Not content with turfing rising star Greens out of their Queensland stronghold, and unseating party leader Adam Bandt for good measure, Anthony Albanese is now thinning the numbers of his political rival just by picking up the phone.
Dorinda Cox’s defection to Labor is the latest extraordinary shockwave emanating from Albanese’s crushing election win 31 days ago.
Albanese, who has always said his door is open to anyone willing to cooperate, now has proof sitting in his own caucus room: a prominent and substantial senator, in Labor’s strongest state, who left their bitter rival to work with the government instead.
Cox’s surprise switch on Monday rattled former Greens colleagues. Some are livid she waited until after the North-West Shelf gas project was provisionally approved by the environment minister (and now Cox’s colleague), Murray Watt.
Some in Labor called Fatima Payman a “rat” for quitting their party to sit on the crossbench, and demanded she return her seat to the party; some Greens sources are privately just as scathing of Cox’s move, but are unlikely at this stage to publicly call for her seat back.
Labor, who have just added one extra number to their upper house total, are suddenly fine with senators switching allegiances.
Cox said she’d realised her values meshed better with Labor, having recently “lost some confidence” in the Greens.
“What you can’t do from the crossbench is make change. And being in the government and alongside the wonderful team that the prime minister has, you are able to make change,” Cox said, standing alongside Albanese in Perth.
What went unsaid by Cox, but was shared by Greens sources, was that Cox had lost some support inside the WA Greens, and may have struggled to win preselection for the 2028 election. Labor and Greens sources say she was disappointed at being unsuccessful in a party leadership ballot; Sky News reported Cox was unhappy with the direction of the Greens.
And while Albanese said Cox had “approached us recently” and they’d only spoken at length “in recent days”, Guardian Australia understands the seeds for the move had been planted potentially months – or more – ago.
That’s a timeline more in line with Cox saying she’d given “deep and careful reflection” to switching.
Cox’s long-running disagreement with members of the ‘Blak Greens’, the party’s internal Indigenous advisory body which opposed her holding the First Nations portfolio, have been well ventilated. Her strong support for the Indigenous voice referendum contrasted with the lukewarm campaign efforts of some others inside the Greens.
Some in Labor said they weren’t surprised at the move, and warmly welcomed Cox. Several sources gave Albanese all the credit for pulling off the unexpected switch, but said Cox had long enjoyed strong working relationships and friendships with some in the Labor caucus, and that her approach – more pragmatic and practical than some in the Greens – would be at home and supported inside the government. One senior Indigenous leader said Cox would be an asset to Labor’s First Nations caucus.
Senator Jana Stewart had notably given Cox public support in 2023 during the former Green’s disagreements with Lidia Thorpe.
But there are many reasons Cox may have wanted to leave the Greens, it’s interesting that Albanese welcomed her in when he didn’t have to. Cox’s history in parliament around her alleged mistreatment of staff, and her comments critical of the government, invite some tricky questions that Albanese’s team never otherwise would have had to answer.
But with the prime minister’s political authority and momentum at an all-time high, grabbing another Senate seat can’t hurt.
There’s also a symbolic value for Labor: with record numbers of Australians voting for independent or minor parties, here’s an example of a prominent parliamentarian going the other way, saying she wants to affect change by joining the party of government and leaving behind a protest movement.
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While Cox boosting Labor’s Senate numbers from 28 to 29 in the 76-seat chamber doesn’t massively change the government’s pathway to passing legislation – with convincing the Greens or the Coalition their most likely ways forward – it does throw up two interesting parliamentary situations.
With the Greens and Coalition combined now at 37, it means Labor’s main opposition – who Albanese derisively calls the “No-alition” – can’t block legislation on their own, which requires 38 votes.
Cox’s vote also makes slightly easier a very unlikely scenario where Labor could nickel-and-dime their way to winning over most of the diverse crossbench to pass bills if the Coalition and Greens won’t play ball. That fantasy football scenario of convincing most of David Pocock, Jacqui Lambie, the four One Nation votes, Tammy Tyrrell, Thorpe, Fatima Payman and Ralph Babet to agree on a Labor bill is somewhat unlikely – but Cox’s extra number makes that option just a little simpler.
Exactly a month on from the 3 May election, it’s important to reflect on how massively Labor’s election win reshaped the battle lines of Australian politics. Albanese’s huge parliamentary majority, the biggest caucus in Labor history, is the most obvious; then there’s the ejection of party leaders Bandt and Peter Dutton; the consigning of the Coalition to bit players in this term, now essentially a regional rump all-but banished from the cities, not much bigger than the motley crossbench.
There’s the internal chaos it caused inside the Coalition, the short-lived Liberal-National divorce and the leadership questions about Sussan Ley and David Littleproud. And now the Greens, a partyroom which has now lost four seats to Labor (Bandt, Max Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates via the ballot box, and Cox via defection).
But despite a crushing majority in the lower house, Albanese has downplayed prospects of setting out a more bold or progressive agenda than they took to the election.
The addition of Cox to the government partyroom, a senator who has publicly urged the government to set a more environmentally friendly direction on fossil fuels and be bolder on Indigenous reconciliation after the voice referendum, raises interesting questions about where Labor may go on those key questions which are totemic to their progressive base – but not exactly vote winners in mainstream Australia.
While Albanese had downplayed the prospect of a Makarrata commission as envisaged in the Uluru statement from the heart, Indigenous Australians minister Malarndirri McCarthy last week signalled openness to truth and treaty processes in this term, telling the ABC: “I am very much open to listening to what people have to say.”
Interestingly, Cox still has a private senator’s bill in the parliament for a Greens-backed truth and justice commission.
“At its core, the commission is intended to facilitate the kind of truth-telling that will advance the human rights of First Nations people,” the bill’s explanatory memorandum reads.
Whether Cox will continue that advocacy inside the tent, and whether Labor entertains those pathways forward, will be the next interesting chapter in this story.
