As the PM served canapes, The Godfather was back in parliament
If politics is show business for ugly people, Canberra proved more community theatre than Hollywood this week as the election looms.
Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Brett Worthington gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.
It was a Bill Clinton advisor who famously dubbed politics as being show business for ugly people.
Going off the last fortnight in Canberra, it's often felt that the performance art being offered up looks more like something from a community theatre than anything you'd see in Hollywood.
With the whiff of an election in the air, there's been no shortage of ham acting on show.
Enter Don Farrell, the South Australian factional heavyweight often dubbed The Godfather, a man frantically trying to prevent Donald Trump imposing tariffs on Australian exports.
Farrell is the ultimate backroom man, a powerbroker second to none when it comes to counting numbers.
That's not to suggest he's too shy to stand in front of the cameras, which is where he found himself this morning to talk up an eleventh-hour deal struck with the Coalition to overhaul electoral donation laws.
Crossbenchers have dubbed the new laws, which cap individual donations and the amount candidates and parties can spend, as a dirty deal struck between two parties in a political duopoly fearing their grip on power is under threat from independent candidates.
David Pocock joined with crossbench MPs to slam the deal Labor and the Coalition struck over political donations. (ABC News: Luke Stephenson)
Enter stage right, Zali Steggall, the OG teal independent-cum-journalist (at least for a couple of minutes this morning).
Like an enthusiastic audience at a Christmas panto, the journalists present had to offer a version of SHE'S BEHIND YOU as the Warringah MP took her place alongside the minister.
Like all well trained politicians in media performing, Farrell kept his eyes locked on the cameras as Steggall lobbed question after question his way.
A couple of nights earlier, the PM had extended a first-of-term invite to Steggall and fellow her fellow crossbenchers for evening drinks at his Canberra residence.
Add in his chats with Bob Katter in north Queensland last week and you could be forgiven for thinking this was a prime minister suddenly realising he might need some friends on the crossbench if the polls prove correct.
Australians could head to the polls in a federal election within months. So when will it be and what are the key seats in the battle to lead the country?
At the same time the PM was serving canapes, The Godfather was back at parliament stitching up a deal with the Coalition.
An irate Steggall on Thursday told journalists the crossbench had learned about the deal via the media, so she had no qualms making her frustrations with the minister clear with him in front of the cameras.
Farrell and his numbers won the day. Steggall, however, insists she'll be remembering if they come knocking after the election.
"That is the height of insult, and that doesn't bode well for having to work with an Albanese-led government in minority situation," she told RN Breakfast.
Next Tuesday will prove crucial in when the PM decides to call an election.
If the Reserve Bank cuts rates on Tuesday, Liberals are preparing for him to head to see the Governor-General as early as next Friday.
(A timely reminder that no one besides Albanese actually knows when the election will be).
But even without the starting gun being fired, the race is well and truly under way.
Just this week, Labor was busy governing. It announced half a billion dollars for women's health, got the banks to agree to keep their regional branches open for at least two years, relaxed home loan lending rules for people with student debt and pledged to take ownership of the regional airline Rex if a private buyer doesn't stump up.
It's also finally released the $2.2 billion it promised for Victoria ahead of the last election for a contentious suburban rail project (a rare piece of good news for a state Labor government still licking its wounds after a bruising by-election at the weekend that has sent terror through its federal counterparts).
As polling day approaches, there's been a noticeable shift in Labor's campaigning, with Queensland cabinet minister Anika Wells leading the way on social media posts.
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Both sides of politics have been sharpening their online messages and throwing convention out the window in the online effort to win voters.
But with boundaries being pushed, Labor was again reminded this week that old school rules of truth still apply.
The party put out a misleading video of Peter Dutton, in which it selectively edited comments he made a decade ago.
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The Nationals too found themselves in electoral advertising hot water.
Victorian MP Anne Webster, who represents the geographically large seat of Mallee in north west Victoria, has rented an office she plans to keep empty so she can plaster it with posters.
Webster insists she's done nothing wrong.
"Because we're going into a federal election, it just seems useful to have at least what I would be paying for in a billboard on an office front," she told the ABC.
Some political experts claim the tax-payer funded empty office is deceptive and could breach rules, assertions Webster rejects.
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Speaking of the Nats, Thursday morning brought with it quite the parliamentary scuttlebutt.
Barnaby Joyce is resigning! Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is moving from the NT to take his seat of New England!
Remember! She was in Tamworth for Australia Day, it was noted, a scene broadcast on this week's Australian Story on the senator, as if to suggest evidence of the impending move.
Rumours have long surrounded a possible moveo to the lower house for Jacinta Nampijinpa-Price.(ABC News: Matt Roberts)
As is so often the case with rumours in parliament, it wasn't to be, with Joyce affirming his plans to seek re-election.
It's not the first time Price has been linked to a Lower House move.
After the Voice referendum, the Jacinta for PM calls had her name being touted as a possible replacement for Liberals Scott Morrison in Cook and Warren Entsch in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt.
You get the sense it won't be the last time Price will be linked to a move to the Lower House.
For a few days, it was looking like former ABC chair Ita Buttrose was going to take home the week's hot mic prize.
Appearing in the Federal Court in the case between the national broadcaster and journalist Antoinette Lattouf, she was in no mood for the lines of questions she was facing.
Muttering "Jesus Christ" and reportedly rolling her eyes, a hot mic broadcast Buttrose's words not just throughout the court but to all watching the live broadcast.
Back in parliament, she wasn't to be outdone.
Sitting in the president's chair, Queenslander James McGrath was overseeing the Senate and (seemingly) let out a noise that needs to be heard to be believed.
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Whether it was a burp or a groan, it had more end of year late night vibes than the first sitting of the parliamentary year.
It was almost three years to the day, in the dying days of the Morrison government, that the Coalition found itself getting splintered from its own political wedge.
The Coalition's push to frame Labor as anti-religion came in the form of a religious discrimination legislation, which if enacted would have allowed religious schools to expel transgender students.
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Five of the Coalition's own MPs couldn't stomach it and crossed the floor, in an emotion-charged early morning vote that delivered the government an embarrassing defeat.
Fast forward to the dying days of this parliament and issues surrounding transgender children were again suddenly on the agenda, in the form of a Pauline Hanson proposal for a Senate healthcare inquiry.
The proposal was voted down but had the support of most Coalition senators, something Dutton was in no mood to talk about when he fronted a press conference earlier this week.
Continuing to highlight Labor's past critique of Donald Trump carries political risk for the Coalition. Not least because it ignores what's really driving those encouraging Trump to apply tariffs to Australia.
Dutton insisted senators were allowed a conscious vote on "that issue" and refused to say if he supported it.
Liberal Andrew Bragg split from his colleagues and voted against the inquiry. Speaking afterwards to the ABC's Afternoon Briefing, he said he was worried trans people were being targeted for political gain.
"I think some people see this as an opportunity to tee off on a minority group, to try and build up a particular following and I think that is very dangerous," he said.
Just last week, Nine newspapers reported Dutton had made clear to his shadow cabinet they were to focus on inflation and not distracting personal agendas.
Not to be outdone, Canberra's other parliament also isn't too shy for a a theatrical performance.
It started out rather seriously.
Canberra Liberal Peter Cain wanted to know why minister Marisa Paterson had not been made aware about a fine being imposed on a venue following the death of a patron. The minister insisted privacy laws prevented its disclosure.
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What came next was pretty standard politics.
Peter Cain: Minister, aren’t you, really, just throwing your regulator under the bus?
Marisa Paterson: No. I am demonstrating that the regulator is upholding the laws of the ACT.
Enter newly elected Liberal Deborah Morris, who wondered: "Minister, what else aren’t you being told about?"
After a pregnant pause a bemused minister replied: "I don't know."
If politics is show business for ugly people, Canberra certainly ain't Hollywood.
