AARON PATRICK: Cocky Anthony Albanese serves up ace over Angus Taylor’s speech

Everyone in the Canberra Bubble knows the rule: you don’t disclose what happened at mid-winter press gallery ball.

The charity and networking dinner is conducted off-the-record to allow the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition to engage in some gentle self mockery.

Which explains why Anthony Albanese’s pleasure was obvious when, in question time today, he was asked by a Liberal about an anti-Budget activist who secured a tennis match with the prime minister in a charitable auction at Wednesday evening’s event.

“If I was someone on that side, led by this leader of the opposition, I wouldn’t be mentioning last night,” Mr Albanese said, laughter erupting from his MPs. “I would pretend it was all a bad dream!

“I’m sure you were there, and many were, and we’re not supposed to talk about it, in spite of the fact he just came in and asked a question about it!”

The joke was on Angus Taylor, whose comedic delivery on Wednesday evening was poor, according to feedback from the press gallery.

Although affable in person, the former management consultant does not do self deprecation, an approach that might have loosened perceptions of his uptight reputation at a time of acute political vulnerability.

No AI in aged care

Mr Taylor’s defining quality is stoicism, and he sat through question time with the grim determination of a man trying to stay safe surrounded by people who would do him harm — and not all on the opposing side of the House of Representatives.

After Wednesday’s focus on economics and the Budget, question time shifted to aged care. The Coalition introduced a Bill in the Senate to ensure humans decide what financial help is provided to the elderly. It asked for the Government’s support, a request it knew was pointless.

The draft law is designed to curtail a computer program used by the public service, the Integrated Assessment Tool, which critics accuse of overriding human decisions.

Aged Care Minister Sam Rae responded with an answer that might have sounded, a couple of years ago, like science fiction. “There is no artificial intelligence in our aged care assessment system,” he said.

While the system is of acute concern to many older Australians and their families, Parliament didn’t seem interested. It wasn’t until the Coalition’s foreign affairs spokesman, Ted O’Brien, raised violence, borders and a pub that question time got spiky.

Mr O’Brien said a Border Force boat had been shot at in “recent weeks”, there was the biggest cocaine seizure in Australian history, and 12 people had arrived by boat, illegally, in far north Queensland and “managed to have a frothy at the pub before authorities detained them”.

“Why is the Albanese Government so weak in protecting Australia’s borders?” he asked.

Violence on the border

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke knows the best form of defence is attack, and attack he did.

“I am proud of our authorities when they intercept drugs,” he said. “Those opposite see a drug interception . . . as a problem for our authorities.”

Mr Burke then deployed a clever debating tactic: he praised the last Coalition government, in which Mr O’Brien never served, for controlling Australia’s borders. It was an attempt to shame Mr O’Brien for what the Labor minister said was the “aggression” in his question.

“It has been more than a decade since there has been a successful people-smuggling operation,” Mr Burke told the House.

The visa-less visitors reportedly arrived on Tuesday near Weipa and walked into a shopping centre, where they bought bread. By Thursday they had been removed from Australian territory, preserving the bipartisan success of blocking illegal access by sea.

As for the shooting, Mr Burke praised Border Force officers for doing their jobs in the face of gunfire, a compliment hard to quibble with.

That may be when he went too far. The Coalition, One Nation and the Greens decided this week in the Senate, where they can muster a majority, the Government should give them access to information about what is known as Operation Sovereign Borders, including commercial contracts.

Mr Burke argued the information would help people smugglers. “A hint on border protection: if the key question to the leader of the opposition is: ‘do you get your senators to vote with the Greens’, a warning in terms of where that leads.”

The advice was greeted with genuine laughter from Mr Taylor and the Opposition. For it was only a week ago that the Labor Government struck a deal with the Greens to pass the most controversial elements of this year’s Budget.

Consistency is more celebrated than practised in politics.

Tennis matches

Returning to the mid-winter ball question, Mr Albanese quickly worked out what was going on. A mortgage broker from Sydney and prolific online poster, Joseph Daoud, paid $16,500 for the prime ministerial tennis match to draw attention to his complaints about the Budget.

Which is why West Australian MP Ben Small asked: “So when Joseph gets to The Lodge, will the Prime Minister tell him why his word on negative gearing and capital gains taxes was broken, or will Joseph be served up another Labor tax hike?”

Mr Albanese answered, laughing, in a cocky mood. “The Leader of the Opposition mentioned him in his speech,” he said. “He’s obviously a mate and they think it’s very clever to do all this, and I’m quite happy that more money is going to charity.

“But let me make this point as well. If it’s a choice between someone who is in the sector somewhere and who’s got enough money to buy billboards and spend all this, or first-home buyers struggling to get into a home, I’m for the first-home buyers.

“I’m for the people who have nothing to give but their time. I’m for the people who work hard. I’m for the people who have a right to have the security of a roof over their heads.”

”Let me tell you this,” he said, looking at the Opposition, “the more they go down this road, the more aces we will serve up.”

The Prime Minister aced question time. He not only knew it, he boasted about it.