David Penberthy: Wayne Swan’s place in history would have to be the farthest thing from any normal person’s mind

A crisis doesn’t mean a free pass for prime ministers or premiers but even Labor voters are fed up with this opposition sniping from the sidelines, writes David Penberthy.

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The public has zero appetite for partisan politics and cheap pointscoring at a time like this.

Save for those ideological obsessives on social media, Australians have absolutely no interest in carping commentary, and no tolerance for opposition politicians taking potshots from the sidelines as governments do their best to negotiate a series of frightening and unprecedented circumstances.

Based on his performance this past fortnight, I seriously doubt if Anthony Albanese will ever be prime minister. In record time, Albanese has gone from being a magnanimous and constructive figure during the bushfires, who smartly did not even criticise the PM for being in Hawaii, to being a negative presence on the national stage in this pandemic.

Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese wisely did not criticise Scott Morrison durin the bushfire disaster that preceded the pandemic. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

Smote, perhaps, by his non-inclusion in the national war Cabinet – even though four of its eight state premiers and territory chiefs are Labor leaders – the usually avuncular Albo has sounded like a grump and a knocker, by taking the irretrievably fateful decision to pitch himself almost as the prime minister in exile.

The worst of federal Labor has been its decision to use the Morrison Government’s stimulus measures as a chance to re-open debate about the wisdom or otherwise of its own cash injections during the global financial crisis. Talk about reading the mood. In Australia right now, Wayne Swan’s place in history would have to be the farthest thing from any normal person’s mind.

At the state level, Peter Malinauskas has personally done a much better job than other opposition leaders in trying to sound bipartisan. To his credit, he has resisted pressure to call for an immediate statewide shutdown, as other state opposition leaders have done.

Behind the scenes, he has done a lot of good work in talking to people who have lost their jobs as a result of this crisis. I know that he spent most of last Saturday talking to Myer workers whose future is now in limbo.

With his retail background with the shop workers union, this is a valuable and commendable role for him to play. He has also said that he sees his job as to support the Government while also providing what he calls “constructive suggestions” as to how things could be better addressed. The trouble is, that last reassurance really counts for nought when his shadow ministry is providing a daily procession of press releases offering nothing but negative commentary about the Government’s performance across every portfolio.

Peter Malinauskas can be as constructive as he likes. It matters not if people like his health spokesman Chris Picton, education spokeswoman Susan Close and transport spokesman Tom Koutsantonis are harrumphing like judges from The Muppet Show about every measure the Government introduces to beat this crisis.

The Twitter feed of some of these MPs is truly appalling. It almost sounds like they are willing the Government to fail. I have seen real-time tweets by these MPs that almost sound like they are gloating when the infection rate drops in Western Australia and rises in SA.

It’s a disgrace and they could not read the public mood any worse if they tried, so much so that I have seen responses from people who are actually Labor voters telling them to pull their heads in and stop barracking for the worst possible results.

On the question of testing for SA for COVID-19, it is an undeniable and independently established fact that SA has the highest rate of per capita testing in Australia, and the second highest in the world behind the United Arab Emirates.

This should be a source of reassurance and even pride, yet the commentary from the Opposition around testing has been that it’s inadequate.

Here’s a thought. Of course it’s bloody inadequate. It’s inadequate across the entire world because the novel coronavirus – “novel” meaning “new” – is just that.

It is a brand new and deadly virus that has caught the planet unawares. That’s why governments around the world and health experts around the world are struggling to stay on top of it.

I am certainly not calling for an end to scrutiny nor for governments to not be held to account. Indeed, if I were writing this column in NSW, it would be a very different one. That state government’s handling of the cruise-ships crisis demands nothing but condemnation, overseen by a couple of ministers who would be flat out tying their own shoelaces and, by rights, should be screwing the lids on toothpaste tubes somewhere rather than holding high public office.

I am also not saying that we should suspend valid criticisms of the PM or any other premier. I was strongly critical of the PM’s press conference a couple of Fridays ago when he sent confused messages by flagging social distancing while also announcing his determination to go to the footy, even though I think that since then he has been doing a very solid job under unimaginably trying circumstances.

When it comes to our Premier, I am really not sure why you would bag the bloke at all. As far as I can tell, Steven Marshall hasn’t had a day off since December, when he cancelled his holidays due to the bushfires, and has been at work and trying his best ever since.

If I were an opposition leader right now, I would say this: “We wish the Government well. These are hellish times and the last thing governments need is daily criticism. We will save politics for another day.”

Human nature being what it is, there will be a time soon enough when things calm down. And people will return to their default position of blaming the Government.

At which point the Opposition can go back to doing what they do and rip into the decisions that governments have made if time proves them to be poor ones.

For now, the more they sound like a traditional opposition, the greater their chances of remaining one for a really long time.