington DC. Hamilton has also been a regular contributor to The Australian Financial Review, so he has a feel for, and contacts in, the financial media.

The government has a mix of legislation to introduce in this initial fortnight. Albanese promised during the campaign that Labor’s first cab off the rank would be its commitment to cut student debt by 20%. It also foreshadowed early action to cement in penalty rates.

It didn’t anticipate having to rush in a bill to strip funding from childcare centres that do not meet safety standards. This follows the recent revelations of abuse.

The first parliamentary fortnight comes in the run-up to the government’s August 19–21 productivity roundtable (named by Chalmers the “economic reform roundtable”). With expectations inevitably exploding, observers will be watching closely the dynamics between the treasurer and the prime minister in parliament.

The two agree that delivering election promises should be the floor, rather than the ceiling, of ambition for the second term. But their degrees of ambition differ. Chalmers fears Albanese’s is limited; the prime minister fears his treasurer’s will overreach. Will Albanese show a restraining hand on the roundtable in the weeks before it?

As the government wants to emphasise delivery to voters in the early days of the parliament, Chalmers hasn’t rushed to seek the deal he needs with the Greens on his controversial changes to superannuation tax arrangements. The plan is to increase the tax on balances of more than $3 million, and tax the unrealised capital gains.

The Greens want the $3 million reduced to $2 million and that amount indexed. It’s a fair assumption a compromise will be reached when negotiations occur.

That will be a relatively easy test for the Greens under their new leader Larissa Waters, who has also said she wants to be constructive while holding the government to account.

Later on, though, will come harder issues, including whether the Greens will sign up to a new environmental protection authority, stymied by political obstacles last term.

In general, the Senate will be less complicated for the government in coming months than last term, given the Greens hold the sole balance of power on legislation contested by the opposition.

That means things are more frustrating for other Senate crossbenchers.

In his stand on staffing, Albanese is not improving their mood. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation doubled its representation to four senators but has no extra staff. Staff allocation is up to the prime minister, who has once again been arbitrary about how many staff individual Senate crossbenchers receive. This is an unfair and indefensible system – there should be independent, consistent rules.

ACT senator David Pocock hasn’t lost any staff but he has lost clout, compared with last term when his vote could be crucial and he was able to trade it for concessions from the government. The new numbers deal him and other non-Green crossbenchers out of the game.

In the House of Representatives, the Teals retain strong representation but, as in the last parliament, they can only exert (limited) influence, not power. For a while early this year, when it looked as if there would be a hung parliament, they were preparing wish lists.

One new Teal will be sworn in next week, Nicolette Boele, who won the seat of Bradfield from the Liberals. She can’t know, however, whether she will see out her term. The Liberals have challenged the result after she won by just 26 votes. The matter will be decided by the Court of Disputed Returns.

There are three possible outcomes: the court confirms the result; the result is overturned and the seat awarded to Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian (who was allowed to vote in the Liberal leadership and supported Ley); or a fresh election is ordered.

The Liberals are taking some risk with the challenge. If there were a new election, and they lost it, that would be another setback for them and could destabilise Ley’s leadership.