Can the new Federal Coalition be an effective Opposition and start acting like a 'government in waiting' ready to lead?

Developing a sense of mission, explaining about what they are for, not just what they are against, is an urgent task that the new Coalition leadership must address to galvanise support and effort. Idealism, not ideology is needed.

Access to government departments

Nor does an opposition have access to the vast resources of government departments that advise ministers on policy, implementation issues, and even critique opposition proposals. By contrast, departmental briefings to oppositions are limited, constrained and supervised by the government ministerial staff.

Also, departments are implementing policies and so know what is not working and keep their ministers informed of such trends. By contrast, an opposition does not have the same access to this feedback. They can get some idea of what is happening by research, combing all the official reports, and talking to the stakeholders involved. On that point, though, an opposition that seems far away from winning the next election, will find that external stakeholders will often be lukewarm in their interactions as they want to talk to those with the power – not those of out of power. This especially applies to the corporate end of town.

Constraints on parliamentary processes

While oppositions can use parliamentary processes like question time, debates, and committees to probe and expose, governments can blunt such efforts. They have the numbers and the Albanese Government after 2025 has increased its majority thus making this easier to do this in the House of Representatives. athey A government can control how long debates will, the order of business and even the length of question time.

Even in the Senate, where the Albanese Government lacks a majority, the Coalition's recent loss of Senate seats means it can now be more easily sidelined by government deal making with the minor parties and the cross-bench on key policy issues.

Complexity of public policy – need for expert assistance and external connections

The increasingly complex nature of modern policy requires access to expert advice that an opposition usually lacks. Labor oppositions partly compensate for this through their reservoir of trade union support. Labor also has greater connection to the growing array of interest and community groups, than the Coalition. Indeed, some suggest the Coalition parties have been "disestablished" from many of our key institutions – the media, universities, professions and even the corporate sector and thus access to their knowledge and inputs.

So, an area where the Coalition, if they are serious about regaining the agenda, must be to develop some innovative ways of making wider community connections.

So where will the Coalition get its ideas and funding from? Australian centre right think tanks are fewer and smaller than their US counterparts and are themselves often sidelined from debates. Funding from contributors will only be forthcoming if the Opposition acts like a genuine "government in waiting" poised, if not to win next time, at least to be relevant in current policy debates – setting the agenda rather than reacting to the one being run by the government.

Conclusion

These are the challenges confronting any opposition, but especially the Coalition given its current depleted state. It was recently reformed, assumedly, to avoid policy "me-tooism" with the incumbent government that seemed to characterised its predecessor. the new Coalition team is supposed to better reflect the core values of its rank and file and its own history. That is important, but those values need to be articulated in real policy terms to show how they would make a difference to people's lives compared to continuing under the present government. Such policies need to be framed in the wider public interest rather than just the opposition's partisan interest of winning office.

It is a big task and time is running out.