Coalition and Greens unite to be a thorn in the government’s side

Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Courtney Gould gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.

As parting messages go, Jonno Duniam's was upbeat as he urged his colleagues not to wave the white flag in the battle against a rising One Nation.

It was a packed crowd for the Tasmanian Liberal senator's valedictory speech as he said farewell to the chamber he's spent the last decade serving.

Many, including Labor's Katy Gallagher, tried to convince Duniam to stay on after he came to realise the toll the job was having on him and his family following the Liberal leadership contest earlier this year.

As Angus Taylor watched on, Duniam's final speech addressed — without naming — One Nation's accession in the polls. He urged the Coalition not to stray too far from its roots as it tries to claw back support that's fallen away to Pauline Hanson's party.

"My party can give Australians what they need, not by pretending to be someone else or seeking to appease certain actors but by returning to our roots — by backing in [our values] with conviction … and explaining why it is better than the alternative," he told the chamber on Wednesday.

The question of how to tackle One Nation has plagued the opposition for the better half of the year, with some suggesting the way forward is to strike up preference deals with the party.

Others — such as the man Duniam called a "brother", Andrew Hastie — think the party should confront the issue head on.

Duniam said he could not deny the impact several election losses had, but insisted the challenge wasn't insurmountable.

"My party has been around for decades. It isn't populist. It isn't flash in the pan. It is here to stay," he said.

"Sure, we may have spent some time in the wilderness, but we have our bearings now and I know we will be able to get back over there into government."

Public shaming and Powderfinger

Small business frustration with the government has been pretty easy pickings for the Coalition.

The minister in charge, Anne Aly, was the target for much of the week, as the Coalition singled her out as a weak link. Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell went too far when she declared Aly, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, should be "shamed and stoned" over the ATO's decision.

She later conceded it was a poor choice of words after Aly, the first Muslim woman elected to federal parliament, shared that she'd received 19 death threats that week couched in similar language. The opposition quickly dismissed criticism the remarks were "racist and misogynistic" as a distraction from Aly's performance as minister.

The backlash over changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, the ATO credit card ban and now the fight over discretionary trusts are adding up.

As David Speers wrote this morning, it's not been an easy couple of months for Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

The result is a jittery caucus. The prime minister tried to calm the farm this week by reviving an old slogan.

He reminded Labor it wanted to "kick with the wind in the fourth quarter" — a phrase he repeated a lot when caucus was equally anxious back when he was opposition leader.

The prime minister didn't help matters by giving the impression he made a captain's call on the ATO's credit card ban after a text message from a business leader.

Chalmers denied he'd been rolled. Albanese had to walk back the statement in question time when Taylor asked how much longer he was going to "humiliate" his treasurer.

"The whole premise of it is completely wrong," he said.

It wasn't just tension between Albanese and Chalmers on show: an old colleague came back to haunt the Liberal Party this week.

The reemergence of Josh Frydenberg, and the unanswered question of whether his recent memoir was just the first step in a mooted comeback, frustrated some within the party.

Overall, the Liberals gave the former treasurer a pretty lukewarm response. If he can win preselection and be successful in 2028, then he's welcome to join Taylor's frontbench, Deputy leader Jane Hume said.

Garth Hamilton, a backbencher from Queensland, was less excited about the prospect.

"The only comeback I'm interested in seeing at the moment is Powderfinger," he told Afternoon Briefing.

Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't

It's not just tax changes giving the government headaches. When it comes to a contentious wind back of a Howard-era private health insurance rebate, it appears Labor is well and truly up against it.

It wants to scale back the rebate Australians aged 65 and over receive on private health cover from next year. The changes would bank $3 billion that would then be spent elsewhere in the aged care sector.

But the bill is pretty friendless. Partially because it'll capture more Australians than first flagged, but also because about $1.6 billion of the forecast savings would be clawed back from pensioners.

The Coalition isn't for turning on this one; it'll oppose it to the bitter end, and as my colleague Stephanie Dalzell foreshadowed last week, the Greens aren't fans either. While they're against private health of any kind, they also don't want to be taking away benefits from pensioners.

Anyone closely watching this, i.e the government, shouldn't have been surprised when the Coalition and Greens teamed up with independent Jacqui Lambie to have the bill struck off the parliamentary agenda on Wednesday.

In her typical bluster, Lambie urged Health Minister Mark Butler not to reintroduce the bill.

She warned if he carried on "like a two-year-old" and did so anyway; the Senate would just "slap" it back down. Butler re-introduced the exact same bill again.

In his valedictory address, Duniam compared the Senate to a French film: sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't.

As the fight over private health showed this week, the chamber does have a flare for drama.

With three sitting weeks left, the dramatics will be on show as the government tries to negotiate its way through before the parliament rises for the year.