Michael McGuire: Peter Malinauskas needs to drop the costumes and realise he is no longer in opposition
The posing in high-vis was just dressing up. Peter Malinauskas needs to stop begging for attention and start leading the state, writes Michael McGuire.
Opinion
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It’s early days certainly but perhaps it’s time Peter Malinauskas made the full-time transition from opposition leader to premier.
Malinauskas has only been in the job since March 19, but is still apparently sentimentally attached to some of the feats he employed successfully as opposition leader.
The nature of the job of opposition leader means you are always screaming for attention. For much of the time, being in opposition means you are confined to irrelevance, so you have to try a little harder to make an impression on the media cycle. Occasionally, it makes you do odd things like take your shirt off in public.
Into the same “look at me” bracket was the Premier’s excursion in the back of an ambulance on Saturday night. One of the iron-clad rules in politics is that if an MP is wearing high-vis clothing, then an opportunity for publicity is not far away.
The rise and rise of the cosplay MP across the past few years has been one of a depressing evolution in politics. Cosplay is a contraction of the words “costume” and “play”. It’s a term usually applied for those who like to dress up in superhero costumes and pretend they are someone else for a while.
You could argue that the entire prime ministership of Scott Morrison was an exercise in cosplay. He took on the garb of “suburban daggy dad” to try to appeal to ordinary Australians. He would cook curries for the camera, exercise for the camera, build chook sheds for the camera. None of it appeared remotely authentic. Then, of course, again for the cameras, he tried his hand at everything from welding to hairdressing.
Then you have MPs such as Queensland Liberal Nationals Senator Matt Canavan. This is a man with an honours degree in economics, albeit from the University of Queensland, who worked at the Productivity Commission and KPMG. He’s very much your white collar background but the picture on his Twitter page is of him in high-vis and a face smeared with coal dust. It looks like the coal dust has been applied with as much attention to detail as your average Kardashian takes with their make-up. It’s pitiful.
But back to our Premier. There he was in the high-vis, concerned look on face, as the paramedics went about their nightly business. Malinauskas has justified his decision by saying he wanted to have a closer look at the reality of ambulance work to give him an insight no amount of briefings in an office setting could give him. Maybe. But he could also have done that without all the attendant publicity. He could have done it without the photographers and the Twitter videos and the TV coverage.
One of the key planks in Labor’s surprise election win was its attack on the inadequacies of the health system and ramping at hospitals. Helped by a truly inept campaign run by the state Liberals, Labor convinced it had the answers despite memories of Transforming Health and its own poor handling of the sector under Jay Weatherill’s government.
Since its election win, Labor has tried to suck up to ambos, nurses and doctors at every opportunity. Health Minister Chris Picton also likes a bit of cosplay and often tweets pics of himself with health professionals.
Labor’s budget last week was heavily health-focused as it started to fund the promises it made. It’s all feel-good stuff. More money for this, more beds there, more nurses here.
But there is more to being in government than looking after health. Treasurer Stephen Mullighan admitted last week that there were many uncertainties ahead for the state, including the rate of inflation, rising interest rates, rising debt, the final cost of projects such as the North-South Corridor and the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
There is also a danger in being too close to the health system. Health is beset by longstanding cultural, financial and management problems.
At some point tough decisions are going to have to be made that may upset health professionals. Will Labor have the gumption to do that if required? Will the political imperative of keeping the ambos, for example, onside, trump necessary policy?
Peter Malinauskas has had a golden ride to the office of Premier. Indeed, it’s possibly been one of the smoothest rides to the top job in South Australian political history. When he was in his 20s he was already being talked about as a Labor star and a future premier.
He was made head of the state’s biggest union when Don Farrell went to federal politics. He was parachuted into the Legislative Council in December 2015 and went straight into cabinet.
A longstanding MP stood aside to give him a safe lower house seat at the 2018 election. After the Weatherill government lost in 2018, Malinauskas became opposition leader.
He worked hard in that position. He was politically smart and kept Labor in touching distance of the Marshall government during the height of Covid-19. The Liberals would implode and Malinauskas was there to pick up the pieces and present as a credible alternative.
Now he has to prove he can be the leader the state needs in tough times. And that means ditching the high-vis.
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