Disunity is death, but here’s why more friendly fire might help the PM

Is the Labor backbench starting to feel the heat over the 2026 budget? If it is, you’d hardly know it.

There’s no doubt that the budget has not landed as well as Labor had hoped. Senior members of the government, such as Treasurer Jim Chalmers, have repeatedly made the point that they expected to lose a bit of skin for making major changes to the tax system. Pushback was expected. Factored in. The price you pay when you undertake big reforms. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Day after day in question time, the opposition hammers the prime minister over two things: the broken promises and the details of the tax changes, while Labor backbenchers shift uncomfortably in their seats.

Suddenly, a raft of first-term MPs have been confronted by their own political mortality for the first time. For them, the prospect of being “oncers” is now real. Pauline Hanson has her eye on a swag of marginal seats, particularly in her home state of Queensland. On current polling, One Nation has a decent chance of winning some of those seats.

As one experienced Labor MP, who asked not to be named, explains it: “Caucus is now split into three groups. The true believers who support the [tax] changes, the people taking the ‘short-term pain, long-term gain’ view, and the people in aspirational, marginal seats that swing between Labor and Liberal each election.”

It is this third group that should concern the prime minister.

With 94 seats in the lower house, Labor can afford a large swing against it at the next election and still retain the minimum 76 seats required for a majority. But between now and the next election, some of those backbenchers will need to find their voices.

At the same time as Labor’s feeling the political heat over its budget, two other things are happening, both consequential. First, One Nation’s support continues to surge. The party is taking votes from both the Coalition and Labor, as the most recent Resolve Political Monitor makes clear.

Second, former cabinet minister and now backbencher Ed Husic decided to speak out this week and question the AUKUS pact, just days after former Rudd-Gillard Labor minister Peter Garrett launched a crowd-funded inquiry into the deal.

Husic’s views mirror those of many Labor Party grassroots members. For them, and much of the union movement, the nuclear submarine deal is deeply unpopular. His decision to speak out has been interpreted by some as the first sign of caucus disunity.

As a second Labor MP, who also asked not to be named, says, “this is the biggest fight we have been in for a while”. But they playe