The Greens leader has put the prime minister on notice that his party would seek "in advance" to lock in a "stable and progressive" deal with Labor to form a potential minority government. Adam Bandt said a formal agreement with Labor would have "a lot of merit" in setting out the next parliament's priorities, including on the rental market, housing and free GPs. The prime minister says he plans to return to parliament in February to finalise bills such as electoral reforms.
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TVTranscript
00:00Look, he's indicating, Gemma, that he wants the government to put something in writing
00:06should they rely on the Greens to form government after the next election.
00:10There has been plenty of speculation as people watched the polls over the past few months
00:14that neither Labor nor the coalition will hit the 76 seats they need at the next election
00:20to form majority government.
00:22In that case, both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton would need to go to the crossbench
00:26and seek support from those independents, and potentially the Greens as well, to form
00:32government, to make their numbers up to that 76 required to pass bills within the House.
00:38Now, going back to 2010, the last time we had a hung parliament, Julia Gillard formed
00:43a deal with the Greens and some independents as well to form government there.
00:48That has left some Labor MPs fairly scarred from that situation because they went on to
00:53lose government in 2013.
00:56But the Greens are saying they would like some sort of deal, something written down,
01:01some key agreements, for example, to map out how the parliament would work, and the terms
01:05of their support as well.
01:07All of this, of course, is speculation because an election is, of course, months away and
01:11we don't know what the result will be.
01:13But this is what Adam Bandt is setting out as the Greens essentially conditions or at
01:17least their hopes for how a minority government might work, should that be the situation.
01:22Here's Adam Bandt speaking on this yesterday.
01:26It should be a stable, effective and progressive parliament and I think there would be a lot
01:32of merit in knowing from the start what the reforms are that could be achieved in that
01:38parliament and I think working that out in advance, working out what the benefits will
01:43actually be for people and knowing how then the next three years would map out, that's
01:48probably the priority and I think from there it could take all sorts of different forms.
01:54Tom, the government says a deal is not on the cards.
01:57The Prime Minister has been asked about this quite a few times over the past few months
02:01because of that speculation around what a minority parliament would look like and he
02:05says Labor simply isn't inclined to be cutting deals with the Greens or with anybody else
02:11for that matter.
02:12Labor has been very clear they're campaigning to form a majority government.
02:16The Greens there talked about stability, well Labor says the most stable outcome would be
02:20a majority government potentially in either direction, whether that's Labor or the coalition.
02:27That being said, of course, the government, as I mentioned before, is a little bit scarred
02:31from that 2010 experience.
02:32There's a desire not to return to a minority parliament like that with those kinds of deals
02:38being cut with the Greens and with independents.
02:41That was sort of held over Labor at the time, they were attacked quite a bit by the coalition
02:46on that very issue.
02:47So there's certainly sensitivity around that.
02:50Here's the Finance Minister, Katie Gallagher, speaking this morning on this question of
02:54whether Labor would be open to any kind of deal.
02:57We're not planning on that, Michael.
02:59We will go into the campaign seeking majority government.
03:02We will be explaining why we think that is important to provide certainty, particularly
03:07in these difficult economic times and that is what we will campaign for.
03:12Now Gemma, of course, an election is only a few months away now.
03:16There's no way to forecast the results apart from the opinion polls that are floating around
03:20in London.
03:21Minority government is absolutely a possibility at the very least.
03:24If that were to occur, well, all bets would surely be off at that point.