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Anthony Albanese didn't seem too bothered as he sold Australia losing out on the rights to host a major climate summit as a win.
The prime minister had dispatched his Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen on a solo mission to Belém in Brazil to clinch the hosting rights to next year's COP31. It was do or die: reach a deal or face the wrath of an outcome nobody wanted — the summit being held in Germany.
Bowen struck an upbeat tone as he declared he Australia was "in it to win it". But fast forward to Thursday, and Bowen conceded Australia could not win the fight.
Instead of arriving on the algal bloomed beaches of Adelaide, leaders will instead be landing in the resort town of Antalya on Türkiye's Mediterranean coast.
For months, Australia has struggled to end the impasse with Türkiye over who would host COP31. The whole reason Australia even put its hat in the ring was to provide a platform for the Pacific.
Albanese was confident this was still a win for the Pacific. The deal will cover off a pre-summit meeting held in the region. Albanese spoke with several leaders ahead of Bowen's confirmation on Thursday morning.
That's without mentioning Australia won't have to foot the suggested up to $2 billion price tag for playing host at a time where much of the national conversation remains steeped in the cost-of-living crisis.
While the saga isn't a political thriller by any means, the slow unravelling of Australia's once hopeful bid to host the summit alongside the Pacific has deeply disappointed many, including Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Justin Tkatchenko was first off the blocks to say so.
Meanwhile, Bowen is also pretty chuffed with the outcome because he gets to play the role of "president of negotiations". If you think it sounds like a thing they just made up, you wouldn't be completely wrong. The arrangement is unprecedented and we still don't exactly know how it will all work out.
"Obviously, it would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can't have it all," Bowen said.
Just disappointed, not frustrated
There's also South Australian Premier Peter Malinaukus who struck a tone not of frustration but of disappointment. The premier had invested a large amount of effort in convincing the federal government it could pull off the event.
He was given a heads up during a phone call on Tuesday evening that things weren't going to go his way.
"I understand the position the prime minister has taken, he has taken a position to try and navigate the frankly obscene process that exists internationally," he said.
Albanese is on his prime ministerial jet on the way to the G20 summit in South Africa. He has no plans, at this stage, to meet with Türkiye president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to hash out the remaining details.
Why would he? He has his chief climate negotiator Bowen on the case.
States try to take a bigger bite
While Albanese was trying to smooth over disappointment abroad, at home the states ratcheted up their frustration over another missive from the prime minister.
An emergency virtual meeting was organised so state and territory leaders could co-ordinate their lines and dial up pressure for the federal government to honour a deal on hospital funding.
To make a long story short (mostly because the brilliant Stephanie Dalzell has covered this extensively this week), Albanese agreed two years ago to increase its share of funding in return for the states co-funding new support services for children with mild and moderate development delays to get them off the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The whole thing isn't going well. Frustration that the states weren't doing enough led to Health Minister Mark Butler blindsiding them by hard launching his "Thriving Kids" plan that he expected them to sign up to.
And then it emerged this week that Albanese had sent a letter to the leaders back in September demanding they rein in spending if they want the federal government to go through with the deal.
The prime minister shrugged the premier's white hot anger off. He argued taking a carrot approach to the whole thing. States have by year's end to come to the table or risk dealing with this for another year.
It's a far cry from the cannoli diplomacy he shared with Queensland Premier David Crisafuli when the pair (and their education ministers) agreed to a schools funding deal on the eve of the federal election earlier this year.
The situation speaks to an interesting tension in the domestic political arena. As the effectiveness of federal and many state oppositions wane leaders need to look to other places to create differentiation.
States, many of them led by Labor premiers, are also in a situation where they're holding the federal government to account at times more effectively than the Coalition.
And with state elections around the corner for both South Australia and Victoria, they need to point a finger somewhere.
Entering the killing season
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley spent her week as a travelling salesman. Fresh off dumping net zero, she put herself on an at times brutal media circuit that spanned the entire ideological spread of our media market.
The topics ranged from if walking away from the climate target was enough to save her leadership to when the Coalition will reveal its plans for migration (by Christmas, it'll be a plan to cut the intake but she won't reveal by how much).
Across 29 interviews, podcasts and press conferences she declined to comment on whether her leadership was terminal. But confronted by a supercut of listeners on 2GB who said they'd prefer Andrew Hastie as leader over her, she simply explained she'd been underestimated her whole life.
While questions remain over whether she is rolled next week or next year, Ley's state colleagues in Victoria orchestrated a rather bloodless and efficient coup to install first-term MP Jess Wilson. Wilson, like Ley, is the first woman to lead the party.
And it's entirely possible another first-term woman could be installed as opposition leader in Ley's home state of NSW by the end of the week.
With the silly season approaching, the final week of parliament always has end of school term vibes.
The government is under pressure to meet its self-imposed deadline of Christmas to pass the second coming of its environment reforms. As we've canvassed before, Labor wants the deal to be with the Coalition.
So will the Liberals be focused on extracting a yes from the government on its amendment wish list? Or will they be focused on internal drama once again?
At this stage the mood to depose Ley next week has somewhat dampened.
What we do know is the knives will be out at Pauline Hanson's place … for her home cooked dinner with Barnaby Joyce.
She's invited the former deputy prime minister over for a meal in just the latest bid for her attempt to woo Joyce to jump the Nationals ship and join One Nation.
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