Katter's present comes early, Coalition stalls on net zero New Year's resolution

Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Courtney Gould gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.

Bob Katter has been called a lot of things during his half century across state and federal parliaments: a maverick, the grim reaper, an institution and now the Father of the House.

The colourful North Queensland MP cracked a smile as the curtains were drawn on the portrait that will immortalise him in the hallways of Parliament House forever.

A crowd had gathered to watch the unveiling. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is part of the little-known committee that signed off on the one-off portrait of Katter, said it was a "remarkable feat" that David Darcy, the award-winning artist commissioned to paint the portrait, was able to capture Katter's character in two dimensions.

"Bob has become one of Australia's most recognisable figures, there's no mistaking that face or voice … We've seen him dressed as a pig, we've seen him dressed as the grim reaper, just as two examples. So if I can make a request: no more dress ups," Albanese said.

"There will be a corner of this Parliament House that is forever Bob Katter."

Katter, who was first elected in Queensland's legislative assembly in 1974 before making the switch to federal politics in 1993, has courted controversy over the half century including threatening to punch a Brisbane journalist at a recent press conference. 

Behind the festivities sat a lone Christmas tree. With just one parliamentary sitting week left, the Kmart Wishing Tree was erected earlier than usual this year. It stands as a physical reminder that there are just five sitting days left to clear the decks before Aussies tune out of politics and into the cricket. 

Question Time for TikTok

A chorus of "ooohhs" ricocheted around the chamber when Sussan Ley's key numbers man slammed a book on the table in a moment of high drama in Question Time on Wednesday. 

It took just 11 minutes for tension to reach boiling point as Alex Hawke, the man in charge of the opposition's tactics, let his frustrations be known as both parties accused the other of lying.

The spectacle added a bit of colour to the news packages in the evening but the manufactured drama gives little regard to the rules of the game both sides are playing.

For an hour each day, the chamber becomes a thunder dome for backbenchers to get a moment in the spotlight as they read off the scripted questions handed to them by the party's tacticians with a view to be clipped up and posted on social media.

The government has used this week to poke fun at the long-running spat within the opposition over net zero while the Coalition has been trying to land a punch on the government's economic management after the twin blows of the higher than expected inflation figures and the Reserve Bank keeping rates on hold. (Sidenote: Ted O'Brien is trying to make "Jimflation" stick.)

But day after day, they turn up with poorly drafted questions and then complain to Speaker Milton Dick that they're not getting any answers.

And day after day, Dick has to tell them they did this to themselves as their broad questions open themselves up to prime ministerial waffle. 

Net zero saga drags on

Of course, the poor QT performance is just a small part of a bigger picture. Coalition MPs will tell you themselves: they've had other things on their mind. You know, like that little thing called net zero.

After keeping her head down all week, Ley fronted up to a round of morning television interviews to dance around questions about the emissions target and argue the process had, in fact, been "good" for the party.

As David Speers wrote this morning, the opposition leader is skating on thin ice.

The saga has been all consuming for an opposition that desperately needs to escape the political wilderness and find relevance with voters again.

Nobody knows this better than the Victorians. At a state level, the Liberals are in bad shape and despite having an unpopular premier, opinion polls suggest Labor is on track for yet another election victory.

Monique Ryan, the independent who vanquished a then-likely future party leader Josh Frydenberg, probably put it best.

"We've seen in Victoria for many years what happens when you don't have an effective opposition. What you have is a poor government that can do what it likes and Australians deserve better," she told ABC News Breakfast this week. 

'It is completely unthinkable'

A special Liberal partyroom meeting is expected to be called over the next two weeks to put the issue of net zero to bed.

The moderates, whose shoulders Ley's leadership rests on, may still be successful in their fight to keep the emissions target. Meanwhile, the opposition leader will have to make a judgement call on whether keeping the Coalition together is worth paying back the favour to her backers.

But with just one sitting week left in the parliamentary calendar, the net zero decision is on a collision course with the government's re-worked environment reforms in the Senate.

Privately Labor's saying they don't care who they strike a deal with. They just want the bulk of its reforms passed, ideally before the end of the year. But it didn't stop Environment Minister Murray Watt from laying down the gauntlet to the Coalition.

"It is completely unthinkable that the Coalition would walk away from both net zero and laws that protect our environment," he said.

"That would completely shred whatever remaining credibility they have on the environment."

The Coalition and the Greens voted to push the reforms off to an inquiry that wasn't due to report back until next year. That inquiry is set to hold three hearings in the coming weeks. It's only added to Labor's belief a deal is likely before Christmas.

At least Labor appears to have cleared one of the main hurdles in the reforms passing last time around. WA Premier Roger Cook, who was instrumental in killing off the changes earlier this year ahead of his own state election, was in town this week. 

He held off giving the reforms his full throated support but agreed with the call it needed to be tackled sooner rather than later.