It was a special kind of crazy that gripped the parliament on the last day of sitting before the budget.



To the left and to the right, brawling broke out in plain sight. At the heart of the discontent were two matters: the Senate voting changes agreed on by the Coalition and the Greens and the rumbling ideological warfare within the government.

Everyone knew Thursday was going to be a long day. A waft of toast signalled its beginning outside the president’s office just after seven.

The government had threatened that the Senate would sit until the voting reforms passed the house. Between the Coalition and the Greens, they had the numbers so there was never a question as to how it would end.



But no one was going down without a fight. The resulting vitriol spilled over in the chamber. In the first of many votes, the Greens crowded straight-faced, squashing uncomfortably up against the Nationals senators.

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They waved at the schoolkids as all hell broke out on the Labor benches, hurling insults and accusations of betrayal and bad faith. “What a coward,” Penny Wong shouted to Richard Di Natale. “Voting with Cory Bernardi.”

Bernardi meanwhile, like some six-and-a-half-foot bunny, was delivering tiny easter eggs around the halls.

It was only midday when the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, called a press conference in the blue room. He wanted to talk about boat turnbacks: two, in fact, in recent weeks. “We stopped the boats,” he said while noting 25 boats in all had been turned around under the Coalition. Syrian refugees were being processed: 1,600 visas issued, 9,000 under assessment.

But no one much had time to stay. The Greens were in the Senate courtyard, pointing out Labor’s “hypocrisy” for voting against marriage equality – after Labor had pointed out the Greens “hypocrisy” for voting against marriage equality. Pork sizzled in the next courtyard.



Diving into the middle, like a human time bomb, was the sweaty-faced Queensland Nationals MP George Christensen. The Newman of the parliament, Christensen decked the halls offering his views on the Safe Schools program.

Legend has it that 43 Coalition MPs signed his petition for a review before someone “lost it”. Perhaps among their files, Cory offered. Noted marriage equality campaigner Warren Entsch managed an audio shrug in his interview with Fran Kelly.

“It seems to have disappeared,” Entsch said.

Christensen shambled down the pink corridors of the press gallery to a doorstop clutching a can of Coke Zero. The presser ended with George’s views on sexuality.

“I didn’t say it was a choice, I said people could choose if they want.” No one knew what he meant.

He single-handedly managed to suck all the oxygen out of the Nationals’ wins on competition policy and the backpacker tax review. No one knew if he cared.

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As question time began, Fairfax journalists walked out on strike in protest against 120 job cuts. The former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan was named and banned from the chamber for 24 hours. His colleague Stephen Conroy played Candy Crush while heckling the defence minister, Marise Payne.

But still the day hurtled on, though the valedictory speeches from the former minister Ian Macfarlane, the former Labor minister and party secretary Gary Gray and the bubbling Bruce Billson, with the latter giving helpful advice.

“You try to do useful things with the air you suck in,” Billson told the chamber. Some of us wondered if we were.

As proof that Billson is no prophet, the Senate went on. And on. And on. Amendments continued. The Liberal senator Ian Macdonald mentioned the colour of someone’s socks. Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, railed. And railed. The communications minister, Mitch Fifield, blustered and blew. It was like the eyeball torture scene from A Clockwork Orange. Then phones went down. The sun set and a quorum was called.



I can’t tell you how this story ends but it is nothing that a good sleep can’t fix. And when you wake, the Senate will likely have a whole new voting system.