from politicoz ….

Parliament resumed this week. The polls have shifted, giving the Gillard government breathing space, but if anyone was expecting that to alter the parliamentary dynamic they were sadly mistaken.

The government, seemingly riding high after weeks, even months, of good political news, is once again foundering on the asylum seeker issue. Once Labor members, including Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, lambasted the Coalition for proposing to excise Australia from its own migration zone. Now the Labor caucus has approved exactly the same measure.

The Coalition, for its part, is spinning like a top. Its own immigration policy is a hair's breadth away from the government's, yet it crows mercilessly about the government's failure; it criticises government spending and forecasting but also every proposed spending cut; and it seems incapable of running a clear line on any substantial issue, instead returning compulsively to the boats and the carbon tax.

The public's momentary interest in parliamentary debate, sparked by Gillard's misogyny speech, has already passed.

Whatever her other virtues, Greens leader Senator Christine Milne is not usually thought of as a satirist. But at her press conference early yesterday, called to record her party’s opposition to the latest attempt by the government to stop the flow of asylum seekers to our shores, she brought a prop that brilliantly lampooned the new plan. It was a map of the world, with one notable omission: the entire continent of Australia.

Meanwhile, Labor's tougher border protection regime will hit taxpayers for nearly $1.7bn this year, with $268 million being taken from the contingency reserve to build facilities on Nauru and Manus Island. The Coalition went into attack mode, saying the money was being funnelled towards the management of a four-fold increase in the rate of monthly boat arrivals since the May budget.