Albanese has a sewerage problem and the Coalition loves the stench

Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Courtney Gould gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.Anthony Albanese seems to have a bad habit of turning what should've been a one day, or one week, story into a month-long affair.What is the source of the clog this time? The curious case of a $6m "invitation-only" grant to the Marrickville Golf Club.When the ABC first published the story last month, the prime minister chided the public broadcaster for it. He declared the funding was to fix the issue of raw sewage flowing into the local river when the plain floods.He repeated that defence in the House of Representatives. As did Infrastructure Minister Catherine King, as recently as Sunday. But as we learnt this week, that wasn't exactly the case.Under questioning on Monday, infrastructure department officials confirmed that sewerage works were not part of the project. To make matters worse, that brief was shared with the prime minister's office before the ABC first raised questions about the grant last month.Albanese was in classic politician form as he got out the mop to clean up the mess the next day. He didn't say he was wrong, but rather "it was not correct" for him to defend the funding with links to sewerage. It was the NSW government who had "stepped in" to tackle the problem.For the Coalition, his answers stunk. And it's no surprise they've used it as an easy win. The way the story has dragged out over the past month was likened to the never-ending story that was Albanese's ill-fated "melons" remark on the Bush Deep podcast.It's the same character-chipping exercise Labor ran on an unpopular Scott Morrison over his final term in parliament. The opposition were gleeful at times as they questioned Albanese, pointing to everything from denying he fell off stage during the last election campaign to this grant to paint him as a "serial liar". Albanese may have been able to shrug off claims he misled the parliament, but the perception that he's not upfront with the public will be harder to flush away.Taxes, cuts and 'savings'Of course, every question the Coalition dedicates to the golf club grant is one less on the economy — yet another source of pain for the government.Treasurer Jim Chalmers isn't having the best of times at the moment. The latest monthly inflation figures, up from 4 per cent to 4.3 per cent in the year to September, have all but locked in a Melbourne Cup Day rate rise.The persistent inflation challenge is causing political headaches for Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)This would take rates to an 18-year high, and another Reserve Bank board meeting is scheduled for December. Essentially, as Tom Crowley wrote this morning, the worst is still yet to come.The treasurer maintains that government spending is not to blame, pointing the finger at the war in the Middle East and the AI data centre boom for driving up prices. Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson backed Chalmers up in estimates: "We can only control what we can control."Nevertheless, Chalmers and Albanese are looking for savings ahead of December's mid-year update. The prime minister says he hasn't directed his ministers to find cuts (sorry, savings), but rather they're all just collectively working together to spend less.Basically, don't expect there to be a pre-Christmas cash splash. Longer term, Chalmers also flagged it could complicate Labor's plan to deliver a larger round of tax cuts in the lead up to the next election.But speaking of tax cuts, David Shoebridge made his first National Press Club appearance as leader where he again declared his party could take Labor's place.He came armed with a tax plan that, due to the electoral reality, will never see the light of day and faced questions about internal culture in the party and his opposition to providing military aid to Ukraine.'Leave the politics of MAGA in the US'Angus Taylor released his own costings for a handful of the Coalition's proposed spending cuts. In short, several of Labor's climate and housing initiatives would be scrapped in favour of the opposition's own spending promises such as indexing income tax brackets to inflation.The Coalition decided to unveil the numbers on Monday; the same day parliament had set aside for reflection and messages of support for independent MP Helen Haines.Milton Dick was at times frustrated over the tone of Question Time. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)Haines remains in a serious but stable condition after an alleged attack outside of her electorate office last week. Her first words afterwards, as shared in the chamber by Allegra Spender, were of concern for staff and gratitude for first responders and bystanders.For most of the day, you could hear a pin drop in the chamber. MPs of all stripes shed tears as they spoke about Haines and the impact she's had on the parliament.Among the tributes, another message was braided through.After months of calling for the temperature to be turned down, Albanese said there was no way to shrug off the "very real rise in anger that distorts and corrodes our public discourse"."We cannot allow disagreement to become a full stop," he said.Taylor was unconvinced by that argument and rejected that there was a link between robust parliamentary debate and political violence. Crossbenchers Zali Steggall and Monique Ryan, who are close to Haines, called his speech tone deaf.A cardboard orange cockatoo sits in the vacant seat of Helen Haines. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie's tone differed to his leader's, calling for Australia to "leave the nasty personal politics of MAGA in the United States".With Haines front of mind, politicians were on their best behaviour during Question Time — only a glass breaking punctured the silence around the speaker.However as the days went on, things returned to somewhat regular programming. By Wednesday, Speaker Milton Dick was growing tired of MPs trying to up the ante. Nationals MP Llew O'Brien was ejected for swearing.Watching over it all was the cardboard cockatoo sitting in Haines's vacant seat. A second was also placed at Aussies, the cafe and general store in Parliament House, serving as a gentle reminder of the promises they made on Monday.