Parliament is not done for the week, it is just half-way through, but Labor MPs are preparing to go back to their electorates.
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It is a bigger deal than normal as they are communities, even Labor voters, that voted against their advice last Saturday and comprehensively killed the Voice referendum.
What to do? What to say?
Who better to ask about reconnecting with voters than the PM tasked with unifying the nation? That's what an enterprising Labor caucus member did on Tuesday and the advice was not brain surgery.
Calming the farm, Mr Albanese pointed to the historical difference between referendums and a general election.
![Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a division. Picture by Gary Ramage Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a division. Picture by Gary Ramage](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/128375134/493abd88-5d33-4a96-b067-52636ec2cbff.jpg/r0_293_4000_2551_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
He then told all assembled to focus.
"We need to continue to do the work we've been doing," he told caucus before giving pointers that included TAFE, health and the government's economic agenda - the surplus, low unemployment, and "getting wages moving". Oh, and his US trip next week, if anyone asks, is in the "national interest".
Hit question time and the Labor's planned Dorothy Dixers were all about other things than the failed Voice to Parliament, while the opposition is not letting anyone move on.
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The Deputy Opposition Leader, who earlier called Mr Albanese a "coward" at a press conference, asked if the Prime Minister was committed to treaty and truth-telling after his "dismal response to his referendum failure".
Mr Albanese's answer to Sussan Ley culminated in him saying he respected the outcome on Saturday and he was trying to "show respect to those people, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition shows none."
But before that, and in other responses, Mr Albanese gave history lessons on how Australia got here with particular emphasis on the Coalition's nine years in office.
"If I get this right, the criticism is that the referendum that we put to the Australian people, that they promised to put to the Australian people at every election from 2007 on, from every leader of the Liberal Party according to the Leader of the Opposition, said they would advance constitutional recognition but it did not happen," he said.
"They never put it to a referendum."
No, the Coalition didn't. Labor did. It was not given bipartisan support. The campaign was not up to it. And here we are: Looking for a way forward, but being deliberately confused about the not-too-distant past.
So Mr Albanese tried to turn the tables on the Opposition Leader, reaching into the zinger folder as he repeatedly mocked Mr Dutton over his not-clear second referendum idea.
"More flip-flopping than a thong factory, this bloke," the Prime Minister told Parliament.
"Can't keep a straight line between Channel 7 and Channel Nine. You flick the dial and you get a different answer. On one you get two referendums. On the other one you get just one!"
What wins the day in Parliament may not cut through to Australians who aren't, in the main, avid question time consumers. Most breakfast TV watchers don't flick between channels to spot the difference.
Cutting through will be the MPs job when they head back to their electorates on Thursday. Sounds like they need help.