![Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrive for the opening of the 45th Parliament.](/content/dam/images/g/r/4/t/o/r/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gr4tx2.png/1472548804731.jpg)
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The opening of the Australian Parliament is redolent with all the symbolism of Westminster: closed doors being whacked with a ceremonial staff, Members of the House of Representatives being summoned by the Queen's Representative to appear in the Senate.
You can bet that most of the people in Parliament House on Tuesday don't know the origins of much of this tradition in establishing the supremacy of the parliament and the constrained role of the monarch after the English Revolution.
But it seemed particularly apt at the beginning of the 45th Parliament. Malcolm Turnbull might not be the monarch, though with the reporting of politics these days you'd be forgiven for thinking we at least have a presidential system of government. But in Canberra on Tuesday he seemed as newly constrained to influence events as Charles II must have felt when he became the first monarch to be barred from entering the House of Commons.
For around an hour, Sir Peter Cosgrove outlined the Coalition's agenda: the budget; national security; defence; trade; the NBN; cities; regions; infrastructure; agriculture; environment and climate change; innovation and science.
It was only after this list he got to the things which we are told are the big concerns of voters: education, jobs and health and a cursory mention of the subject of the double dissolution – industrial relations.
Sounds busy
It was not a bad effort at sounding busy, given there is in reality not a huge legislative agenda facing the new parliament.
The actual agenda dominating the manoeuvrings in Canberra this week concern completely different things and are being run by everyone other than the prime minister.
Labor and the House of Representatives cross bench were both manoeuvring on same-sex marriage. The prime minister cannot either deliver an election promise on a plebiscite, or it seems avoid at least the theatrics of bills being introduced by others to legislate for marriage equality.
Turnbull's own backbench, meantime, was manoeuvring on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Bill Shorten was sending a shot across the bows of the Senate cross bench by calling for a joint resolution recognising "the right of all Australians to enjoy equal rights and be treated with equal respect regardless of race, colour, creed or origin, consistent with the Speaker's values".
Labor was also preparing to escalate its push for a banking Royal Commission on Thursday, with the government desperately trying to find ways to wrest back control of this issue.
Question of authority
For all the manoeuvrings since polling day, the first Newspoll since the federal election shows the party polling virtually unchanged.
Malcolm Turnbull's standing, however, is at its lowest level since he became prime minister almost a year ago, and six points below where it was immediately before July 2.
The question increasingly becomes when, how and if Turnbull can assert the authority that would normally be associated with a prime minister who has just won his first mandate, however narrowly.
The early passage of the government's omnibus savings bill, with $6.5 billion worth of measures, would have been a good way to start. But by failing to get the bill to Labor for early consideration it has given the Opposition every excuse to take its time and argue that it's caucus cannot formally consider the bill until its next meeting on Monday week.