Labor wasn't having a great week — until Albanese stepped into his courtyard like a man who remembered he had options

Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where political correspondent Brett Worthington gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.

You could be forgiven for thinking the federal government had no option but to negotiate with the opposition to get things done.

Whether it's the stalled efforts to overhaul the Reserve Bank or introduce nature protection laws, Labor has been crying foul that the Coalition won't come to the party.

But the Senate crossbench is there, more than willing to negotiate with Labor to get its promises through the parliament.

Heck, Labor could even get an outright ban on online gambling ads through the parliament, reforms its backbench is calling for, if only it could convince Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland to get on board. 

As the week dragged on, it was starting to look as if passing Labor's legislative agenda through parliament was all becoming too hard.

Until Albanese popped out into his courtyard this afternoon, flanked by Aged Care Minister Anika Wells and Treasurer Jim Chalmers, to announce Labor had landed a long-anticipated deal with the Coalition that will see older Australians pay more for their residential care.

The changes will save government coffers billions, as people entering care pay larger means-tested contributions, in return for greater at-home care for others. 

The deal provided a parliamentary week ending sweetener for a government having to reassess the fights it's willing to pick with an election now firmly within sights.

Chalmers, having lambasted the Coalition at the collapse of talks to make changes to the RBA, ended the week following through on his threat to negotiate with the Greens, a crossbench party that has repeatedly said its door remained open.

Chalmers had said he wanted bi-partisanship with the Coalition to ensure RBA changes could be implemented for the long-term.

Having already kicked religious religious discrimination and protections for queer students and teachers into the long grass, doubts were growing within parts of Labor that controversial items would now have to wait in hope that it could be deal with in a second term.

It's not as if Labor can't find the votes to pass changes it's seeking. It's that it's choosing not to cut a deal with the Greens so close to an election. 

"I don't believe the Greens and the government can arrive at a position that wouldn't destroy the Labor Party in WA," Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said of the prospect of Labor and the Greens doing a deal over nature protection laws.

"I don't think the prime minister is going to take that risk, is my political judgement."

Veterans families hoping they won't be waiting as long

It's worth remembering that it took a royal commission into the aged care sector pressure the federal government to act.

Given to the Coalition government back in 2021, it's taken a change of government and three years for some of the recommendations to now be acted upon.

The families of veterans who committed suicide are hoping it won't take as long to see changes in the Defence Force, following this week's release of the royal commission final report. 

That report was scathing, saying that Australian troops had for too long been let down by failures of government and ADF leadership. 

Royal Commission chairman Nick Kaldas said for too long blind eyes were turned because the issues within the ADF seemed insurmountable to solve.

Parliament's guess who game

If you needed proof of how distracted Australia's political class was by Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's US presidential debate this week, look no further than the scenes that played out on Wednesday when a nondescript email landed in inboxes across the country. 

The subject line read: "Weekly update on the work of the Commission" and its contents seemingly went unreported for hours. 

As it turned out, this was far more than any ordinary update from the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), with the revelation that six current or former politicians were under investigation.

The details were scant. 

The politician probes form part of the 29 corruption investigations launched in the NACC's first year. Of them, 26 are still ongoing and three are into current or former parliamentary staff. 

Cue the latest round of sweepstakes to guess who will have the dishonour of being the first politician, well, knackered. 

To that the NACC has urged punters to cool their jets. 

"In considering them, it is important to remember that most corruption investigations do not ultimately result in a finding of corrupt conduct," the NACC stated. 

Breaking up the big red roo

There's been no love lost between Nationals frontbencher Bridget McKenzie and the bosses of Qantas for sometime now.

Last September, McKenzie clashed with Qantas's Andrew Finch in a heated Senate inquiry about air service agreements. 

To observers, Finch made the same mistake no shortage of blokes have fallen for over the years — assuming McKenzie would buckle under pressure. 

In the year since, McKenzie has threatened former boss Alan Joyce could be jailed for failing to front her inquiry and repeatedly smashed the airline for its prices and reliability.

It was perhaps unsurprising then that on Monday, writing in the Australian Financial Review, she called for divestiture powers that could force Qantas to sell its low-cost airline Jetstar. McKenzie pointed to a Treasury review that found when Jetstar was in the market, Qantas hiked its prices.

The ink was barely dry on her op-ed before her leader, David Littleproud, was shooting down the idea as Coalition policy.

As Finch was reminded in that committee last year, McKenzie isn't a dill. She didn't explicitly call for Qantas to be forced to sell Jetstar but she wasn't losing sleep if people were left with that impression. 

"I'm just going to say that I am on the side of Australian travellers and the Coalition is too," she told reporters after Littleproud's intervention.

The irony of Keep the Sheep

Farmers and truckies rallied outside Parliament House on Tuesday,  bringing with them their Keep the Sheep campaign.

It's a campaign that sprung up out of the federal government following through on its long-held plans to phase out live sheep exports within four years.

Having taken the commitment to two elections, the government has found itself in the odd position of being criticised for following through on something it said it would do.

"We knew this was coming but we never thought the government would be stupid enough to actually follow through with it," WA sheep producer Steve McGuire said back in May. 

"We underestimated them."

A bemused Labor MP joked this week that keeping the sheep was exactly what Labor was doing by ending their export, but we digress. 

An unlikely ally

No shortage of Coalition figures took to the stage outside Parliament House to voice their support for live sheep exports. Among them were the Liberal and National candidates vying to win the new WA seat of Bullwinkel.

A surprising edition on the stage was the deputy Coalition leader Sussan Ley, who as a backbencher six years ago led a charge to end live sheep exports. Ley says her opinion has changed but you can still find on her website the case for ending the trade.

With the rally over, the farmers caused a stir inside Parliament House after they made a point of walking out of question time. 

Independent MP Zali Steggall, in attempting to raise concerns that a member of the delegation had "flipped the bird" at the politicians as they walked out, fell foul of the Coalition when she described the person as a "gentleman in jeans, black T-shirt, overweight and bald".

Flipping the bird, it seemed was OK, but calling someone overweight proved a bridge too far.

Ley was quick on her feet, describing Steggall's remarks as "disgraceful" and "body shaming".

Doth protest too much?