There’s plenty of ritual in Budget week. The lock-up, the speech, the mayhem that descends on the building. It used to involve serious policy conversations from the Opposition as well. But I guess not all traditions survive.

Here’s the 5&5.

BEST

A very special Budget reading from Jim
We're strengthening Medicare 💪
Mary Doyle making history
The Prime Minister’s touching tribute
The Opposition's not so 'tactful' question

WORST

Opposition? More like 'flip flopposition'
Sussan Ley's strange world
Pat Conaghan's 'why' blunder
Dutton's undrinkable Budget reply cocktail
The Greens voted against social housing

1. By now you’ve seen plenty of material and had a few emails about what was in the Budget. So there’s one thing that you might have missed. The Budget speech this year from Jim Chalmers was pretty special. The final paragraphs in particular talk about enduring Labor values and how the Commonwealth should have a common purpose. It’s worth a look.

2. Medicare. We built it, and we’ll always back it. This week we strengthened it further, by tripling the bulk billing incentive and delivering the biggest increase to Medicare rebates since Paul Keating was Prime Minister. As Mark Butler told Question Time on Thursday: this will be a “game changer”.

3. Mary Doyle made history this week when she was sworn in as the new Member for Aston. Not only is she the first Labor MP in the seat for more than three decades. She’s also the first candidate from a Government party to win a seat off the Opposition in over one hundred years. Her first speech was brilliant. “My backstory is one riddled with challenges. Families doing it tough in Aston, families like mine growing up, don’t need a pat on the head and a pitying look. What we need is good policy, and to be taken seriously. We are not a political football to be kicked around at election time.”

4. Some speeches just bring the House to a standstill. That’s exactly what happened during the Prime Minister’s condolence motion for Yolngu elder Yunupingu this week. “Yunupingu walked in two worlds with authority, power and grace, and he worked to make them whole—together. What he could see was not the reinvention of Australia but the realisation of a greater one.”

5. The Opposition thought it would be a good idea to ask the PM about infrastructure during Question Time on Thursday. Great move! No one in history has held the infrastructure portfolio - in Government and in Opposition - as long as Anthony Albanese. They apparently have a committee with the title ‘tactics’ - but maybe no one attends?

1. We know the Opposition don’t like the Budget – but we’re still trying to figure out why. This week Angus Taylor said we should be spending less, while Sussan Ley said we should be spending more. Dan Tehan was arguing that immigration numbers were too high, while the PM had quotes from David Littleproud arguing the government had been too slow to increase migration numbers. They also opposed our energy bill relief last year and are now claiming that they always supported it. As long as they’re saying “no” they seem to be happy, even if they’re saying “no” to each other.

2. Sussan Ley asked Anika Wells a question that was completely out of order and nothing to do with her portfolio, but Anika didn’t object and gave an answer that Sussan Ley absolutely hated. When responding Anika destroyed the claim that the Budget didn’t deliver for people in the middle. She went through the list - cheaper medicines, cheaper early childhood education, more access to bulk billing, energy price relief and better wages. I don’t know, maybe in Sussan Ley world people in the middle don’t have children, don’t require medicines and don’t use electricity or gas. It’s a strange world, but it appears to be where Sussan Ley lives.

3. When the Opposition asks a question they get 30 seconds. They’ve taken to asking questions with really long preambles that tell a story. Poor old Pat Conaghan mucked up his timing so badly that the only word he got in before the microphone was cut off, that could even be seen as vaguely a question, was “why?” So the PM stands up, where in the only question he has been asked is “why?” And here’s what followed ↙

4. You’ve already seen in the media that Peter Dutton’s Budget reply speech was a cocktail of cruelty and division, with a dash of emptiness. What was missing in the speech was a record that Mark Butler brought together perfectly in Question Time all week. When he was Health Minister Peter Dutton tried to kill bulk billing so that nobody – that’s right, nobody – would be able to go to the doctor for free. There’s a reason doctors voted him the worst Health Minister Australia has ever had.

5. Parliament matters. It’s not some university debating society. I was stunned to see the Greens Party voting against our legislation to provide more social housing this week. Julie Collins made the case every day in the Parliament, arguing for tens of thousands of new social and affordable rental homes. Senate Leader Penny Wong put it bluntly. “Your spokesperson on housing is now prioritising media attention from stunts and obstruction over housing for women and kids fleeing domestic violence … This man’s ego matters more than housing for women fleeing domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness.”

We’re back in two weeks where the Reps will be sitting and our senators will be working flat out in Senate estimates.

‘til then,

Tony

PS. I never suspected that Annie Lennox would have written the Question Time theme for the Opposition, but in title, lyrics and tone you’ll see why the song of the week is ‘Why?’

5&5: Tell me why