Remember when Belinda Stronach left Peter Mackay to save the Liberals?

The respective opposition leaders had a straightforward task at Monday’s budget vote. See to it that the government did not fall, as no opposition party was confident that a snap election would be to its advantage, but not appear too accommodating, lest they be thought weak. They pulled it off admirably, with exacting precision, allowing the budget to pass by the narrowest of margins, 170-168. Elegant execution, but risky, as it left no margin for error.

It have been closer, had the various parties had the stomach for it. They could have produced a tie, to be broken with the Speaker casting, by convention, the deciding vote in the government’s favour. That happened some twenty years ago in a saga worthy of a libretto. It might have been too much even for the Italian operatic imagination.