Anthony Albanese has lined up to take on the tech giants again. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Brett Worthington gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.
Remembering which way a knight can move in chess is hard enough without adding in a new dimension.
Unveiling eagerly-awaited plans to slug tech companies to help prop up Australian journalism, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones insisted Labor's strategy was akin to "playing four-dimensional chess".
An easier way to explain the strategy is the Australian Government has entered into a game of chicken with some of the world's most powerful tech companies on the eve of an election.
Thursday's announcement would see companies like Facebook, Google, TikTok, Apple and Microsoft face a new tax unless they fund Australian journalism — even if they don't host it on their platforms.
Picking a fight with companies of this global scale could be risky on a good day, let alone just months out from heading to the polls.
And it comes just weeks after picking a fight with some of the same tech giants over its plan to ban teens from social media.
It wasn't that long ago that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was facing accusations of cowardice over not moving to phase out gambling advertisements. And now those same media companies Albanese didn't want to get offside from losing gambling advertising would be among the biggest beneficiaries from the social media giants having to stump up cash.
But if journalists and politicians are among the least respected professions, on equal billing are the billionaire tech bros, whose platforms routinely allow for the exploitation of children, the corrupting of their innocence and in some cases bring with them deadly consequences.
Standing up to big tech, in the eyes of parents concerned about their children, might not be so risky after all. But its a long way from being able to declare check mate.
UN resolution
Albanese could consider becoming a game show host if things don't go his way at next year's federal election.
Like a presenter offering a pre-ad break cliff hanger, the PM foreshadowed he'd likely be upsetting critics of his government within days.
First reported by Crikey, Albanese waxed lyrical in a private speech marking the 75th anniversary of the electorate he's represented for almost three decades.
"Some people have got a bit upset, they'll be more upset by Thursday," Crikey quoted Albanese as telling the event.
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Photo shows Politics journalist Brett Worthington on a black backgournd
People didn't need to stay tuned until after the ad break to fully understand what the PM was referring to, with confirmation Australia would offer its strongest language on the situation in Gaza.
Australia broke with the US and Israel and joined with more than 150 countries, including Canada, New Zealand and the UK, supporting a resolution calling for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza.
Ahead of the vote, Albanese used a press conference on Wednesday to insist there had been no change in Australia's position.
By Thursday, frontbencher Anne Aly was willing to call a duck a duck. She told the ABC that there had been "a shift" in policy that existed in the "contexts in which the Israeli government is operating".
Fight over anti-Semitism
Labor wanted this week to be about childcare, specifically its election commitment to scrap the activity test that dictates access to government subsidies.
In the end, it turned out to be one of the nation's uglier political weeks.
Slurs were hurled from one side to the other in a grubby contest over what was fuelling anti-Semitism in Australia.
Albanese calls in an anti-Semitism fighting squad
Photo shows A close up of Anthony Albanese in a suit.
The arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue proved the lightning rod for the political attacks.
Albanese jumped the gun on the authorities in saying it was his "personal view" that attack met "the definitions of terrorism".
Before that, Dutton had accused Albanese of needing to "have the guts" to use the terrorism label.
Dutton was letting rip left and right.
He repeatedly dubbed the attack a "bombing", a term disputed by Victorian police, and threatened to deport anti-Semitic visa holders, despite there being no evidence migrants were involved.
The opposition leader was also taking aim at Labor MP Josh Burns, who is Jewish and represents the electorate where the synagogue attack happened.
Dutton accused Burns of not standing up Labor's handling of the fallout from the Middle East conflict.
Burns too shot back at Dutton, accusing the Liberal leader of personally intervening to stop a senior member of the Coalition reading out his statement after losing his voice following the attack.
That same senior Liberal senator, James Paterson, by Thursday was accusing the PM of "gaslighting the Australian Jewish community" over the UN vote.
Having been accused of being too slow to respond to the synagogue attack, Albanese looked visibly shaken when he toured the scene on Tuesday.
He's pledged money to rebuild the synagogue, formed a taskforce to fight anti-Semitism and made a plea for the attacks to stop.
Lacking, however, has been any suggestion of a political ceasefire — from either leader.
End of moderation
If a week is a long time in federal politics, seven years feels like an eternity.
Cast your mind back to 2017. COVID was yet to rear its head, Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister and the ever plucky cabinet minister Christopher Pyne was holding court at a private function months ahead of same-sex marriage being legalised.
Pyne declare the Liberal party's moderate wing was in the "winner's circle".
It's hardly a comment that could be cast on the state of the modern federal Liberal Party, whose moderate ranks look in need of life support.
Senate leader Simon Birmingham recently shocked many when he announced his unexpected departure from federal politics, only for fellow frontbencher Paul Fletcher to this week announce he'd be following suit.
Colleagues also were shocked at Fletcher's decision, having kept his cards close to his chest.
Pyne, Turnbull and former high-profile moderate Julie Bishop have long since left the federal political arena.
Paul Fletcher will retire from federal politics at the next election. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
The voters in now Teal-represented electorates added Trent Zimmerman, Tim Wilson, Dave Sharma and Jason Falinski to the heap of have-been moderate MPs. Senator Marise Payne, too, jumped ship this term.
Just a week ago, Dutton was vowing that winning back Teal seats could land him, a self-positioned strong man of right-wing politics, in the prime ministerial suite, overseeing a majority government.
His task just got that much harder this week, with another teal independent firming as the favourite to win Fletcher's seat.
Before the announcement, Dutton's post-win reshuffle list just included the flags behind him. He'll now have to add his frontbench to the reshuffling mix.
A bigger test will take place before either of those happen — with the likely long-awaited release of the costings for the Coalition's nuclear power plans on Friday.
The CSIRO reckons it's twice as much as renewables. Labor has not so subtly taken to saying the plan will cost a "bomb".
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