From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday May thirteen, twenty twenty five. Vladimiw Zelenski is setting out for Turkey to await Vladimir Putin as the United States attempts to broker the first direct talks between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia. That's as world leaders, including Anthony Alberanzi pack their bags for Rome for the
Pope's inauguration. Michelle Rowland is Australia's new Attorney General. Tanya Plibasek has been demoted and Labour rebel Ed Husick is on the back bench. As the re elected Labor government heads for ninety four seats. Anthony Albanesi has flexed his new muscle. The National Party has re elected David Little Proud as leader, defeating firebrand Matt Canavan, and this morning the Liberal Party will choose a new leader of their own and seek to chart away out of the wilderness.
Today Canber's brutal power dynamics and who's coming out on top. Anthony Alberanzi is heading for ninety four or maybe even ninety five seats in the House of Representatives. And that means the Prime Minister has the power to do exactly what he wants.
He's got a massive mandate, massive authority given those results.
That's Jeff Chambers, the Australian's chief political correspondent.
And the way that the labor machine works is that it's the factions who decide who is on the list of candidates for cabinet and ministry, and the Prime Minister then gets to decide who he appoints to witch portfolio.
Albanesi has kept his closest leadership team intact. Richard Marles, Pennywong, Jim Chalmers, Katie Gallagher and Don Farrell all keep their jobs. The biggest promotion is Michelle Roland, the new Attorney General who's replacing sacked Minister Mark Dreyfuss.
Michelle Roland holds the Western Sydney seat of Greenway, and in the first term of government she was the Communications Minister and she's a member of the once more powerful New South Wales Right faction. So when the decision came down as to who would have to give up a spot, Michelle Roland, being the only female cabinet member of that New South Wales Right faction, was always safe, so she
moves up into the Attorney general's portfolio. But an interesting machinery of government change, which will be made clear on Tuesday, is that those very controversial alterations made under Mark Dreyfus's watch, where security agencies like ASIO and AFP were shifted out of home affairs into attorney generals, there is now going
to be a shift back to where it was. Tony Burke, very powerful ally of the Prime Minister, takes on home affairs, but are much more beefed up home affairs, and you could probably argue that Michelle Rowland takes on an Attorney general's portfolio, that it isn't as powerful as it was under Mark Dreyfus, but still a very very important role.
There was a horrendously awkward moment in this election campaign dubbed the air kiss of Death, when Senior Minister Tanya Plibersek approached the PM for a hug and he brushed her off with a handshake. At the time, Plipersek tried to make a joke of it on Sunrise, So.
That's on me.
I should have done the elbow, but I reckon you tea still getting along, of.
Course, Plipersek and Albanesi are both in the New South Wales Left, but they've been rivals over the years. On Monday, when he announced the ministry, Albanezi revealed Plibisek is still in cabinet but has been moved to Social Services. Journalists first questions were all about Blibersk, and the Prime Minister sounded defensive.
Do you see Tania Plibusk having that role until Winnex.
Go over the election.
I'm just announcing it today and you're asking me of people moving on. This is the ministry that I'm announcing today. I hope it continues for three years across the board.
I think everyone is viewing that as a demotion. I don't remember the last time Social Services sat on its own. I think Ethony Albinezy gave it away a little bit when he talked about Murray Watt, who's a very close left faction ally and known in labor circles as mister fix It, and he described the environment portfolio as one of the most senior in his government and one of
the most critical portfolios. So you could look at that and think Tanya Plibersek couldn't land the suite of nature positive reforms there was some criticisms about her handling of the salmon farming issues in Tasmania. The other criticism of Tanya Plibersik was that if you look at what Tony Burke and Chris Bowen did in that first term of government, is they really maximize that election victory by pushing through
a lot of their ir and climate change reforms. And there were some criticisms internally that Tania Plibersik had left the key pillars of the nature positive planks of reform until too late. I'm sure she would argue differently in terms of what the government's priorities were, but I think that decision will very much be seen as Anthony Aberesi once again shafting a very long time Left Faction rival.
Yeah, is the greatest crime to have just been Anthony Albanesi's rival.
Oh look, I don't think it's helped at all. The two of them have known each other for a long time. They've both been in parliament for about twenty five years.
Tanya was the deputy leader to Bill Shorten, another great rival of Anthony Abernese's, and in that last term of government we saw Bill Shorten and move on to take a senior role at the University of Canberra, and I think everyone who watches politics closely here wouldn't be overwhelmingly surprised if, at some point during this term Tanya Plivsek may move on out of politics.
Plivasek herself says she's happy.
Allocation of portfolios one hundred percent an issue for the PM.
We already knew Albanezi would demote Ministers Ed Husick and Mark Dreyfus, the government's most senior Muslim and Jewish representatives, respectively. Husick dropped the mic on the way out, telling the ABC on Sunday he was being punished for speaking up about Gaza.
You can't celebrate diversity and then expect it to sit in the corner, silent and blaming.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Miles.
I think when people look at a Deputy Prime Minister, they expect to see a statesman, not a factional assassin. We've obviously got to be able to avoid these type of episodeses I think the factional grubbiness. There are better ways factional.
Cusick claims he fell on his sword to save other members of the New South Wales Right faction because the election results meant the right lost a sport.
I did not want to put my colleagues through a national ballot, and again I just did it in the interest of stability.
When asked if he fought for Husick and Dreyfus, Albanzi was blunt.
Look, we have a process in the lowe party caucus. You've been watching it for some time.
Albanesi could have made one or both of them special envoys, but decided to leave them on the back bench.
I think some people probably feel more sympathy for Mark Dreyfus in the fact that I think he's around sixty eight, almost seventy years of age, that he probably thought he had one more go in him and if it had been made clear to him that he wasn't going to get endorsed for the ministry, he may well not have run. But the flip side of that is he probably should
have been across that himself. So there is some assumptions that Mark Drefus may move on from politics during this term and we might see our by election in the seat of Isaacs and with such a huge majority, these types of by elections matter not as much for Anythony alb and easy Ed Hughsick's a different case. He came out very aggressively. He's not happy, He's making his feelings
felt really strongly, very publicly. And I've always thought of labor if you sort of keep your mouth shut, show a bit of respect, maintain a bit of o murder that at some point down the line, you'll get looked after. But if you put your head above the parapat, you might not get the spoils, but it'll be really interesting because Ed Musick is a very outspoken type of character and he won't sit there quietly on the back benches.
Coming up, who'll lead the National and Liberal parties? Jeff. The Nationals have reelected their leader David little Prowd, rejecting the candidacy of Matt Canavan, who's a bit of a firebrand. What does that mean for the future of the National Party.
Yeah, so I've spoken to a lot of Nationals MPs and senators and Matt Canavan put himself forward without really thinking that he could win the vote, but just really wanted that discussion and debate post election. And the Nationals Party is unique in the fact that after every single election cycle they automatically open up the leadership for a vote, and quite often it's not contested. But after that last election David Little Proud rolled Barnaby Joyce and this time
Matt Canavan put his hand up for it. But what I'm hearing is that it's a long way to go three years. They want to see what the Liberals do. There's a lot of discontentment in that room. Compared to twenty twenty two. They've got three less bodies. Just Enter Price is obviously defected to the Liberal Party. Peren Davy, the Deputy leader, has lost her new South Wales Senate spot, and Andrew g the member for Klaire who famously defected in the last term over his position on the voice.
He's managed to win his seat on a lot of KPIs. David Little Proud has fallen short and I don't think that necessarily it's going to be smooth sailing for him towards the next election.
The Liberal Party meets this morning to elect a new leader of their own. Jeff, what should we be expecting from that meeting?
Yeah, so my mail is that the vote will be very tight. It could come down to a couple of votes, and you know that party room is so depleted so it's sitting in the fifties. That magic number will be around that twenty seven to twenty eight, and they're very split down the middle. You've got the former Deputy leader and Susan Lee, and you've got the Opposition Treasury spokesman
in Angus Taylor. And for some of the younger rising star Liberal types like Andrew Hasty or Zoey McKenzie, they've decided that this isn't the time for them and that's probably the right call. So really Angus and Susan whoever gets up, are really seen as stopgap into Mijari figures whose job will be to rebuild the structures of the
Liberal Party, which is a massive rebuild. It's been put to me that Susan Lays has a nose ahead, but the problem is there's a handful of Senators who will vote for Susan Lay, whose term expires in June thirty. I think for stability sake, the Liberals have got a fair way to go.
Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent. You can read our unrival coverage of federal politics twenty four seven at the Australian dot com. Do reju