As for Bill Shorten, while Labor would most likely hold its seats given the current state of affairs, who wants to take a risk and kill momentum ahead of the big dance.

The shift in attitude inside the Coalition is vastly different to that at the start of the year before revelations of Barnaby Joyce's extramarital affair torpedoed the hard-won momentum the Coalition had built towards the end of last year and over the summer.

The Coalition started the year with all guns blazing, believing it had Shorten on the ropes over dual citizenship.

With all its MPs having been dealt with in 2017, the Coalition turned the spotlight on the Opposition and its "shifty" leader who had proclaimed for months how Labor was above such Constitutional tardiness.

The shift in attitude inside the Coalition is vastly different to that at the start of the year before revelations of Barnaby Joyce's extramarital affair torpedoed the hard-won momentum. Northern Daily Leader

British connection

Labor MPs Justine Keay, who holds the marginal Tasmanian seat of Braddon, Josh Wilson from the safe seat of Fremantle, and Susan Lamb from the marginal Queensland seat of Longman, were, like Gallagher, all Brits at the time they were either elected or nominated in 2016.

Keay and Wilson renounced but they were not processed in time. Lamb tried to renounce but was never processed because of a missing birth certificate. She is, for all intents, still a dual-British citizen and remains in breach of section 44 (i) of the Constitution.


The fourth MP is Rebekha Sharkie of the Centre Alliance (formerly NXT), who won the Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo from the Liberals in 2016. All four have refused to resign or refer themselves to the High Court based on legal advice saying, like Gallagher's, they took all reasonable steps to renounce.

Late last year, senior minister Christopher Pyne threatened Shorten to do the right thing otherwise the Coalition would dispense with convention and use its majority in the lower house to refer the suspect MPs.

Labor has started buying insurance with shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus refusing to accept the argument that Gallagher would automatically establish a precedent. Alex Ellinghausen

It was decided to await the outcome of the Gallagher case. If she lost, then, the Coalition argued, the others should proceed straight to byelections and not even bother with the High Court.

Labor started buying insurance with shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus refusing to accept the argument that Gallagher would automatically establish a precedent for the others because each case was slightly different.

Senior Labor sources say the party will make a decision once Gallagher's fate has been decided. If If she loses, it will come down to the reasons given in the judgment and any consequent political pressure.

Inside the Coalition, sources say gone is any suggestion it will use its numbers to refer the MPs if Shorten refuses to act.

As for Bill Shorten, while Labor would most likely hold its seats given the current state of affairs, who wants to take a risk and kill momentum ahead of the big dance. Alex Ellinghausen


Thus, the scene is set for a charade where the Coalition demands Shorten does the right thing while privately hoping he doesn't, and when he refuses to do so, labels him "shifty Bill" for time eternal.

Byelections outlook

If all four MPs ended up in byelections, the Liberals wouldn't bother contesting Fremantle but the Greens would, creating a contest with Labor similar to that at the recent Batman byelection.

The only upside for the government is that it might pinch back Mayo, a seat formerly held by Alexander Downer. It lost Mayo in part because of a backlash against the Liberal MP Jamie Briggs who had gotten himself in a spot of bother and fallen foul of many Liberal voters.

The Liberals were buoyed about Mayo when they won the corresponding state seat of Heysen at last month's SA state election. Sharkie works the seat hard but is weakened by the decline of Nick Xenophon.

The Liberals talk of recruiting Downer's daughter, Georgina, an accomplished professional in her own right, to contest Mayo and wrest it back. Much will hinge on the electoral redistribution in SA, the draft of which will be released Friday this week but will not be finalised until the middle of the year.

On the downside for the government are Longman and Braddon. If Turnbull was unable to win from Labor a marginal seat in Queensland or Tasmania, the dogs would start barking louder. Then again, imagine if he won one or both?

Events this week confirmed Turnbull is already in for a rough enough ride this year. Monday began with half the cabinet being rolled out to play down the significance of 30 negative Newspolls and ended with four clear contenders for the leadership – just in case the boss gets hit by a bus.


Tony Abbott and his followers are working overtime to bring him down, even though they have no idea what would come next.

Pondering alternatives

More sagacious conservatives want Turnbull to succeed but are turning their minds to alternatives in the second half of the year should the budget fail to shift sentiment. This is a bit naive given there is no such thing as a budget bounce any more.

Budgets can send you off a cliff, as they did to the Abbott government after the 2014 debacle. Hard work and discipline are required to climb back up.

If anything, several senior Liberals expressed surprise this week that the government was only trailing Labor by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, given the way the government was beating itself up.

Still, it will take a lot to go right if the Coalition is to close that gap, and key solutions, like Abbott's behaviour, are beyond Turnbull's control.

If the High Court clears Gallagher, expect a collective sigh of relief around Canberra, especially from within government.

Phillip Coorey is The Australian Financial Review's political editor.