Albanese might get Trump on the phone, but voters can't get Palmer off theirs
Welcome back to your daily election wrap. Stephanie Dalzell will catch you up on news from the campaign trail.
Anthony Albanese today freely gave up the secrecy shrouding cabinet confidentiality he usually protects.
"Ask any of the cabinet colleagues," he warned a reporter at the National Press Club.
"They'll explain why it's a bad idea."
The "bad idea" in question was, as the prime minister dubbed it, the "verballing" of Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
Wong had appeared on the Betoota Advocate podcast, where she said the proposal of a Voice to Parliament may in future be viewed in a similar way to the long, but ultimately successful, campaign for same-sex marriage.
If the prime minister will forgive me for verballing, she basically said people would one day look back and wonder what the fuss was all about.
"You said that an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is gone. Your minister, Penny Wong, seemed to suggest it may not be gone forever," the journalist said.
Albanese swiftly responded, arguing that was not what Wong had said at all.
But the mere suggestion that perhaps in a decade the Voice could be viewed differently to how it is now, presented itself as an opportunity for the opposition.
The Coalition has been desperate to talk about the Voice, and it's little wonder why — the referendum not only marked a devastating result for many First Nations people but also a turning point in the government's fortunes.
The Coalition's numbers started to surge in the polls, and now that those numbers have fallen behind Labor, it's been searching for the way back.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton took large liberties with what Wong had said, declaring Labor had a "secret plan" to bring back the Voice to Parliament as a "first order of business".
He also declared a Voice was "inevitable" under Labor.
Later, Wong was forced to clarify, telling SBS: "The Voice is gone."
The Voice to Parliament has bookended this term of government, being the first promise of the prime minister the night he was elected, and now again a feature — this time in the final week of this campaign.
But this is 2025, not 2023. And the matter on the ballot on Saturday is about the parliament, not a voice to it.