CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The pubs of Canberra are expecting very little action tonight, as the political class find themselves too exhausted to even have a Friday arvo drink.
This comes after a brutal four days of work for our Federal Parliamentarians, who officially returned to their ACT offices on Tuesday.
Not only did they have to work four full days, but they had to work them back to back.
And this doesn’t even include their Monday, which was arguably just as busy what with all of the ceremonies and photographs they had to take part in.
This draining 72 hours of legislating and Parliamentary debate comes as a shock to the system for our Federal MPs and Senators, who had not stepped foot in Canberra for the 83 days since the May 3 election.
However, many MPs say they came back to work refreshed after the equivalent of two full school Christmas holidays, and that they had needed the extra time off to recover from the five weeks spent campaigning for re-election in their hometown electorates – while our government was put in caretaker mode.
Some, however, say that no amount of time off will make the next three years go any faster – especially those that find themselves now in Opposition with a substantially decreased minority.
There will be plenty of time for recharging their motors, though. With the 2025 parliamentary sitting calendar revealing that our lower house will spend just 40 days passing laws this year. That is two weeks less than the average sitting days in any other election year.
