The Turnbull Government yesterday cancelled a full week of parliamentary sittings. The decision shocked some of its own MPs and has clearly angered Labor, the Greens and some crossbench MPs.
The move is being labelled as an act of survival by the Turnbull Government, which has already lost Barnaby Joyce and John Alexander, and could lose more of its numbers to the dual citizenship fiasco.
Lower House MPs will now have until 8pm Tuesday 5 December rather than 1 December to make disclosures to the Parliament about their citizenship status. The 1 December deadline still applies for all members of the Senate.
This decision leaves just two days to push through the same-sex marriage legislation and, if more dual citizens are revealed amongst the Coalition ranks, will deny Labor the chance to trigger a no confidence motion against the Government. Furthermore, any Coalition dual-citizen who are revealed could have their matters resolved through by-elections before the House returns on 5 February 2018.
Mr Turnbull took the opportunity yesterday to move the conversation away from corporate tax cuts and instead flagged tax cuts for millions of Australians in the next federal budget.
What do you think? Has the Turnbull administration entered survival mode? Is the delay in sitting a stroke of genius that shores up the Government’s position at least until the House returns in February?
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