He’s finally stood aside, but Gosling is still a headache for the PM

Luke Gosling is the distraction Anthony Albanese neither needed nor wanted.

And his decision to “temporarily” step down on Wednesday from his role as special envoy for defence, veterans’ affairs and Northern Australia has come not a moment too soon.

With an increasingly cranky business community still hounding the prime minister about tax changes and workplace laws, states bickering over how to power the AI revolution and cost of living still Australians’ top concern, the government has enough on its plate without a possible byelection in Gosling’s Northern Territory seat of Solomon, which the MP held by a slender 1500 votes in 2025.

The prospect of a byelection in Solomon is real, and that would be a nightmare for the Albanese government. A loss would be read as a virtual referendum on the government and its most recent budget.

To recap: Gosling, the federal member for Solomon and former soldier, has been accused of an alleged assault on David Con­nolly, the administrator of the Northern Territory (a position equivalent to that of state governor), at a Thai cultural festival in Darwin on July 18.

He denies the charges, has vowed to fight them and had his bail conditions varied on July 31 so he could attend the same public events as Connolly, as long as he gave 48 hours’ notice and stayed at least 15 metres away from Connolly.

Now the Solomon MP has been accused by NT police of breaching his bail conditions by attending the second day of the Australia versus Bangladesh Test in Darwin and providing Connolly’s office with less than an hour’s notice.

Gosling has vigorously denied all charges and protests his innocence. But if he is found guilty and sentenced to an offence punishable by at least a year’s imprisonment, he could be expelled from parliament under section 44 of the Constitution, with a byelection to follow.

In political terms, it doesn’t get much more serious than that – Albanese will not want to fight a midterm byelection. Governments often lose these contests to the opposition (Labor’s 2023 win in the Aston byelection was the first time a government had won a seat from the opposition in 102 years, for example).

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor leapt on the fresh charges yesterday of breaching bail and renewed his call for Gosling to be stood aside from the envoy role, which offers no additional salary and few additional responsibilities. That’s exactly what Albanese, when opposition leader, would have done.

“These allegations are matters for the courts, but Anthony Albanese has a decision to make about who serves in his government. He should stand Mr Gosling down today,” Taylor said on Tuesday evening.

Albanese is a pick-and-stick guy who loathes giving a centimetre of ground to his political enemies.

But cutting Gosling loose while the matter was before the courts was a no-brainer and should have happened sooner. It’s not an admission that Gosling is guilty. It’s a sensible precaution.

The position of special envoy for this or that issue is a relatively new phenomenon in politics.

Sometimes it’s consequential, such as when former Labor senator Patrick Dodson was special envoy for reconciliation and implementation of the Uluru Statement or the appointments of the twin special envoys for combating antisemitism and Islamophobia, respectively Jillian Segal and Aftab Malik.

But sometimes the position of special envoy is little more than a political bauble, used to placate MPs who miss out on a position in the ranks of the ministry.

When Barnaby Joyce was cooling his heels on the backbench in 2018-19, Scott Morrison appointed him special envoy for drought. Joyce thought so highly of the role that he didn’t write a report: instead, he provided Morrison with updates via text message.

This is not to suggest that Gosling has taken a similarly laid-back approach to his role and, of course, the three areas of focus – defence, veterans’ affairs and Northern Australia – are all consequential.