After a six-week break over winter, the Parliament was a fiery place this week.

Labor framed the next election as one between the “mainstream vs the maddies”, and the opposition is homing in on its framing of the prime minister as dishonest.

But, as has been the case so many times in the past year, the parliament again convulsed over the war in Gaza. Opposition leader Peter Dutton started a sharp immigration row when he called for Palestinians to be blocked from Australia because they may sympathise with Hamas. The vehemently pro-Israel leader sought to portray Labor as weak on the Gaza issue by questioning their approach on the refugee intake.

But how will this play out in electorate, and how has the government responded?

Joining Paul Sakkal are chief political correspondent David Crowe and home affairs and immigration reporter Natassia Chrysanthos.

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This week the boss of the Australian spy agency, ASIO, lifted the terror threat level from possible to probable. The last increase in the threat level was in 2014, and it was in response to Islamic extremism.

This time, the risk to society is different - it is the risk of young men, especially, being radicalised online by a grab-bag of conspiracy theories and far-right grievances, and carrying out a lone wolf attack.

So what are the social conditions that have led to this evolving threat to our safety? And what can our security agencies do to make us safer?

Plus, we take a look at the decision by the Reserve Bank to leave rates on hold and the effect this will have on the fortunes of the Albanese government.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.

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Australians are buying way less stuff. Households are draining their savings.

Yet at the same time, we’ve been hearing months of warnings that the Reserve Bank might again hike mortgage rates.

That all changed on Wednesday when a key data set was released. It showed the prices of goods and services were still rising higher than we would like, but not quite as quickly as some feared.

Today, senior economic correspondent Shane Wright joins Paul Sakkal to unpack what the latest data tell us about our economy, and whether mortgage holders might see some relief.

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The cost of energy generation went up over winter.

That doesn’t mean power bills are about to spike however - retail prices are set once a year by a regulator, which means that households aren’t about to see a change in the cost of their electricity any time soon.

But the increased cost of generating power could have big impacts on the economy, politics and households.

Also, two long-serving Labor ministers are retiring from politics, ahead of the next federal election. Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney, and Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Conner will leave parliament at the election, and the Prime Minister will use their retirements to reshuffle his cabinet this weekend.

Today, climate and energy correspondent Mike Foley and national affairs editor James Massola on what government’s are doing to fix our energy market and what a reshuffle means for Labor.

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Unions and Labor are intertwined. The oldest Labor Party in the world traces its roots to the shearers strike of the 1890s.

At that time, powerless workers decided to band together to create a political party and take on big business.

The aims of unions underpins a lot of what Labor does when it holds power. Many of its MPs worked for unions. But what happens when one misbehaves? Misbehaves badly.

There have long been suggestions and reports of bully-boy tactics in the rough world that is the building industry. But reports in The Age and SMH revealed so much more than the odd bad apple.

Labor is already sagging in the polls. A new union scandal now threatens to derail the government’s winter agenda and opens it up to the long-standing charge of being too close to trade unions.

Today, chief political correspondent David Crowe and political reporter Angus Thompson join Paul Sakkal to discuss the CFMEU scandal and what it means for the government.

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They’re worn by the hundreds of lobbyists who are granted access to the building and the politicians who work inside it.It’s a lucrative business - lobbyists charge handsomely to help big firms get access to large federal deals.

And with billions of dollars of government contracts up for grabs - including $22.7 billion for Labor’s made in Australia plan - a new class of Labor-allied lobbyists has emerged.

This has heightened concerns about the power of top lobbyists and renewed calls for more transparency about the access they get to the country’s decision makers.

Today, Chief political correspondent David Crowe talks to Paul Sakkal to discuss this lobbyland and the rise of Labor insiders becoming guns for hire, as well as the emergence of a new group called The Muslim Vote that is also trying to influence politics.

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After a tumultuous couple of weeks in Canberra, senator Fatima Payman has quit the Labor party. On Thursday, Payman emotionally announced her decision to leave the party that helped her gain a senate seat in the 2022 election, saying she had exhausted every option to raise her concerns about the government’s position on Palestinian recognition. Today, political correspondents Paul Sakkal and Angus Thompson talk to Jacqueline Maley about the split between Payman and the Labor party and its ramifications.

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"My name is Julian Paul Assange."

These were the first words spoken by the Wikileaks founder and high-profile long-time former prisoner as he finally faced court to answer charges this week. Assange accepted a deal to plead guilty of violating US espionage law and appeared on Wednesday in a court in the obscure US Pacific island territory of Saipan.

He was sentenced to time already served and boarded a flight home to Canberra, Australia. He arrived home on Wednesday evening to a cold Canberra evening, a triumphant fist raised.

So how big a political coup is Assange’s release? Who has been working on it and for how long? Why has Albanese made it a project of his government?

And, the temporary defection of Labor Senator Fatima Payman to the Greens.

Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss is chief political correspondent David Crowe, national security correspondent Matthew Knott, and live from Saipan, North Asia correspondent Lisa Visentin.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.

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