Laura Tingle on the PM, Trump and Xi

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Today the Australian people have voted for Australian values.

Government is always formed in a sensible centre, but our Liberal Party reflects a range of views.

Politics is the brutal game of arithmetic, but no one's going to vote for you who don't stand for something.

We've always been about the planet, but we've got to make sure that people have their daily needs met.

People are starting to see that there is actually a different way of doing politics.

Welcome to the party room.

I'm Brett Worthington, joining you from Ngunnawal Country here in Canberra, filling in for PK.

And I'm Jade McMillan on the Gadigal Land of the Eura Nation here in Sydney, filling in for Fran.

Brett, we both have some big shoes to fill today.

But we're getting the band back together, Jade.

We used to sit next to each other at Parliament House and then you left me.

We are.

I'm very excited to be reuniting with you, old Parliament House pals.

I left Canberra to head to Washington, where I've spent a few years as the Bureau Chief but back in Australia and very happy to be here.

This week we've got to kick things off with the Prime Minister's visit to China.

This was a six-day trip across three cities.

Anthony Albanese has really been trying to frame this visit as a very positive and constructive one.

President Xi and I agreed that dialogue must be at the centre of our relationship.

We also discussed our economic relationship, which is critical to Australia.

We snapped a lunch invite from the Chinese president.

He seemed pretty chuffed by renditions of Powderfinger and Paul Kelly and I think Midnight Oil at a state dinner.

Powderfinger as well.

They did

the full kit and caboodle.

But as we know, these trips are very delicate diplomatic exercises.

There's, of course, a balancing act here between Australia's economic and security interests.

And right from the outset, we really saw the United States looming pretty heavily over this trip.

So we're going to chat to the ABC's global affairs editor Laura Tingle in just a bit.

She's been travelling with the Prime Minister and she'll give us her insights and analysis from the ground.

Yeah, I'm determined to not take it personally because Laura too has left me here in the Parliament House Bureau.

So I'm getting a bit of a sense of hearing about it, people.

It's not big.

I promise.

I'm really looking forward to hearing from Laura.

But while the Prime Minister has been overseas, Jade, back home, we are continuing to see this awful story around childcare continue to be in the headlines.

And this week, we've seen the Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare,

reinforcing that the government will look to rush legislation through the parliament next week when we see it meeting for the first time.

This is the biggest stick that the Commonwealth has to wield here.

If we get this legislation right, it won't mean that we're shutting centres down.

It'll mean that we're lifting standards up.

One of the interesting parts of the broader fallout that we're seeing here is that both sides of politics are recognising that they've both got to carry the can.

This is not a labor problem, it's not a problem of the last government.

We're all bearing responsibility for this.

It's been a decade since there were recommendations about the ways in which, federally, you could overhaul the working with children check system to make sure that they were nationally consistent.

And then now you've got these inconsistencies that exist.

And today, we are again seeing reports about the gaps that exist between state and federal, the ways in which you report who is working within childcare sectors, who then is moving throughout different regions.

and there is a clear push federally to make sure that some of those loopholes are looked to be neatened up.

So when the parliament comes back, there will be that rare bipartisanship that we might see right from the start and probably tripartisanship because even you've seen large parts of the parliament is indicating that there is need for urgent action here, things like stripping funding to childcare centres that don't meet regulations and trying to make sure that standards are improved right across the country.

Yeah, I mean this has just been such a horrific situation for parents and it seems like every few days there is another development that is just really hard to get your head around.

But Brett, as you pointed to there, and I think as PK and Fran have discussed previously, this is a pretty complex and complicated issue for governments to tackle because while the Commonwealth provides funding and the Education Minister is now sort of through this legislation, threatening to cut off funding to operators that aren't doing the right thing, the states and territories are the ones that are mainly responsible for enforcement and regulation.

So how effective do you think this move from the federal government would be and is there anything else that still needs to be done?

Yeah, it's that element where you've kind of got some of the worst parts of the Federation is this inability at times for there to be nationally consistent laws, guidelines, ways in which things are implemented.

You see that in a place like Canberra day in, day out, where you're a little island that sits within a broader state and the way in which the territory interacts with the state government isn't necessarily straightforward and it's different, say, with working with children checks there are different systems that are carried out and are playing out there I think that what people would be pleased to see is the outrage that is being expressed by elements of the political class.

There's been no shortage of people talking about that horrific feeling that you must have as a family seeing a childcare centre that you might have been linked with being added to this list, wondering if potentially your own child had attended that facility.

But at some point, the focus then does move to the political class to say, well, what are you doing to try and rectify this and change that?

And if there is this genuine consensus with which the parliament is saying people want to work to pass urgent laws to make sure there is a greater crackdown on elements like centres that aren't meeting the standards, because it's sort of that thing where it's like A child in childcare, much like an elderly person in aged care, we are talking about our most vulnerable members of the community here.

And forget what level of landslide Labor might have just won at the election.

These are issues that go into households right across the country.

And that's what will be the judge of the government over this next term.

It's also, I think, been interesting the way in which there's been this discussion about the role that men play within childcare.

And it's been pretty firm from the Federal Education Minister in saying men have a role to play here.

And I think that it's an interesting one because for far too long, the notion of caring for children and educating children has been left to women.

And there are many wonderful men who work in this sector.

But there also needs to be a greater voice about the role that men need to be playing in stepping up here and driving cultural changes right across this country.

Well, another issue, Brett, that has been in the headlines this week was this Treasury advice that made its way to the ABC.

Now,

freedom of information requests are something that are regularly made by journalists to try to get information from government.

Our colleague Dan Ziffer had requested some material from the independent Treasury through FOI, but when he got the response, it turned out that there were a series of headings and subheadings that had accidentally been included.

Now they must have run out of black ink, hadn't they?

Because these things are so heavily redacted.

I think it was

very much a whoops moment.

But the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has insisted he's pretty relaxed about this.

I think he used that exact phrase several times in the press conference that he held after this came out.

But those headings, they do shed interesting light on the advice that was given to the treasurer after the election on some really significant issues.

Nothing says you're relaxed more than saying, I'm relaxed.

I'm really, really relaxed about this.

I promise you, I've relaxed.

That sort of thing happens from time to time.

I'm pretty relaxed about it, to be honest.

The real trigger with this story was potentially how far from relaxed the Treasury was in contacting the ABC and saying, you've deleted that document, haven't you?

Hang on, just really confirming you have actually deleted that document.

It's reassuring to see that the federal bureaucracy is providing frank and fearless advice to the government.

That is the point of them being here.

And it's easy to kind of throw mud at the federal bureaucracy and talk about the camera bubble and the bloat.

And it's just rare that you get to see that frank and fearless assessment.

Typically, FOI, I think Dan made the point of saying that free from information is something that it's usually derided as.

But that tiny little sliver told a bigger story.

The idea of the 1.2 million homes over five years will not be met.

is such a clear language and goes to one of, like childcare, a core issue that Labor campaigned on at the last election.

And it highlighted the difficulty the government is going to face in delivering this promise.

The construction rates is nowhere near the levels that you need to be seeing in order for these houses to be delivered.

And you've got, right across this country, people are either locked out of the property market themselves because either the lack of supply or that things are far too expensive for them, or you might have a house and know someone who is struggling to get into it.

And whether or not Labor is ambitious or not, as the Treasurer will say, and we can reach this target, this will be a test for whether or not they can actually break through the Federation and find a way in which the states will change planning regulations and some of the oversight that you see then in councils and see if this project can actually be delivered.

And because given the scale of Labor's majority, it's very likely they will be there when this five years is up and then they will be held to this account.

The other part of those documents that caught a lot of attention was this quote, tax should be raised as part of broader tax reform.

Now, we know that Jim Chalmers has shown an appetite for tax reform.

He's holding this economic roundtable in August.

How significant was that, do you think?

Where do you see this going from here?

The trouble with roundtables is you just get that utopia idea that comes into your mind, or the idea of King Arthur and his roundtable, and that Jim Chalmers is maybe Lancelot trying to head into a new frontier.

And the Treasury is here wanting people to come to this forum, to put ideology aside.

He's essentially saying any idea will be welcomed, but you need to find a way in which it doesn't cause other burdens to the budget and ways in which you can build consensus.

One of the criticisms that we saw of the federal government in the first term was when it had a roundtable, a much bigger version of this, looking at the business sector in particular.

It was sort of felt that it was too preordained what would be announced and how it would be rolled out.

And it's easy to deride the 2020 summit and the Prime Minister of the time sitting down on the ground with Butcher's paper.

But there is a clear element that the government is trying to tackle here in productivity.

It sounds when people hear it, it makes you think, oh, you just want me to work harder.

The underlying effort is to try and boost elements of living standards, make life much nicer for people to have and not work as much to get the same level of outcome.

And I think that the Treasury's great concern about the Donald Trump presidency was not necessarily the way in which tariffs could see increases in inflation in a short term.

It's the fear that the uncertainty and unpredictable nature that we're seeing here will prompt businesses not to invest and that will have a longer tail that will be much harder for the government to try and reconcile with.

Now, Brett, I've been out of the Canberra bubble for a few years now, but even I know how

many people would have this date next week circled in their calendars.

Everyone's been waiting for this.

July 22, Tuesday, the day when Parliament finally returns for the first time since the federal election.

How much are you looking forward to this moment?

I think shirts are being ironed, shoes are being polished.

We bumped into one of the, because you'll remember this, Jade, there's that new poly school that the MPs and the senators come and do before it begins.

And

my colleague Kath Sullivan and I, we bumped into one person and they offered candor when they said they felt like they were trying to drink water from a fire hydrant.

Such is the kind of like overwhelming nature of coming here.

And for a lot of these people, it is.

a lifelong ambition that they have held.

They are drawn into this because there is elements of they want to serve the public and they get to sit in the House of Representatives alongside 149 other people.

But when we see question time roll around on the Wednesday, so on the Tuesday we'll see the ceremonial elements, you'll see the Governor General here, you'll see the Chief Justice of the High Court swearing in the new politicians.

But when we see question time roll around on Wednesday, it's going to be a stark picture.

Labor's majority will be so apparent.

There will be more women sitting on Labor's benches than the entirety of the federal opposition.

Just let that idea sink in with you.

There'll be just six Liberal women sitting on the opposition benches.

Susan Lee makes history as well.

She becomes the first woman to sit in that chair as the permanent opposition leader.

She has one heck of a task ahead of her.

But so too for Anthony Albanese.

Like, some of the parliamentary discourse can bring out some of his worst political instincts.

And how will it be seen, the way in which he deals with Susan Lee, the first woman to hold that job, who can give as good as she can get.

But there will be a line that the Prime Minister will have to navigate.

And does he then look to use other elements of his front bench to try and land some of the political attacks on parts of the coalition?

Will be really interesting to watch and see.

And what is the priority going to be for the government?

We've just discussed these childcare changes, but what else do you think it will sort of be focusing on in those first stages?

So the first bill is a way in which you can kind of set the tone of what you're hoping to achieve over the course of this, try and send a message.

And the government had hoped that, you know, childcare would be a part of that, this idea of making cheaper childcare available for more people.

We will see that bill that will go in and look to tackle childcare on the funding side of cracking down on people aren't meeting standards.

But the first bill that the government will look to introduce is this idea of cutting HECS.

It will have the support and it will comfortably pass.

The way in which Labor then tries to send a message of we have promised, we made all these promises and we're going to act on them and deliver them.

That will be the first step and you'll see those bills pass through.

The Treasurer will have to get his superannuation tax through.

This is the idea of increasing the rate of tax on saving balances above $3 million.

The Greens have been noticeably quiet on this, which gives you some indication that there is a deal to be landed there.

If it was that the parliament was to push back on that change right from the start, the government will be irate because it thinks it has a mandate to deliver this, but it will give us an indication of just the ways in which the coalition and the greens will seek to use their influence in the Senate to shape government policy.

Well, Brett, I think it's going to be fascinating.

I hope you've got lots of coffee ready.

And thoughts to all those new members and senators trying to get their heads around the maze that is Parliament House.

I don't think I ever got there.

So you've got to find it.

We'll do better.

Work towards that.

I think it's the perfect time to bring in our guest.

Let's do it.

Laura Tingle, ABC's Global Affairs Editor.

Welcome to the party room.

Thank you, Jade.

And in an appropriate global affairs way, I'm speaking to you from the Chengdu Panda Park.

And, you know, I'm beyond excited because I'm about to meet some pandas.

Is this the highlight of your trip so far?

Look, I think it's sort of probably bad for my reputation to say

I may be meeting some pandas and it's possibly the highlight of the trip.

But I don't want to overplay it at this stage just in case I'm grossly disappointed.

Now, Laura, my favourite fun fact about the pandas is that we rent them.

Do they actually have any value in terms of the diplomacy that they offer?

Well, the fact that I'm excited about it, Brett, and I'm, you know, would regard myself as a serious person shows how valuable they are, I think.

But, yeah, no, I think they are pretty valuable.

And of course, there were a couple of pandas that were at Adelaide Zoo.

And I'm ashamed to say I'm having a senior moment and can't remember their names, but I'm wanting to know where to see the retired Adelaide pandas today.

That could be

a major point of excitement on this trip amongst a bunch of cynical journalists.

I do love the idea of a retired panda village.

But Laura, we are talking to you right at the end of this trip that you've been on with the Prime Minister.

Yesterday we saw him on the Great Wall.

He had his rabbitos cap on.

He looked pretty chuffed with how the whole trip has gone.

But right from the start of it, we saw these reports emerging from the United States about the possibility of the US pressuring Australia over what it might do if there was to be a war over Taiwan.

To what extent has that hung over this trip?

Look, it was obviously a huge factor in the first couple of days, you know, over the weekend in the trip.

But it's sort of it's been interesting to me that

it hasn't really you know seemed to bother an official so much I mean there are I think it's generally been seen across across the sort of foreign policy establishment as a pretty deliberate leak to disrupt this trip

the general view is that when these approaches were made or these statements were made,

the response to it was, you're kidding, right?

You know, you really are kidding that you think that we're going to be told that we're going to war over something, but I think it's a really substantive issue because AUKUS wasn't really debated back when it was signed up to.

Labor made a pragmatic decision that it didn't want any difference between it and the coalition on this issue.

So we don't really know exactly what the terms and conditions are of the AUKUS agreement.

The Australian government's essentially saying, no, if we buy some submarines, they're our submarines.

But for the pragmatists around the place, a lot of American technology comes effectively with a with a FOB key if you like you know European countries that have bought other forms of

American technology like jet fighters and things have to actually put in a code that gets signed off on by America before they can undertake some mission so I think it's a live question about

the extent to which we are going to be locked into American technology and American military plans if we go ahead with buying these submarines.

What did you make, Laura, of Angus Taylor's intervention on this this week, the Shadow Defence Minister saying that Australia should have a joint commitment to the security of Taiwan with the United States?

You can't codify for every possible scenario but you can make principled commitments to the security of Taiwan, to peace.

We've sort of essentially maintained this position that we like the status quo as it is.

What we do is continue to support a one-China policy.

We support the status quo.

By definition, we don't support any unilateral action.

At some point, it may well be that

things come to a head over Taiwan.

But let's reverse engineer that a little bit.

We're not going to go to war with China over Taiwan by ourselves.

So the question is, are the Americans going to go to war with China over Taiwan?

And I think that that's a really moot question.

There's been this whole approach by the US over the last 10 years, which has really left a great cloud of ambiguity over their approach to the whole region.

I mean, for example,

if I can indulge in a bit of history, of course, Barack Obama talked about the pivot to the Asia-Pacific back when he was in Australia in 2012.

And

that never materialised.

Donald Trump has never been that interested in the Asia-Pacific.

Ulbridge Colby, the guy who made those remarks about the submarines in Taiwan, is much more focused on the Asia-Pacific, but that's not a view that's necessarily shared by other officials in the administration.

So the question is, would America go to war over Taiwan?

And we just don't know what the answer to that is at this stage.

I mean, if we look at...

the sorts of interventions that Donald Trump has made in other parts of the world in which he has much more of a focus, notably the sort of very strategic interventions in the war with Iran in the last couple of months.

You know,

it doesn't suggest that he wants to be committing vast numbers of troops and resources to

a war anywhere in the world, given his original position of being quite isolationist.

So the question becomes, you know, how likely is it that there would be a full-scale military

war in our sort of traditional concepts of it over Taiwan.

Laura, before we get to some of the specifics of Anthony Albanese's dealings with the Chinese leadership, I'd be curious as someone who has made many a trip with an Australian Prime Minister and been to China in the past, what observations you would have today looking at how China and the way in which the government works has changed over that time and any reflections on how Australian Prime Ministers have responded to those changes.

It is interesting, Brett.

I mean,

I first came to China with a Prime Minister in 1993 and it's become a little bit more sophisticated over the years.

I was just reflecting on the fact that, you know, I think in 1993, the human rights issue at the time might have been the treatment of the Falun Gong, but it was regarded as, you know, really uncool for journalists to even ask questions about human rights.

and whether they were going to be raised by the Prime Minister because you didn't want to offend the Chinese and it was all regarded as things that you had to do behind closed doors.

Now, obviously, we've moved a long way since then.

The advocacy for Chinese Australians and

in the support of human rights has become more clear-cut,

albeit in a sort of diplomatic sort of way.

Well, I raised Dr.

Young's case.

You wouldn't expect there to be an immediate outcome.

That's not the way these things work.

Most of it is conducted behind closed doors, but

these are issues that are raised and confirmed when they happen.

And I think on both sides, it's interesting to sort of watch how

I was just reflecting today even on that first meeting that

Anthony Albanese had with President Xi

a couple of years ago where things had been incredibly tense and the opening remarks, which of course is all we ever really get to see for ourselves, were all incredibly, incredibly tightly scripted.

And

the Chinese were sort of treating us a bit like naughty school children or something.

And that's all changed now.

I think there's a lot more flexibility on both sides.

And

if you think about what that means in terms of,

you know, these aren't transactional trips, they're very symbolic trips.

But, you know, the fact that both sides have a tolerance for the fact that there are these issues which, you know, we might be brawling about behind the scenes, they're not going to get offended by each other's comments about them in those public forums.

Yeah, Laura, there's a number of different thorny issues in this relationship between Australia and China that could have been on the agenda here.

The Prime Minister confirmed that he used his meeting with Xi Jinping to bring up that Chinese military exercise off the Australian coastline earlier this year.

Anthony Albanese said he raised Australia's concern about a lack of notice.

We were

concerned about the notice and the way that it happened, including the live-fire exercises.

What did we learn about how the Chinese leader apparently responded and do you think we're likely to see any changes there or not, perhaps?

Look, I think my take on that was that the Chinese leadership said, you know, registered brackets, but you're wandering through the South China Sea asserting your rights to be there all the time and that's what we're doing.

And the Prime Minister acknowledges that the Chinese fleet was actually operating in international water.

waters and was completely within international law.

So it's just a question of the nicety, shall we say, and even if it sort of felt a bit more serious than the niceties of letting us know that they were going to be doing this.

So I don't think there was a pushback from the Chinese, but it was just like, yes, yes, noted, let's move on.

So

if we want to continue to assert our rights to move into the South China Sea, we can't really be surprised that that's what they aren't Australia.

But without a doubt, that exercise was just, you know, it it was quite pointed to sort of say, oh, hello, just

remember that we are here.

We're capable of being as far south as Australia.

And just note that while you're wandering around our part of the world, too.

Laura, back here in Australia, the sense has been that the trip has gone fairly well.

There's signs of mutual respect, like you talk about, and that balancing act that you have as an Australian Prime Minister between your closest security ally in the United States and your greatest trading partner in China.

I think it was last week I saw someone refer to it as like a mouse dancing between two elephants.

I wonder the extent to which one of those elephants is slightly more predictable in the dance moves that it might make at the moment and any reflections you have on how the prime minister is faring at navigating those two big challenges.

I think it's really interesting to watch, Brett.

Second term prime ministers get the confidence of having one

an election, but also, you know, the first term often gets consumed by a lot of, you know, noise and, you know, domestic and international.

They develop a certain confidence, you know, a clearer line of where they want to go with things.

And I suppose one of my

views about this trip has been that it's confirmed that in a lot of ways, the

way the Trump administration has been conducting itself internationally,

both on a trade front and

shall we say, on a geostrategic front, have really given the PM and the government room to manoeuvre here.

You know,

we saw that very significant speech by the Prime Minister, the John Curtin oration, where he was really repositioning Labour's view of these things in a more independent sort of space.

And I think he's brought that to bear here in China.

He doesn't feel a need to apologise for the relationship, shall we say,

with the United States while he's in China.

It's very much a question of,

you know, we do have these different interests.

We don't have to apologise to America because we've got this massive trading relationship with China.

And he's looked much more sure-footed and comfortable.

And I think the fact that the Americans seem to have been creating so much chaos in the world and frankly the fact that the coalition at home is still regathering itself after the election has given him a lot of room to be a bit more nuanced in his approaches to these things.

Laura, while the Prime Minister has been in China, there was another significant development over the conflict in Ukraine.

Donald Trump announcing this new position.

I mean, I was at the White House that day when he had that extraordinary clash with Vladimir Zelensky back in February.

The Ukrainian leader effectively booted from the White House.

Weapons shipments were paused.

Fast forward several months, and Donald Trump is now airing frustrations with Vladimir Putin.

He's sending more weapons to Ukraine via other NATO members, and he's threatening Russia with new sanctions if a peace agreement isn't reached within 50 days.

How do you view what's happening there and what could the implications be for Australia?

It's really interesting, isn't it, Jade?

I mean, there are a couple of separate issues.

They're obviously related, but a couple of separate issues here is there's a bit of big bad wolf in Donald Trump, I feel, at the moment.

You know, do this or I'll blow your house down now.

A couple of issues.

One of them is, I suppose, based on

unfounded optimism, there is this view that somehow Vladimir Putin will go, oh yeah, I don't want to have all these trade sanctions and I don't really want to continue this war.

Everything we know about both Vladimir Putin's position within side Russia, with the fact that they are continuing to be able to fund this war, they're able to bring in a lot of troops from sort of the outer regions of the Russian sphere of influence, shall we say,

to feed the sort of military machine.

And the fact that he has got this view based on his view of history that Ukraine is actually an integral part of Russia, he's not going to stop the war.

You know, he's not going to stop the war unless somehow it's defeated.

Now,

so

that's one thing to keep in mind.

So the question is: what has this decision meant about NATO and

the Americans?

I think it's a really significant breakthrough in terms of NATO alive because it allows the vehicle for NATO to be effective, if you like,

via the European partners paying for all its American kit.

And, you know, we talk a lot about percentages of GDP of military spending, but this is real-time stuff.

This is about missiles and things like that.

Donald Trump can claim a victory because he's not paying for them, if you like, but American industry is still producing all of these things to kill people.

The Europeans are keeping NATO alive via that mechanism.

So I think it's important in that sense.

And it certainly evens up the playing field between

Ukraine and NATO, if you like, and more or less brings the NATO partners much more clearly into the conflict over Ukraine than they've been prepared to do in the past.

And even set up with the Russian capacity to strike Ukraine.

Whether it actually, you know, whether that just means we're in for years more stalemate is beyond my capabilities as a military analyst, but

I think really significant developments.

As for what that means for Australia, at this stage, it's probably not that significant

directly

other than that, you know, we obviously have an interest in NATO continuing, or that's been our position.

You know, we've tried to attend NATO summits and the like.

NATO's sort of expressed an interest in being in the in the region.

So

the

continuity of NATO and mechanisms for making that work are of interest to Australia.

Well, Laura, I think as this conversation has shown, you are a very serious and well-considered journalist and one that both Jade and I look up to.

So I think you've earned the right to go and check out some pandas while you're in China.

Thank you very much.

And I'm sorry if I was doing some panda fangurling, if that's the right term, at the beginning of the interview.

It's very, very disreputable of me.

Thanks a great Laura.

Thank you, Laura.

We'll move to questions without notice.

We'll give the call to the Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

My question is to the Prime Minister.

Order.

Well, the bells are ringing.

That means it's time for question time.

This week's question comes from Sean from a Wobbacle land.

He says, hi, party room.

love the pod.

Thanks for your dulcet tones.

I think that compliment is aimed at Fran and PK, Brett, but let's take it.

He says, I really want to get to the bottom of the supposed treasury leak this week.

Following this, the Treasurer was very relaxed.

There was no mention of any negative gearing topics.

And is our Commonwealth Public Service really that ham-fisted?

It takes more than one delegate to release an FOI request.

So was it really a leak, or was it more of a soft launch of bold ideas to see what sticks?

Great question, Sean, Brett.

Well,

the treasurer loves floating a balloon, as we saw in the previous parliament about this idea of how you might make changes to negative gearing.

I think after a few years in this place, a couple of things really jump out to me.

One, trying to guess where or why a leak has come from is a fool's errand.

It's just never necessarily the way in which you would imagine something has come out.

And if you're given the choice between a stuff up, as we might put it in one way, or a cover-up, I suspect at times it is the stuff-up that is usually the case here.

And there are some signals here that we are getting that once this FOI was released, it was heavily redacted, and a lot of focus has been on the table of contents.

And you can understand how that might have a bit of oversight in it.

But the way in which it was detected on the Treasury side, and then the efforts that the Treasury went to to try and get this document back and to make sure that the ABC had released it, and then a new one issued, it gives gives you some indication that it was probably a stuff up.

But I do like the idea that someone within the federal bureaucracy might be thinking, oh, is there a way in which we can kind of shape a bit of government policy here?

And look, our inboxes are always open.

You know, we saw the treasurer insisting that he was very relaxed here.

The one thing that Jim Chalmers has been clear about is the need for ambition in this term of parliament.

And Labour does have a big legislative agenda, but it also has a whopping majority and a parliament that it can work with.

And one of the tensions that will exist between this term is to what extent does the treasurer have that bold ambition to go further and want to do different things and a prime minister who will have to deal with the political reality of each of those decisions.

Yeah, and there's some speculation this week that, you know, could this be a happy accident for Jim Chalmers?

One economist, Nikki Hartley, she was saying that, you know, he might be pleased in the long run that these subheadings came out because it started a conversation again about possible tax reform.

It comes ahead of that roundtable.

These are not easy issues to tackle.

Does it help kick-start this conversation that could work in his favour longer term?

And as they say in the classics, Jade, time will tell.

That is the end for the party room for this week.

You can, of course, send your questions in because we do love to get them.

And we are especially fond if you do them with your own voice and send them in as an audio note.

Send them to thepartyroom at abc.net.au.

And remember to follow politics now on the ABC Listen app so you never miss an episode.

That's it for the party room.

Thanks so much for hanging out with us while PK and Fran have been away.

But David Spears will be back for Insiders on Background on Saturday, and he'll be speaking with China expert Richard McGregor from the Lowy Institute.

Jay, this has been a real treat.

Lovely chatting.

Thank you very much for having me, Brett.

It has been a real delight.