Heat rises in Coalition's summer of discontent |
Sussan Ley started 2026 much like she ended 2025 – extending her tenuous hold on the Liberal Party leadership by politicising tragedy.
Ley, and others in her increasingly small circle, mistook Josh Frydenberg’s win in forcing the Albanese government to call a royal commission into the events that led to Bondi as a personal victory.
It became obvious that was a mistake almost as soon as it happened. The Liberals may have found brief unity in a feverish lust of blaming the government, and anti-genocide protesters, for the actions of deranged terrorists, but that unity was never going to hold.
After losing the summer, Anthony Albanese is playing the long game. In throwing together a little of what everyone wanted into a bill no one wanted, he got to say he tried.
It is a well-worn Australian political tactic – wielding power through failure: “We tried to do something, and just couldn’t and that’s someone else’s fault” becomes the narrative, with the focus then shifting to who is not letting the government do as it wishes, rather than the government’s failure to find the support it needs to get it through.
In this case, Labor itself didn’t want the “something” it was attempting to do. It played a high stakes game with liberties to own the right, aided by the Greens, who saw the lay of the land and made the smart choice.
Now Ley must own the Coalition walking away from legislation it said it wanted, while the government gets to pretend it tried to meet its expectations.
In more crass terms, Ley f–ked around. Now she’s finding out.
It would be wrong to assume that a bad summer for Albanese (and no one can deny it was bad) meant a good summer for Ley and the Coalition. Ley got a brief reprieve from her leadership........