The most heated battles in recent years in Australian politics have been between Labor's leader in the Senate Penny Wong and the federal government's finance minister Mathias Cormann.
The two have sparred about the sports rorts scandal, Pauline Hanson, and the government's budgeting.
Despite their political differences, on Friday in the Senate Cormann revealed the two share a "deep personal friendship" outside of senate estimates and the parliament chambers. And amid the political personality clashes dominating world news at the moment, it was a rare moment of respect.
Cormann is leaving federal politics at the end of the year, and he began his valedictory speech by talking about Penny Wong - and a shock to many onlookers, paying tribute to their long friendship from opposite sides of the chamber. He said there's no one he's sparred more vigorously than Labor's deputy leader.
"And yet, we do have a deep personal friendship, which I'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying publicly, we do trust each other," Cormann said in the Senate on Friday.
"How good is it to work that way, where you can not give an inch for fighting for what you believe in, but work with each other to find practical and pragmatic solutions."
The revelation of their friendship has warmed the hearts of some on social media, especially given the criticism of political polarisation in Australia.
Cormann and Wong’s greatest battles
In 2018, the government unveiled the Community Sport Infrastructure Grant Program, which allowed sports clubs across the country to apply for grants as high as $500,000. The program was designed to bring about improvements for local community sporting facilities.
Nationals MP and former Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie came under fire after the auditor general found the program favoured coalition marginal and targeted seats prior to the last election. The former minister had also failed to declare her membership of a club that received $36,000 through the scheme. She later stepped down from the front bench.
Wong was critical of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handling of the scandal, and let the rest of the senate know. Cormann took umbrage with Wong’s criticism saying, "The Prime Minister could walk on water and you'd say 'why can't he swim'?"
In reply, Wong said, “He doesn't walk on water, in fact, he's been a very naughty boy."
Cormann hit back saying, “that is your political assertion which we reject. Everything that’s been publicly released is entirely consistent with the Prime Minister’s explanation of his involvement, and the involvement of his office, in this program.”
“That is just a lie,” Wong said. “136 emails is not providing information, it’s running the program.”
A year earlier, the two were at it again but this time on the government’s advertising spending.
Things got heated in 2018 when in a conversation about that year’s budget Cormann said to Wong, “I know you always like channeling senator Hanson.”
It didn’t go down very well, as Wong - an Asian-Australian - pointed to Hanson’s 1996 maiden speech in parliament where One Nation leader famously said "I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians."
And Wong didn’t hold back when grilling Cormann on the government’s decision to change a feature of the budget, one day after its release. The change saw the government include Newstart recipients in their one-off energy assistance payment in 2019.
Mathias Cormann will be running as a candidate to become the OECD Secretary General. If he’s successful, perhaps they’ll need to shift their heated debates to Zoom.
