“It’s a different parliament these days,” Anthony Albanese says of his next term in government. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Dust is still settling on the federal election, but the cheers from public servants are still reverberating not just in Canberra but across the nation.
The Australian Public Service was in for a bumpy ride if the Coalition had somehow emerged victorious Saturday night, with mass sackings in store as well as a government that, by and large, was intent on treating it with contempt.
With Anthony Albanese and Labor returned to office, however, the APS can now expect to be treated with a reasonable level of respect and dignity, and without a gutting of its employee numbers.
It won’t be all plain sailing for public servants – Labor ministers can be just as testy with agency bosses as any other stripe of political master can be – as the government returns refreshed and determined to implement its agenda.
“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves. Can I make this point?” the Prime Minister said to journalists on Monday (5 May).
“One of the things that will make this term, I think, satisfying — and which raises the prospect of further progress, rather than protest — is the fact that [when we came to office last term] the bureaucracy had been gutted.”
The PM pointed to Robodebt and neglect shown towards immigration, aged care and Veterans’ Affairs systems as examples of how the former Coalition government dropped the ball in relation to the bureaucracy.
“We’ve done a lot of work and I think we have a positive agenda that we were elected on,” Mr Albanese said.
Parliament, however, is not set to return until after 30 June, when the current senate term expires, and the PM is in no rush to bring it back earlier.
He is claiming his mandate and getting on with it, he says.
High on the priority list is implementing his housing affordability and accessibility plans and building more homes.
The housing spokesmen for both the Coalition and the Greens lost their seats in the election.
“I note both the Coalition and the Greens’ housing spokespeople won’t be in the parliament,” Mr Albanese said.
“I think part of the reason is they held up public housing, they held up emergency housing for women and children escaping violence. They held up our build-to-rent scheme. They held up our Help-to-Buy scheme.
“I say this message to the Senate and members of the House of Representatives — we have a clear mandate to build more housing … I’m very confident that we have a mandate for that. We can’t have been clearer. If the Senate gets in the way of that, then they’ll receive the same response the housing spokespeople for the Liberal Party and the Greens got on Saturday.”
As the blame game continues within Coalition ranks, the possibility has risen that the Nationals (which did comparatively well compared to their ‘senior’ Coalition partner) might want a little timeout from the Liberal Party.
Nationals and regionally based Liberal MPs will now outnumber Liberals from capital city seats in the House of Representatives.
Labor’s numbers will swamp the combined Coalition parties.
So when the Prime Minister was asked if the same level of parliamentary staffing and resources would be allocated to Coalition parties if they had a temporary break from each other, he was quite pragmatic about it.
“It’s a different parliament these days, and so we’ll consider all of that,” he said.
“I have always treated both the Liberal Party and their leader and the National Party and their leader with respect.”
Mr Albanese then suggested he was never afforded much respect as Opposition Leader when Scott Morrison was Prime Minister.
“I went into [the Prime Minister’s office in Parliament House] on day one in 2019, the day that parliament began — that was the last time I went in until I went in as Prime Minister in 2022.
“I haven’t got a record of how many times Peter Dutton went into my office, but it would be probably in the order, certainly at least 20 to 30 times. David Littleproud, double digits as well.
“I treat people with respect. It’s not rhetoric, it’s real.”
So, on offer from the Federal Government is respect for the voting public, respect for the public service, and respect for the Federal Opposition.
Can all this really be sustained?
Probably not, but let’s enjoy the love-in while it lasts because things will get ugly. They always do.
