Folks! Folks! As the Liberal Party continues its tailspin into oblivion, with rumours suggesting that the inevitable leadership contest will be between Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison, a pesky issue reared its head: how do they do government while they’re bickering? The answer became quickly clear: just adjourn Parliament for two weeks. Simple!
The House of Representatives voted to adjourn Parliament, which would let them dodge a potentially hairy Question Time. Why would Question Time be difficult? Well, they may have to answer questions about what the hell is going on. Also, it’s no longer clear who has what job – awkward!
It was a narrow win for the Coalition – 70-68. The House will now be adjourned until the 10th of September, at which point we’ll probably have a new prime minister.
70/68 the motion to ‘put the vote’ is lost -now to the substantive vote. It will be lost too. Sad!
— Cathy McGowan AO (@Indigocathy) August 23, 2018
Speakers for the Labor Party were very, very aggressive in calling out the government for the chaos they have inaugurated with their insane internal battles. Here’s manager of opposition business Tony Burke:
What is happening right now is that the government have decided that this place has fallen apart so completely that they are dissolving the parliament for the day, entirely. There will be no question time today because they don’t know who their minister is.
And here’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek:
The proposition that we would close down the Parliament of Australia because they can’t organise themselves to work out who the Prime Minister is going to be – it’s a shock to the people of Australia, who deserve so much better.
But they succeeded, ladies and gentlemen. Now they have the whole afternoon to work out who is actually leading our country. Wonderful!
