A new power has risen in Australian politics — and it’s not coming quietly

What we’re seeing right now in federal Parliament is something you very rarely get to see: The emergence of a new head of power.

Power shifts in politics are not rare. They happen all the time, in ways either big or small.

Someone gets promoted or resigns in disgrace; that’s a small shift. A minor party acquires the balance of power in the Senate, and suddenly the members of that party go from “Random Nutter” status in the Prime Minister’s Rolodex to “Invite to Lodge Immediately”. That’s a biggish shift.

As are tectonic rearrangements of factions in major parties, which occur at a subterranean level away from the public eye but sometimes burst forth in spumes of spectacular red-hot lava in the periodic events known as leadership spills.

This…