Coalition Govt will no longer have majority in lower house
CANBERRA: After two weeks of preaching his values, Scott Morrison is set for a baptism of fire in his first week in Parliament as prime minister.
The coalition will no longer have a majority in the Lower House and Labor is due to make the most of the fact.
With Malcolm Turnbull out of Parliament but not replaced, and National’s MP Keith Hogan promising to move to the crossbenches, the Government’s majority is down to just 74.
Labor is on 69 seats, with Emma Husar back from leave after she was investigated for bullying her staff. There are five crossbenchers.
The numbers mean Speaker Tony Smith may be required to vote with the Government to break voting deadlocks.
Opposition spokesman Andrew Leigh said Labor would be using question time to ask why the Liberal Party felt the need to dump Turnbull.
‘‘We still haven’t got a clear answer for that,’’ he told ABC TV yesterday.
He said Labor also would not let the Government forget about its move to close the House of Representatives early at the end of the last sitting fortnight, or that some ministers publicly backed Turnbull before supporting his downfall.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has said he is also prepared to defend his visa decisions in question time, as pres sure grows over revelations he granted visas to European nannies in 2015.
Morrison’s deputy, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, will not be by his side as the week starts.
Frydenberg will miss his first parliamentary sitting day in the new role, as September 10 marks Rosh Hashanah on the Jewish calendar.
He and fellow Liberal MP Julian Leeser will be absent today, along with Jewish Labor MPs Mark Dreyfus and Michael Danby.
In the Senate, the Government has uncontroversial legislation it is trying to get through — such as agedcare reforms — as it looks to minimise opportunities for Labor to cause problems.