By David Crowe
鈥淚 am not sure that all colleagues understood what they voted for,鈥 one Labour MP, Paula Barker, told the BBC after the vote.
Albanese will know exactly what Starmer is dealing with 鈥 and so will Bill Shorten, the former government services minister who made tough calls over two years to slow the growth of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Shorten got there in the end, but only after months of concern from Labor caucus members and some hard politics with state premiers about where to find the savings. The Greens were strongly against, and the Liberals and Nationals played games to drag out the vote 鈥 before most of them agreed to the overhaul last year. Labor did not split.
Starmer got there in the end, but with far greater wounds.