MONDAY 2 February 2026 – The time spent on political theatre and sledging are almost on par with policy debate in the Australian parliament, Australian-first analysis from AMPLIFY has found.
The AMPLIFY House Monitor used AI to categorise more than 16,000 speeches over an estimated 625 hours from the first six months of the parliamentary term (mid-July 2025 - end December 2025).
While lifting productivity is high on the political agenda, the analysis shows MPs and Senators wasted more than a third of their time on political theatre and bad behaviour, spending the equivalent of 28 business days criticising and attacking one another.
Excluding parliamentary procedure and formalities, nearly 50% of the remaining time was spent on political theatre and bad behaviour.
“Australia is facing flatlining productivity, a nationwide housing crisis, growing levels of national debt and rising inflation, but instead of focusing on policy our politicians are more focused on political point-scoring and chest-thumping,” AMPLIFY CEO Georgina Harrisson said.
“Australians overwhelmingly want their elected representatives to focus on solutions to the big issues impacting them and their communities, not sledging each other.”
AMPLIFY’s most recent national survey found 72% of Australians believe politicians are more focused on winning votes than solving problems and the AMPLIFY House Monitor reinforces what the community already knows.
Key insights from AMPLIFY’s House Monitor
- Australian politicians are spending less than 40% of their total time in the House of Representatives and the Senate debating policy (37.5%).
- They are spending nearly as much time on political theatre (32%), which includes partisan attacks and promoting their party.
- Bad behaviour made up 3.4% of parliamentary speeches, which includes hostile language, personal attacks and interjections.
- Excluding parliamentary procedure and formalities, almost 50% of remaining available parliamentary time was spent on political theatre and bad behaviour.
- MPs and Senators spent approximately 220 hours (equivalent to 28 business days) on political theatre and bad behaviour.
This is nowhere near good enough to address the significant national challenges we face. Our research shows 71% of Australians believe the promise of a fair go, rising living standards and the belief each generation will enjoy greater prosperity than the last has been broken.
More specifically, AMPLIFY’s most recent national survey showed Aussies want urgent action to address housing (75%) and the cost of living (62%).
The scale of our housing crisis is unprecedented, with nearly 90% of homes out of reach for households on median incomes and the Productivity Commission finding that housing productivity, measured by houses completed per hour of construction work, is down by more than 50% over the last 30 years.
“Australians are facing a worsening housing crisis that requires every level of government to substantially lift its productivity to restore the promise of home ownership for current and future generations,” Ms Harrisson said.
“Political trust is breaking down. If we have any hope of restoring trust in government we’ve got to start with what happens in Canberra. Our politicians must do better.”
The AMPLIFY House Monitor also categorises the speeches of every MP and Senator to provide transparency on how politicians spend their time.
“Our goal is to give Australians insight into how our representatives engage with each other and on the issues that matter,” Ms Harrisson said.
“Providing this transparency gives us the best chance of bringing about the change we all want and need to see.”
For more detailed information on the AMPLIFY House Monitor visit our website: https://www.amplifyaus.org/our-work/housemonitor
MEDIA CONTACT
Lucy Bladen, lucy@akinagency.com.au 0438 727 605
Methodology
In an Australian first, AMPLIFY built an AI model to analyse Hansard transcripts from sitting weeks between July 22, 2025 and January 1, 2026. A clean, structured Hansard dataset was prepared by OpenAustralia. The dataset contained 16,334 segments, each constituting an uninterrupted block of speech by a single speaker (including speeches, questions, answers and interjections).
Each speech segment has been coded using a large language model to understand how parliamentarians use their time in parliament.
The model classified every segment into five broad debate categories:
- Policy (introducing, debating and voting on legislation, as well as motions)
- Political theatre (partisan attacks and credit-claiming)
- Bad behaviour (personal attacks and heckling)
- Formalities (points of order, tabling of reports, scheduling)
- Recognition (tributes, community recognition, shoutouts and promotion)
Like any form of analysis, there’s room for interpretation. We welcome feedback on the model and how it can be improved to make the data and findings more rigorous, which is why we have transparently published the model, prompts and raw data set.
You can read more about the model here.
About AMPLIFY
AMPLIFY is an independent community-led organisation working to rebuild the broken promise to Australians. Our vision is for Australia to become a nation where fairness and prosperity continues to grow and no-one gets left behind. We use cutting edge deliberative tools to bring community, experts and decision-makers together to shape policy and drive change. For more information: amplifyaus.org.