Loading One anxiety-provoking factor in the thinking of tired MPs will be their chances of swinging a nice new job. In the months after the 2013 election, new Liberal ministers sent out the message that organisations considering Labor figures for senior roles should think again. It was a poor precedent, and one Labor shouldn’t follow – but revenge, as our former prime ministers seem determined to prove, is sometimes difficult to resist. There is nervousness in the public service, too, with bureaucrats wondering aloud if they will fall with their seniors, like former chief of staff to Scott Morrison and now Treasury secretary Phil Gaetjens, who shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has all but openly declared will have the lifespan of a turkey at this time of year. Appropriately, the Yuletide decision-making will be about beginnings, too. In the last week more than one person has raised with me the chance of an influx of independent candidates, and I reckon they’re right. Kerryn Phelps was a unique candidate, but the seat she won, Wentworth, was also staunchly Liberal. Other, less likely candidates will surely be convinced they have a shot at more marginal propositions, especially against a weak and hapless Liberal Party. There will be plenty of strong candidates too. Rob Oakeshott, one of the Gillard independents, might run for the seat of Cowper. He’ll announce his decision in the new year. Julia Banks, recently defected from the Liberals, might run again for her seat of Chisholm, this time as an independent. She’ll announce her decision in the new year too. And progressive campaigning group GetUp recently asked its members to help identify anyone who might make “an excellent independent candidate” – having also provided what it says were hundreds of volunteers in both Wentworth and Warringah.

Loading In the middle of the Sydney CBD last week, amid a throng of shoppers, making my own last-minute Christmas decisions, I happened to walk by Bill Shorten. This is a completely unscientific analysis, but I have to say he looked relaxed. And why wouldn’t he? His opponents ended the year with four weeks that each would have looked terrible in isolation, but were instead depressingly consecutive. As of Christmas, we are four months into the Morrison prime ministership, with fewer than four months until the campaign begins. It is hard not to feel as though the PM has wasted fully half his term. And last week we saw one of the most successful ALP conferences in memory. What was really striking about the conference was Labor’s ability to communicate its broad agenda. The reservation often raised about Shorten is his unpopularity. I will not be surprised if his numbers go up as the election approaches, partly as attention begins to shift to Labor’s policy platform, now five years in the making. Partly, too, because people like to back their own judgment, and it is beyond doubt now that voting Labor, which the country seems set on doing, means voting Shorten. Shorten and his team should take the next few weeks to rest, knowing they are about to begin six of the busiest years of their lives. Scott Morrison, on the other hand, is mad if he spends more than a couple of days on the couch.