By the end of the sitting day on Thursday, it was all smiles for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. For the modest sum of $500 million towards social housing, he had corralled the Greens into voting with the federal government on a long list of legislation, from an overhaul of the running of the Reserve Bank to the Future Made in Australia program and changes to superannuation.

The prime minister already knew that for another set of bills – the inchoate social media ban for children under 16, and draconian amendments to the Migration Act – he could count on the support of the opposition. Mocking its leader Peter Dutton on the floor of the House on Thursday, Albanese could be heard saying: “You’re not being aggressive enough”. But the two men seem to have wedged each other into a perpetual........

© The Age