Hello and welcome to day two of the house sitting, with senate estimates.

You can always tell just who won the previous day by how hyperbolic the Sky News politics now newsletter is. Today’s is full with claims the Coalition smashed it yesterday. Which is how you know that didn’t happen. You don’t need to pump up the tyres of winners, you know? Federal politics is largely missing from the other major websites homepages, which is another indication that the Hill isn’t exactly providing the goods. This isn’t a bad thing – events should be covered according to their impact, and not blown up into something just to squeeze out some content. But given the break, Anthony Albanese’s international tour, and the ongoing issues regarding mutual obligations, house prices, a whishy washy climate target, ongoing approval of fossil fuel projects etc, it is telling just how much control the government has over the agenda at present. Because none of them have become major headaches.

That tends to be what happens when one side of politics is a rabble.

Labor went through it in 2014 – it was just that Tony Abbott’s leadership was SO batshit, that he managed to take himself down.

Albanese is sticking pretty close to that middle road, which works if your goal is political steadiness, but doesn’t if you want to address the major issues facing the nation in a way that brings about the necessary changes that are needed.

But while the crossbench continues to highlight many of those issues, and changes, we still have a government committed to the very least it can do, on almost any issue. Ultimately, it will be voters which shake it out of that, not the Coalition. But we have some road to go before the main political parties work that out.

So join us today as we wait to find out what a fresh new day brings us. You have Amy Remeikis with you, along with the brains trust of the Australia Institute and others, and the New Daily’s Mike Bowers, who is already up and about in the hallways, given the messages he is sending my way.

It’s a four coffee morning (and yes, we had a little sleep in today. Daylight saving always leaves me feeling a bit jetlagged in the first week)

Ready? Let’s get into it.