The term “born to rule” often gets thrown around about the Liberals and Nationals. But it’s not just a label. Turns out it’s true. There is nothing they won’t try to wreck if they don’t get to be in charge. This week the way they tried to trash every convention of the Parliament was like nothing I’ve seen before.

In case you’ve missed it, the 5&5 is now a podcast as well. This week’s guest is Anika Wells - Minister for Aged Care and Sport.

Here’s the 5&5.

BEST

We introduced our Closing Loopholes Bill
The PM's movie recommendation
Has Fletch been demoted?
Sussan Ley's conspiracy theory
Tanya and the RoboNats

WORST

Truly awful behaviour from the public gallery
It's like the Opposition WANT to make mistakes
A dissent motion against the Speaker!?
Peter (double sided) Dutton
Angus Taylor struggles

1. On Monday I introduced the Closing Loopholes Bill - the next stage of our workplace relations reform. Last year’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay laws were all about increasing pay and conditions for Australian workers. This year’s Bill is about closing the loopholes that undercut pay and conditions. The Bill will criminalise wage theft, set minimum standards for workers in the gig economy, provide a pathway to secure work for people who’ve been forced to work as casuals, and close the labour hire loophole. The Libs and the Nats just had to look at the name of the Bill to know they’d be voting against it.

2. The PM had a very funny dig at Barnaby Joyce during Question Time on Monday. While answering a question on aviation - he reminded the House of the heady days of the Turnbull-Joyce, Turnbull-McCormack, Morrison-McCormack, Morrison-Joyce governments - describing Barnaby’s second go at being Deputy Prime Minister as “the sequel no-one asked for”.

3. Paul Fletcher’s title might be “Manager of Opposition Business”, but he was really struggling with the management part of that on Tuesday. Opposition members like Luke Howarth and Rowan Ramsey were taking it upon themselves to jump on points of order. Mark Butler had a great interjection. “Looks like it’s open mic day. Please don’t give us karaoke!”

4. Sussan Ley and the Opposition were back on their weird conspiracy theory about the length of the Uluru Statement from the Heart this week. On Tuesday she asked the Prime Minister whether it was in fact a one page document. Here’s how he responded: “Wait until they reveal the secret verses of 'You're the Voice' by John Farnham! Wait until they find them! They are out there somewhere! There's a 10-minute bagpipe solo in there; it goes on and on and on.” By the way, if you haven’t read the Uluru Statement yet - you can check it out here. It’s an incredible piece of writing.

5. Tanya Plibersek has a great line during Question Time on Wednesday. While answering a question from Louise Miller-Frost on the Murray Darling Basin - the Nats kept interjecting. Tanya responded. “Mr Speaker, I hear the interjections. The National Party like to say they were on track to deliver the plan. Well, on their rate of progress, we would get there around the year 3000! We'd have robot dogs, bionic humans and the National Party water Minister lugging the last buckets of water down to the Murray-Darling Basin.”

1. On Monday we saw some truly awful behaviour in the public galleries of the House. More than a hundred people – supposedly from a pharmacy group – jeered and booed during Question Time, egged on by the Opposition. When the Speaker had them removed from the galleries apparently they turned even nastier, verbally abusing staff. The House is a robust place, I get that. But we have to make sure that the people who are employees of Parliament House have a safe workplace.

2. I can never work out if the Opposition actively tries to make mistakes in the House. I don’t know if it's incompetence but at least it's consistent, I'll give them that. On Monday Paul Fletcher tried to delay debate on our Closing Loopholes Bill. Not content with a decade in Government where they deliberately kept wages low – they’re still trying in Opposition. But in doing so on Monday it meant he chewed up time set aside for the first speech of the new Liberal Member for Fadden. It never occurred to me that the Opposition might run interference on the first speech of one of their own members!

3. Dissent motions are rare and they’re meant to be a big deal. In fact no-one’s moved one against a Speaker since Bronwyn Bishop was there, actually participating in debate from the chair. Everybody around the chamber – Government members, the crossbench, most of the media and about half the Opposition backbench – looked really confused when out of the blue Paul Fletcher moved dissent in a ruling by Speaker Milton Dick. Catherine King was being precisely relevant to a question that had just been asked by Michael McCormack. So there was never anything in it. The speeches that followed were hopeless beyond belief.

In the role of Manager of Opposition Business there is no moment for you like when you decide to reach the crescendo of a dissent motion. This was like trying to reach a crescendo armed with a pair of maracas. Andrew Hastie followed and instead of a speech he just started reading out questions that had been asked in Question Time and saying answers hadn’t been good enough. In fact he kept going through their Question Time pack and started reading out questions that hadn’t even been asked yet. Peter Dutton then had a go. I started my remarks explaining what an honour it was to follow not just the leader of the Liberal Party, but also the former future leader of the Liberal Party. A whole lot of their questions had been complaining about the fact that Catherine King had consulted before she’d made a decision.

I had this to say about consultation: “I'm not surprised they are shocked that Ministers do that these days. It used to be the case that a Minister wouldn't even have to talk to colleagues, because the Prime Minister could just talk to a mirror and have the whole cabinet present! They were all there! Who needed stakeholders? Who needed anyone to consult with? The Prime Minister of the day could just have a quiet chat with himself.”

4. On Tuesday Peter Dutton stood up on indulgence in the House to offer his bipartisan support for the PM’s trip to ASEAN, saying that it should be above politics. But come Question Time on Wednesday – the very next day – he was mocking the PM for the same trip. Richard Marles summed it up perfectly.

“But what yesterday revealed the most was the character of the Leader of the Opposition. Yes, there was the trademark anger, the want to wreck. But what we now know is that the value of the Leader of the Opposition's word lasts for precisely 24 hours. What he says today is literally meaningless tomorrow. When the Leader of the Opposition says that there is an issue above politics, what the Australian people now know is that he's only ever about the politics. In that, as his position as the leader of his party actually denotes, he is the genuine heir of the Morrisonian legacy.”

5. Angus Taylor struggles. On Thursday Jim Chalmers again called out the fact that Angus never asks him a question: “The shadow Treasurer does have the MPI today, and it's a reminder that he gives the press conferences before Question Time and the speeches after Question Time but never in prime time.” Turns out Angus didn’t even want to make the speech after Question Time. There’d been a disagreement on the Opposition frontbench as to whether Angus Taylor should give the scheduled speech that would start the MPI, or Peter Dutton who was listed after the MPI should be the next person to speak. Angus lost the argument. But rather than look like he didn’t want to speak, he thought the easiest thing would be if the Speaker threw him out. So he started acting up and being disorderly. Everyone realised what he was up to and laughed when the Speaker decided – in the interests of the dignity of the House – to keep him in.

Next, just before he was due to speak, he hurriedly scuttled out of the chamber. Which is somewhat different to the old Christopher Pyne description of leaving the chamber like a gazelle. So when it came to whether the debate would occur at all – which was meant to start with Angus – the Opposition didn’t stand up for their own motion. Every Government member stood up and said “let’s have the debate”. This makes Angus Taylor the first MP since federation to walk out on his own speech.

Parliament’s back next week - I’ll write to you then.

‘til then,

Tony

PS. I hope you’ve seen the ad already, but if you haven’t seen it - watch it. Here’s the perfect way to watch John Farnham’s “You’re the Voice” in the ad for the Yes campaign.

5&5: They’re just not very good