Mortgage broker forks out $16k to play tennis against the PM

Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Courtney Gould gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.

A mortgage broker forked out $16,500 on Canberra's night of nights to take his grudge about budget tax directly up to the prime minister in a tennis match at the Lodge.

Joseph Daoud won the tennis game with the PM at the Midwinter Ball charity auction on Wednesday night.

The financial commentator got attention this week for spending tens of thousands of dollars on billboards protesting the scaling back of negative gearing and the capital gains tax.

After he secured the winning bid, Daoud took to LinkedIn (where else?) to say the concerns of the sector had fallen on "deaf ears".

"I got real resourceful to find a way to ask our questions. What better way than a good old game of tennis, with the proceeds going to charity," he wrote.

Albanese is a regular on the tennis court. No word on the skills of Daoud and the three other guests that he's permitted to take to the Lodge for the afternoon of tennis and refreshments.

"If it's a choice between someone who's in the sector somewhere and who's got enough money to buy billboards and spend all this, or first home buyer struggling to get a home, I'm for the first home buyers," Albanese said of the match.

The government passed the first tranche of legislation last week in a bid to put debate in the rear-view mirror. But the pushback from Daoud and others is just one part of the story.

Labor still has two stages to tackle: the fix on concessions for start-ups and a minimum 30 per cent tax on income from discretionary trusts.

It's a fight that the business groups aren't planning on shying away from. Game on.

'I would pretend it was all a bad dream'

The annual Midwinter Ball is an off-record event hosted by the press gallery to raise money for charity. Part of the fun is the speeches delivered under Chatham House rule by the leaders — which also means those in the room can't directly quote what was said.

But here's a flavour: Albanese didn't top last year when he emerged in a Hawaiian shirt with Medicare cards all over it.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor also didn't reach the highs set by his predecessor Sussan Ley in her blistering address last year.

After being asked about the tennis showdown by the opposition in Question Time, the prime minister joked about Taylor's speech.

"If I was someone on that side, led by this leader of the opposition, I wouldn't be mentioning last night. I would pretend it was all a bad dream," he said.

An underwhelming showing at the Midwinter ball does not a leadership contest make. But it's part of a string of performances that have some within the Liberal party, as Patricia Karvelas reported this week, concerned about Taylor's ability to take the fight to Hanson.

Four months on from rolling Ley, the Coalition was unable to capitalise on the post-budget backlash, and its slide in the opinion polls continued. According to Newspoll, its primary vote is now at another record low of 17 per cent.

Taylor, and his team, concede it will take time to turn the Gus bus around. But say there's no need for a rebrand (as was called for by Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh).

But how much time will he be given? Ley was given nine months. On the defensive about his poor polling, Taylor said he would never attack One Nation voters, and he never will.

A copy of the Coalition's talking points (which guides MPs on how to respond to questions of the day), obtained by my colleague Clare Armstrong this week, did not offer any guidance on direct questions about One Nation.

It's in stark contrast to how Taylor's one-time leadership rival Andrew Hastie has been handling it. He vowed in an email to supporters last week that he wouldn't be pushed around by One Nation after what he described as "a relentless campaign of personal attacks" against him online. Hastie upgraded security at his home and electorate office after he faced backlash following his role as a potential witness in the trial of accused war criminal and Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith.

Hastie had the cut-through line of the week when questioned on Pauline Hanson's push for a monoculture.

"Are we going to watch re-runs of Neighbours with Toadfish and Harold Bishop? What is her definition of monoculture?" he asked.

But he also sidestepped endorsing multiculturalism as a policy and called it a "loaded term".

Gambling legislation looks modest

Albanese may have come out on top in the battle of the speeches, but the government suffered several set-backs in the Senate chamber this week.

After declaring the tech giants were "not doing enough" to implement the social media ban for under-16s, Labor scrambled to introduce new rules to double fines to $99 million. It wanted legislation to pass by the end of the week.

The Greens had other ideas and teamed up with the Coalition to send it off to an inquiry. Also off to an inquiry is the government's crackdown on gambling advertisements.

More than 1000 days after a bipartisan committee headed up by late Labor MP Peta Murphy recommended an online gambling advertisement ban; the government finally introduced legislation to the parliament.

The modest crackdown falls short of what was recommended by what is now known as the Murphy report. MPs from all sides, such as Liberal Simon Kennedy and Labor's own Louise Miller-Frost, have demanded it go further.

"I think there's a lot of us that think it is unfinished business," Miller-Frost said today. "Advertising is certainly a part of it, but I would like to see the federal regulator, and I would like to see the ban on inducements."

A sauna session with a Senator

"Any other fun tidbits from last night's ball?" I hear you ask. Hanson wasn't the only politician to give it a miss. Larissa Waters, Barnaby Joyce, Penny Wong, and Lidia Thorpe, to name a few, also spent their Wednesday nights elsewhere whether by choice or because of conflicting commitments.

Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall didn't let their new party, Community Strong Australia, stop the pair from participating in the teal independent's traditionally gathering and picture on the steps of the Marble Foyer.

Bradfield MP Nicolette Boele was one of several MPs to pick up their frocks from a local charity shop. Labor's Anne Aly continued her trend of making her own gown.

The event raised $375,000 for charity, taking the overall contributions over the years to more than $6.26m.

The Midwinter Ball is an annual chance for people to dig deep for charity in a silent auction. Albanese's tennis lesson was just one of the prizes up for grabs. Also on offer was the chance for six people to wine and dine with Taylor and his deputy Jane Hume.

A lucky anonymous bidder paid $5000 for the chance to visit Taylor's southern NSW property. The Senate's man about town, David Pocock, also put up a "warm up and wind down" session for four people at Canberra's Floating Saunas.

"If you're a brave soul you can also take the plunge into Lake Burley Griffin to periodically cool off," the prize package read.

Sounds like it could've been the set-up for a group date on The Bachelor if you ask me.