Illustration: Jim Pavlidis The irony was that many of those Coalition MPs who had either left or were preparing to leave Parliament after the first sitting week since the July 2 election were quietly satisfied, or at least relieved, that the calamity so many had predicted had been avoided. Labor had tested Turnbull's claim that he had a "strong working majority" at the first opportunity and come up just short; the Prime Minister had generally performed well, especially in question time; and Labor bomb-thrower Sam Dastyari was engulfed in a furore entirely of his own making. The first test of the numbers had been on a Labor motion supporting the royal commission into the behaviour of the banks that was a key Labor election pledge. It was defeated early on Wednesday by 75 votes to 73. After the Senate voted in favour of its own royal commission motion on Thursday, Labor had another chance to test the numbers in the house by debating the merits of the Senate motion.

The Turnbull Government's response this week to win over some of its backbenchers was to announce another inquiry. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen An attempt by Labor's tactical chief, Tony Burke, to debate the Senate motion was narrowly defeated at around 4.20pm, giving those on the government benches the strong impression that they were free and clear. "Everyone was relaxed," is how one Liberal MP described the mood, "thinking Labor had played their hand." Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with Anthony Albanese after the Opposition won three divisions in an attempt to bring on a debate to establish a banking royal commission. Credit:Andrew Meares But Burke was only warming up, and quickly concluded he could create another opportunity, so long as the motion was worded differently and moved by someone else.

Having drafted the new motion and secured Anthony Albanese's agreement to move it, he arranged for the spotter to monitor departures at the airport. Labor tactical chief Tony Burke. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen It was then that Burke had to confront another problem. The period before the Parliament rises sees the adjournment debate, where speakers from both sides take five-minute turns until 5pm, when the House automatically adjourns without a vote. Burke advised Labor MP Steve Georganas to cut his speech very short so that the debate finished two minutes early, necessitating a vote on whether the house should adjourn. This is when Burke rolled the dice and moved an amendment, knowing the numbers were close but unsure what the final result would be. The airport spotter had reported that two ministers were at the airport, but Burke was unaware how many others had departed by car.

Labor needed to win six votes to secure the support of the Parliament for its commission and won the first three before enough Coalition MPs had returned to tie the fourth. That was enough to secure the first defeat for a majority government in the House in more than half a century. Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce had driven a block from Parliament before receiving a message and hurtling back. The only vote he missed was one the Coalition won. Justice Minister Michael Keenan was not so lucky. He had not missed a division in 12 years in Parliament, but was absent without leave and faced the wrath of an angry Prime Minister when he returned to Canberra after flying to Melbourne. His assertion that he left early in relation to "some late-breaking mail about a significant operation within the AFP (Australian Federal Police)" will invite more questions when Parliament comes back. The bigger issue is where this leaves a government that Tony Abbott has observed, in the context of budget repair, is in office but not in power - and what sort of pointer the episode will be to the months ahead.

"If you can't run the Parliament you can't run the country," says Albanese. "We were in control during three years of minority government…This mob with a majority government couldn't get through three days." Burke goes further: "There are very few times in Australian history that an opposition has taken control of the floor of Parliament and no government has survived long after it. "Malcolm Turnbull, as of Thursday night, doesn't have a working majority in the House of Representatives and, in all probability, doesn't have a working majority in his own partyroom either." The only upside for the Coalition is that the "stuff-up", as Pyne has dubbed it, came so early in the term, underscoring the imperative for discipline. But will it be heeded? Not likely by South Australian Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who is leading a campaign to revive the changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act that Abbott was forced to abandon for good reasons.

This is a push that neither Turnbull nor the nation needs, yet Bernardi has managed to enlist every government backbench senator bar one to the cause. What are they thinking? The episode also raises some questions for Labor, that go to the heart of its mission this term. Is its singular focus to be finishing off the outfit that was almost defeated on July 2 as quickly as possible, or developing an agenda capable of winning the next election? One signpost will be how Turnbull and Shorten approach the question of marriage equality, where the Prime Minister is committed to the plebiscite his predecessor promised. Labor's instinct is to oppose the plebiscite on a host of grounds, including the conviction that the majority of those who stand to benefit want Parliament to legislate the change – an approach that could destroy Turnbull's leadership. "Our tactics and our approach remain unchanged: we're not going to give an inch in pursuing our agenda," Burke tells me. "There are issues where it's important to have a cooperative approach in the national interest and we will do that, but what Thursday night shows is they don't have a working majority and we are right to continue to fight for the things we believe in."