For longtime followers of Auspol, you may know about the subject list war occurring between certain MPs when it comes to their transcripts.

Sussan Ley’s office started it – the subject list for her transcripts started reading like a Coalition PR wet dream, so up to the plate stepped WA Labor MP Patrick Gorman, who took Ley’s challenge and turned it to 11.

Today’s is no exception:

Subjects: Parliament has important choices this sitting week that could build Australia’s future; the Liberals would take Australia backwards; the Albanese Government is Strengthening Medicare; delivering more support for women’s health; supporting the industries of Australia’ future with Critical Minerals Production Tax Credits; keeping the National Broadband Network in the hands of the Australian people; getting affordable food to Australians in remote communities; Closing the Gap; supporting lifelong learning and the opportunities it brings; Peter Dutton’s plan for $1.6 billion on long lunches is a stinker; Jordan Mailata and the US Super Bowl.

Barnaby Joyce was then made to answer whether or not he has been told to stay in his electorate this election campaign. The short answer is: yes.

Q: Have you been told to stay in your electorate?

JOYCE: No, not directly. There is a, there is a process.

Host: Not directly? So, through someone else?

JOYCE: No, because it said that – they have said, I’m not going to deny it. They have said that everybody has to coordinate through the Leader’s Office, but maybe that’s the case in all parties. I don’t know, Tanya [Plibersek] could tell you that.

Host: Well, we’re not going to Tanya on this one. We’re sticking with you.

JOYCE: Yes, I can see that.

Host: Have you indirectly been told to stay in your electorate?

JOYCE: Well, everybody’s been. Well, no, you’ve been told that you have to get permission from the Leader’s Office to go to other electorates, but that was conveyed to everybody.

Host: So, have they told everybody? Because it’s really directed at you?

JOYCE: Well, I don’t know whether it’s directed at me. You’d have to go to the person who dropped the story and ask them if it’s directed at me.

Host: So, one senior National source familiar with the Nationals, apparently is saying women didn’t trust us at the last election and Barnaby was a key reason for that.

JOYCE: Well, why do we win every seat and up an extra Senate seat? Why is it that every election I’ve gone to as leader or deputy, we never, ever went backwards, even when the Liberal Party went massively backwards.

Host: How are you getting along with David Littleproud, Barnaby?

JOYCE: Have I got 100 per cent of the men’s vote? I mean, I don’t know. How does this work?

Host: How do you, how are you getting along with David Littleproud?

JOYCE: Oh, very well.

That sound you hear is 11 Nationals spitting out their coffee in unison at Joyce’s last answer.

Which led to this exchange:

PLIBERSEK: But what’s your plan, Barnaby. What’s your plan for cost of living, Barnaby? Nuclear power in 2040 is not a cost of living plan, it’s a fantasy.

JOYCE: Your fantasies, you’re closing down the coal fired power stations flat out. You’re forcing up the price of power.

PLIBERSEK: What’s your plan?

JOYCE: The results are in the power bill. The result is in the mail. It’s coming to you. People see it. And all your rhetoric, all your rhetoric, all your rhetoric just –

PLIBERSEK: You can’t answer that. That’s the obvious thing here. Not a thing.

JOYCE: Stands on its head and falls over because people see themselves getting poorer –

PLIBERSEK: Well, tell us your plan.

JOYCE: And unless you’re changing your position on 82 per cent renewables. Well, we don’t go to 82 per cent renewables by 2030. Are you going to change your position on that? Change your position, win your election Tanya.

PLIBERSEK: What’s your plan for cost of living, Barnaby?

No plan was forthcoming.

Perhaps the biggest punishment Tanya Plibersek has been subjected to in her role in the Albanese government is the weekly ‘debate’ with Barnaby Joyce on the Seven Network’s breakfast TV show, Sunrise.

Pibersek’s job is to front up on Mondays and sit through Joyce’s take on politics. Joyce is a polarising figure and has been ever since Tony Abbott’s then-chief of staff Peta Credlin, bestowed the mantle of Australia’s ‘best retail politician’ on him, despite Joyce having the charisma of a third-generation used car salesman.

Joyce is on the outs with the Nationals leadership as well (not an unfamiliar territory) and as the SMH recently reported, will be largely contained to his own electorate in the coming election, with David Littleproud putting the kibosh on moonlighting leadership aspirants stepping outside of bounds as unofficial election leaders.

Still though, Plibersek must front up to the cameras with him. Today it kicked off with the Werribee by-election results and Plibersek said:

Oof course you pay attention, but I think one of the interesting things about this result is that there was a significant drop in the Labor vote. Most of it didn’t go to the Liberals, it’s gone to the none of the above category. And of course that’s something that we need to work on. That’s why we are so absolutely focused on taking pressure off cost of living. People know that the real risk to cost of living is Peter Dutton, who wants to slash wages, didn’t support the tax cuts, hasn’t supported electricity bill relief and doesn’t have a single policy that would actually take pressure off families. So, they’re not going to Peter Dutton either.“

And Joyce? Well he just blamed Chris Bowen.

What we’ve seen there, that was about 95 per cent talking points from Tanya, so congratulate her on keeping to the PMO’s lines. But what we’ve seen is if you want to concentrate on peripheral issues such as intermittent power and lose sight of the major issues such as cost of living, then people are not going to vote for you. And in a natural constituency, which you think a lot of times will oscillate between Labor and Green, they voted for neither of them. And what we’ve seen is the Liberal Party have actually won a seat. Now that has got to send a message if it’s like that in that area. Once the further west you go into the suburbs, especially in Sydney, the more pronounced that’s going to be. But you can’t do anything about it because of the dictums of Chris Bowen. I mean, he wants to take you down a path where no one votes for you, and you’ve got no one to blame but yourself for that. And until you decide that your intermittent power, your 82 per cent target, you’re going to save the world ideas are more important than trying to make sure a person can pay for the groceries, pay for their power, pay for their fuel, pay for their rent. Whilst you have the priorities wrong, people are going to change their priorities on how they vote. And it’s happening.”

Despite some of the frantic speculation from the press gallery, the election is shaping up to be held in May – as seemingly was always the plan. There are a few reasons for that; the government wants a rate cut (likely coming at the February meeting, although the markets are not betting on a second rate cut until the May meeting and possibly June, which makes sense when you consider the new board Jim Chalmers appointed starts after this February meeting and it won’t want to cut rates during an election campaign/just before an election campaign and be seen as political stooges (the RBA can pretend politics has nothing to do with it, but politics colours all institutions to a certain extent, and wanting to be seen as above politics can, in its own way, also be political). The government is also hoping that some of the Trump insanity will take the air out of Peter Dutton’s populist balloons.

But as political commentator Sean Kelly writes in the SMH, voters are looking for something that doesn’t seem to be on offer as yet:

With little time remaining, Peter Dutton has offered themes – nuclear, cutting migration and waste – with little substance. Anthony Albanese has offered substance, of a type, but few clear themes, and no sharp story about his second term. After years of dramatic uncertainty – pandemic, inflation, Trump – voters are tired. They might be ready to reward a political leader who offers them some clarity about their future.

Labor federal ministers will not be able to escape the Victorian by-election commentary this morning, although it is also true that voters in Victoria can mostly split the difference between state and federal politicians. That doesn’t mean that Labor strategists are not looking at the by-election results in Werribee and having a little moment though. Labor is feeling confident it will hold on to the seat, thanks to preferences, and at a reduced margin. That is a lot to do with the tired Allan state government, which has been seeing more voters start to express frustration at the hold up in projects, the state’s finances and the government’s seeming inability to address voter concerns.

Health minister Mark Butler was asked about the results on ABC radio this morning and said:

“I don’t pretend to have a detailed knowledge of Victorian state politics. This is a by-election for a state government that’s into its second decade. You know, it’s been a tough time in Victoria, as we all know, over the last several years, they had a very tough pandemic. It’s not surprising, when you look at the sweep of history, that a state government in its second decade cops a big hit in a by-election. These are these are state issues being played out down in Victoria. We’ve got a federal election coming up in the next few months. At some time, people will vote in that federal election, I’m confident on federal issues and a very clear choice between the cuts they’ll see by Peter Dutton and the sort of measures to strengthen Medicare you saw us release yesterday.”

The parliament won’t sit until 10am this morning, so you have a little bit of time. Grab another coffee. I will be.

Checking in on the world’s reaction to Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs, things seem to be getting spicy in the EU, as AAP reports, as the German election begins to heat up in earnest.

Europe is prepared to respond “within an hour” if the United States levies tariffs against the European Union, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says.

In a pre-election debate with his conservative challenger Friedrich Merz, Scholz was asked by a moderator if the EU had a “list of cruelties” with which to respond if the US imposed tariffs.

“Yes, to phrase it in the most cautious diplomatic way. We as the European Union can act within an hour, Scholz said on Sunday.

“We should not delude ourselves. What the US president says is what he means.”

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to enact tariffs against the US’s largest trading partners, accusing them of free-riding on American prosperity. 

Trade policy is an EU competence, run by the European Commission in Brussels.

Scholz also warned of a “European crisis” if his conservative rival Merz passes proposed reforms to migration law.

Merz’s proposal to turn away all migrants at the country’s borders “contradicts European law”, Scholz said.

Germany’s neighbours could refuse to take back migrants, Scholz said.

“Then we would have a European crisis.”

The chancellor said Merz’s measures were “against German interests”.

Merz is the favourite to become the country’s next chancellor, with his conservative CDU/CSU alliance leading the polls on around 30 per cent ahead of the vote on February 23.

Victorian state opposition leader Brad Battin is pretty happy with the state byelection results, as AAP reports. The Liberal leader was talking up his party’s chances at the next state election, which is still a long shot, but absolutely nothing should be ruled out in politics.

“I’m not confident we’ll win it (Werribee), but I’m very confident we’ve had a really good result,” he told ABC radio on Monday. 

“There’s been a massive swing against Labor … I think we’ll end up with about a four-and-a-half per cent swing to us and that means we’ve got more work to do.

“If that result was reflected across Victoria, there would be a change of government at the next election in 2026.”

In the parliament a little later today, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young will move amendment to the NBN public ownership bill the government decided to put through the parliament (despite no one talking about selling the NBN) to cap the salaries paid to NBN Co executives.

The Greens say the NBN Co CEO was paid more than $3m in 2023, which is five times more than the prime minister (and the highest public servant salary in Australia)

The bill is due to come to the senate on Tuesday, and Hanson-Young says the Green amendments will move to:

• Cap executive pay –  cap remuneration paid to senior executives at 5x the Annual Average Weekly Earnings, taking into account both base salary and bonuses
• Recognise the NBN as a universal service in the Act, with the NBN required to provide broadband in a way that is accessible to all Australians on an equitable basis