Going to an aged care home can be a fraught outing for a prime minster. That is of course unless you are visiting a retirement village for pandas, which is where Anthony Albanese found himself at the end of his six-day trip to China.

Having dispensed with the Rabbitohs hat he'd worn to the Great Wall of China a day earlier, the PM donned a Hawthorn Football Club shirt as he paid a visit to former Adelaide VIP Fu Ni.  The giant panda, one of two Australia rented for more than a decade, chomped on bamboo as the prime minister called her "a great ambassador for China and a great friend of Australia".

For a while there, Fu Ni and Wang Wang were some of the only Australian residents that could have got China's top-tier officials on the blower, such was the diplomatic chill that was being cast Down Under. If you needed a  reminder of just how much a distant memory those days were for the Chinese government, consider what Albanese again found himself having to sit through this week.

Suddenly a bastion of international trade, China's second-most-senior leader, without a drop of irony, told Albanese about the importance of open markets and predictability. He said it was crucial for the two nations to respond together in the face of "growing instability and uncertainty in the global economy." (He was all but screaming: "Looking at you, Donald Trump!")

The subtle art of shady diplomacy also saw Albanese find the opportunity to remind China's leaders that their citizens could enjoy the Year of the Snake with some of the world's (he said world's but let's be clear he meant Australia's) finest red meat and wine. 

Theatrics and symbolism aside, the trip served as a reminder of the extent to which Australia has returned to China's good books, something that has only been reinforced since Trump's return to the presidency.  The trip was always going to be closely watched by the United States but what was more surprising was the extent to which it appears American officials sought to influence Albanese's meetings.
 
High-ranking Americans were falling over themselves to comment on reports the US was pressuring Australia and Japan to say what it would do in the event of China invading Taiwan.

Almost as soon as Albanese touched down in Shanghai he was being pressed about the reports, forcing him to wade into one of the most sensitive issues a leader could contend with while in China.  Albanese's insistence that Australia supported the status quo and that he wouldn't be drawn into hypotheticals was quickly backed by senior Coalition figures Andrew Hastie and James Paterson.

Yet new defence spokesman Angus Taylor found himself venturing into terrain no former Liberal leader had previously advanced, in saying Australia should be willing to make a principled stance on Taiwan . It remains unclear if this is new policy or a new case of "well done, Angus".

He's a very relaxed treasurer

In case you didn't catch it the first time, Treasurer Jim Chalmers was so keen to reinforce it, he made sure to make multiple references to just how "relaxed" he was about the release of a government briefing that cast doubt over Labor's ability to deliver its signature housing pledge.

Nothing quite says relaxed like repeatedly saying just how relaxed you are. 

The persistence of Treasury officials in trying to get an innocuous document deleted served to highlight there was something there. His department, meanwhile, seemed anything but,  desperately seeking to claw back a document released under Freedom of Information (FOI), which broke with long-held traditions in that it actually contained news, just not intentionally.

Like most FOIs, the document was redacted up the wazoo (further reinforcing why in the world of FOIs, the expression "free from information" is more apt), except for a series of subheadings in a table of contents that the department forgot to redact. Whoops.

The briefing document warned Labor's pledge to build 1.2 million homes over five years to address the housing crisis "will not be met" and that the treasurer would need to find "additional revenue and spending reductions" to meet his objective of a "sustainable" budget.

The ABC also revealed that the Housing Minister Clare O'Neil received a series of departmental ideas after the election to reset Labor's housing agenda, including rental assistance for low-income earners, ways to address concerns with the Housing Australia Future Fund and the possibility of scaling back the 1.2 million new homes pledge.

Chalmers conceded Labor's plan was "ambitious" but insisted it could be achieved. Few other parties in the parliament see it as a credible proposal, with the Coalition dubbing Labor "delusional" and the Greens calling the plans pie in the sky.  To achieve the 1.2 million new homes over five years, Labor will need to average 240,000 new homes a year, something that's only been done twice before.

It's led to forecasts that suggest Labor would need a 50 per cent increase on 2024 construction levels, which in part relies on overcoming labour shortages and planning delays, if it's to get close to meeting the mark.

The low bar for blokes in politics


Sometimes you get stark reminders of just how low the bar is for blokes in federal politics. Having fronted up for an interview about how the government was responding to the horrific reports emerging from the Victorian child care sector , federal education minister Jason Clare received quite the praise from Sunrise presenter Matt Shirvington.

"Keep fighting. I'm not going to, with respect, call you minister today," Shirvington said at the end of the interview."I'm going to call you Jason. You're a dad. Appreciate you coming on."

In fairness, Clare has been working with his Coalition counterpart Jonno Duniam to ensure new laws can be rushed through the parliament to allow the government (the keeper of the purse strings) to cut off funding to centres that fail to keep children safe.

Both men have been candid in recent days on how both sides of politics have to carry the can for why there are inconsistencies in reporting of incidents, the lack of a national database to track employees in the sector and why there still isn't nationally consistent working with children checks despite a royal commission calling for it more than a decade ago.

None of these are issues Jason Clare, the father, can tackle. But not only are they issues Jason Clare, federal minister, can address, but they're issues that, as a minister of the crown, he bares a responsibility to tackle. 

Battle for Bradfield

Next's week first meeting of the 48th parliament will bring with it the first day of school energy for the new MPs and senators elected in May.  First speeches are being written, shirts are being pressed and politicians are likely looking in the mirror to practice not looking like dears in the headlights.

The new MPs and senators have spent recent weeks attending new MP school, which one candidly said felt like trying to drink water from a fire hydrant. One MP who will be among those being sworn in will be independent Nicolette Boele from the once safe Liberal seat of Bradfield.

Having already been allocated an office, she will take her seat alongside 149 other MPs. But unlike her colleagues, she will face months of lingering doubts about how long she'll get to keep the seat, with her  Liberal opponent Gisele Kapterian taking the matter to court.

The last time the Court of Disputed Returns considered a House of Representatives challenge, the case was much like this one. The initial victor (in this case Kapterian) went on to lose the seat in the full recount.  The 2007 matter not only upheld the recount result, it saw a slight increase in the victor's margin.

Should the court hear the matter, it will rest on around 800 so-called "line-ball ballots" which a judge will likely reassess to ensure they were correctly adjudicated during the recount but it could be months before there is an outcome (in 2007 it took eight months). 

Kapterian's electoral plight sums up the state the party finds itself in, something that will be stark when the opposition takes its seats next week.  If Labor's 50 female MPs opted to sit in their own party in the House of Representatives, they'd have seven more MPs than the entirely of the 43-member Coalition opposition, of which just nine are women.