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You never count your moneyWhen you’re sittin’ at the tableThere’ll be time enough for countin’When the dealin’s done
Labor dubbed yesterday “the day of deals” after striking agreements with the Coalition to pass contentious NDIS cuts and pathetic gambling reforms, with a guillotine motion to speed up the passage of both.
“The day of disappointments” was more apt for those hoping a Senate with a Labor-Greens majority might mean more substantial changes. Alas, the government chose to work with the opposition — which had spent last week trying to turn a podcast into a diplomatic incident — leaving Greens, independents, anti-gambling experts and disability advocates out in the cold.
As this morning’s Worm noted, the Coalition will pass Labor’s NDIS changes in exchange for the fast-tracked removal of the “widow’s tax” (because ensuring existing landlords can still negatively gear really is its top concern). It’s not a big win for the Coalition, given the government promised to “fix” the issue anyway, but Liberal leader Angus Taylor now gets to crow about ending Labor’s “toxic taxes” while passing sweeping cuts the Liberals clearly didn’t take great issue with.
NDIS participants, however, face major losses, with eligibility changes to reduce participants from around 760,000 to 600,000 by 2030, slashing community and social participation funding. Advocates say changes went “too far, too fast”, despite eleventh-hour amendments, which the government says were made in consultation with the community, but that most reports say were secured by the Coalition as part of their “backroom deal”.
On gambling, the Liberals and Nationals backtracked on most of their criticism of Labor’s lacklustre limits, rolling over after again securing very little. Their deal creates a register for people to “opt out” of online ads, funded by a levy on betting companies. But as Nine notes, the outcome is weaker than Peter Dutton’s 2025 policy pitch (ads banned during sport telecasts and for an hour before and after), and it’s certainly weaker than recommendations made by the late Peta Murphy’s review.
It was telling that the review’s deputy chair, National Pat Conaghan, was one of two Coalition MPs to cross the floor, saying the reforms weren’t good enough. It’s also telling who Labor’s preferred negotiation partner is when it comes to major social reform, working with their libertarian opponents in areas supposedly about protecting Australians from financial harm and ensuring their dignity — not exactly topics the increasingly right-wing Coalition is known for.
Labor always has the choice of working with the somewhat-deflated Greens, who still hold the balance of power in the Senate despite losing a few lower house seats. One might naively assume the Greens to be the natural negotiation partner for a centre-left government led by a Left faction prime minister. But both the NDIS cuts and the weak gambling reforms are signs of Labor’s drift to the centre-right, from which, of course, it makes sense to deal with the right.
It’s also noteworthy that the Coalition have ended its “Noalition” streak, coming to the table in quite a big way here. Were Labor’s taunts about the “three right-wing parties” getting to them? They have good reason to want to differentiate themselves from One Nation, which lack both the numbers and skills to negotiate deals on policy. Perhaps the Coalition just really, really wants that “widow’s tax” fixed. Big business has been begging their Liberal representatives to actually get involved in policymaking for some time now, having dealt themselves out of recent budget negotiations.
No matter what is driving it, the public has lost out big time in these duopoly deals, which will put the Australian public at risk of further financial harm. The Coalition came to the table this week, putting some of its money where its mouth is. But it will be gambling companies that continue to count their stacks, while people with disabilities and their carers are forced to do more with less.