Katina Curtis: The compromise seeker meets the unstoppable force

A change in verb — from hammering to smashing — was all the excuse the Opposition needed to throw its hands up and walk away from 18 months of bipartisan negotiations this week.

The row over revamping the Reserve Bank’s governance structure is hardly the kind of thing that will grab the attention of most ordinary Australians.

But it demonstrates a problem that is only going to get worse for Anthony Albanese and his Government as the clock runs down towards the election.

Political interests are smashing into the country’s best interests.

The Prime Minister came into power pledging to do politics differently with his open-door policy and theoretical commitment to consensus.

He’s met the unstoppable force of Peter Dutton, who has shown little appetite for consensus or compromise bar in a few areas.

The resources sector has descended on Canberra this week for its annual showcase-conference-lobbying extravaganza.

Minerals Council of Australia boss Tania Constable used one speech to give the Government a slap over mounting regulations and interventions that leave the industry feeling under siege.

But she also had a warning the next day for the Coalition — and urged everyone else in the room to echo it — to take the compromise position the Government has offered on its new environmental watchdog.

Dutton, in turn, warned the entire resources industry would be at risk if voters returned a minority Labor government backed up by the Greens and independents, the outcome to which most polls are pointing.

No one has to wait for the election to see what this could look like.

The Coalition is refusing to compromise or dragging its feet on a myriad of issues, leaving Labor to turn to the Greens and crossbench.

Look at the RBA overhaul, Nature Positive, aged care, housing.

When you’re overhauling institutions that underpin the nation’s democracy and economy, or you’re trying to give business and investors certainty about what the future looks like, it makes sense to seek bipartisanship between what Jim Chalmers called the “governing parties”.

He said it should be ringing alarm bells if the Greens were prepared to be more constructive than the Liberals and Nationals.

But bipartisanship only works if the hand extended is grasped.

Resources insiders who have spent the week walking the corridors of Parliament House fear the election is too close and there is too much politics at play for compromises to be reached for the good of the nation.

The Government is getting more desperate to strike deals with the Coalition, both to pass its agenda and because it is wary of being seen as too close to the Greens.

The Coalition doesn’t see its political interests served by either of those things — quite the opposite.

“I don’t believe that the Greens and the Government can arrive at a position that wouldn’t destroy the Labor Party in WA — and I don’t think the Prime Minister is going to take that risk, is my political judgment,” Dutton said.

None of these political calculations and legislative negotiations are aided by Albanese’s continuing trouble offering up a compelling narrative.

Again, this is reflected in the polls.

Albanese and his office think 50-50 is not a bad position to be in at this point in the election cycle.

Others are less impressed with a trend line that looks like a frown.

Ministers are generally pleased that Albanese lets them run their portfolios, but that also means there are 30 different messages about what the Government is doing.

Approaching an election, the team needs to be locked into a single message — ideally about the next plan for helping people with the cost of living — but given the latitude to put their personality into it.

Chalmers is one of the Government’s best communicators, which was probably why the Opposition was happy to tie him up in knots over whether saying interest rates were smashing the economy was picking a fight with the RBA or not.

Faced with a resistance to compromise, the Government needs to get more pugilistic and disciplined if it wants to convince unhappy voters it has heard them, is helping them and has plans to keep doing so.