3 weeks ago
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Updated February 3, 2026 — 6:26pm,first published 6:24pm
The Germans, true to form, have a word for it: schadenfreude. To take pleasure in someone else’s misfortune. It was the name of the game on Tuesday as Labor MPs taunted their political opponents about the shrivelled state of the opposition frontbench and the fact that one of the bedrocks of Australian politics - the Liberal-National coalition - has torn itself apart.
Grizzled Parliament House veterans will often sigh that, after a while, it’s difficult to find anything genuinely new in this building. Politics moves in cycles; budgets and election campaigns begin to blur; expenses scandals flare and fizzle out like firecrackers. The same ideas (ending negative gearing, raising the GST, going back to basics in education) circulate constantly like zombies, neither dead nor alive.
This question time offered something genuinely unusual and extraordinary: an opposition comprised solely of the Liberal Party, with the Nationals sitting on the crossbench. The opposition frontbench was emptier than a Manhattan screening of Melania; there was so much spare room that the Liberal blokes could man-spread with abandon. An entire green leather bench, usually packed with bodies, sat forlornly empty, untouched by a single centre-right buttock.
As for questions, the opposition’s share was slashed to reflect its shrunken size. The Nats were left to jostle for the dregs with independents and the Greens like seagulls scrapping over a soggy chip.
Such is the state of Australia’s parliamentary democracy in the year of 2026.
Anthony Albanese and his colleagues could have followed Michelle Obama’s advice and taken the high road. But why do that when you can take your political opponents’ despair and smear it all over their faces?
Albanese set the tone at the start when the manager of opposition business, Alex Hawke, rose to complain about Labor MPs yelling out when Sussan Ley exceeded her allocated time for a question.
“I do encourage my people to not yell out ‘time’,” Albanese shot back. “There’s enough behind her doing that at the moment.”
From there, Labor MPs served up more zingers than KFC at lunchtime as they competed to see who could land the lowest blow on the opposition. If the late Shane Warne had been watching he would have been impressed by the sledging on display.
“They make the Beckhams look like a happy family,” jibed Education Minister Jason Clare, who is regularly deployed by Labor as a cheerful attack dog during election campaigns.
“They’re like a couple who bought a non-refundable holiday, and then they broke up, and now they’ve just got to sit there and suffer through it.”
Transport Minister Catherine King attracted laughs from her colleagues when she yelled “I can’t hear you from over there” at Nationals interjecting from their new seats in the bleachers. So did Energy Minister Chris Bowen when he committed to a lengthy bit about the number of electric batteries that have been installed in the electorates of the various conservative leadership contenders (trust me, you had to be there).
Health Minister Mark Butler berated Angus Taylor for continuing to sit on the opposition frontbench while stalking Ley’s leadership.
He also offered a helpful reminder about the importance of prostate check-ups, a task that may have struck some Liberal and National MPs as a more enjoyable way to spend their time than participating in this particular question time.
Even Treasurer Jim Chalmers - who should have been under pressure given the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate during question time - felt free to get several digs in.
“I thank the shadow treasurer, Mr Speaker, who is also now, I’m told, the shadow assistant treasurer,” he said in response to a question from Ted O’Brien who, oddly, holds both roles in Ley’s new-look Nats-free frontbench.
“They found the only bloke over there who could work with him, Mr Speaker, and they’re still not convinced there won’t be leaking of private conversations.”
Having stuck the boot in, Chalmers shifted to moral umbrage when Ley asked an off-beam question about Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson voting in favour of rising the cash rate.
“I think it reflects a level of desperation on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition that she would go after a wonderful public servant in the way she just has,” he intoned.
There was a ragged, slightly feral, energy. The Liberals’ only Melbourne MP, Tim Wilson, was kicked out for poor behaviour, as was Nationals MP Alison Penfold, reducing the parties’ tiny numbers even further.
Yet there were flickers of humanity amid the mudslinging. Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack carried a glass of water across the chamber to Liberal MP Tony Pasin. Perhaps there is hope for peace in our time between the former Coalition partners after all.
