If Albanese wins the next election he should celebrate, then step aside

If Anthony Albanese wins the next election to govern either in majority or minority, he should, after a decent interval, retire so Labor can regenerate.

Albanese succeeded brilliantly, certainly beyond his wildest imaginings and that of his friends, to become leader then prime minister. He should count his blessings, then gracefully relinquish the job.

Illustration by Joe BenkeCredit:

This is a benign view. The more drastic, which has been bubbling away inside the wider Labor family, is that he has lost his mojo, his judgment has deserted him and if he can’t summon the discipline to shape up, he should ship out before the election to allow someone else to take on a rampant Peter Dutton.

If Albanese loses next year, which once seemed improbable and now looks possible, obviously he is finished. There will be a bloodbath, he will shoulder much of the blame and his legacy will be trashed.

That prospect has prompted questions about whether it is too late to switch – it is – and has already led others to look past him.

A couple of weeks ago Duncan Johnston, owner of one of Melbourne’s iconic bookshops, Hill of Content, which sponsors the prestigious Australian Political Book of the Year Award, introduced Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who was presenting the prize for the third year in a row.

If Albanese loses next year ... he will shoulder much of the blame and his legacy will be trashed.

Audience members chuckled or nodded approvingly as Johnston enthused that Chalmers could well be prime minister this time next year. Sensibly, Chalmers let the comment slide by.

Albanese used his considerable deal-making skills to produce, finally, a (mostly) good week for the government, the first since May. Yet too often he loses the plot. Dutton’s success in controlling the agenda, when it is not being consumed by the prime minister’s serial acts of self -harm, has left the impression that the last thing on the government’s mind is dealing with the cost of living.

Dutton easily swats away questions. His failure to produce a single fully costed economic policy to address the problems families face today has not hindered his rise in the polls.

There was barely a boo after he abandoned promised tax cuts. He described international students trying to extend their stays as the modern equivalent of illegal boat arrivals then days later opposed the government’s plan to cap their numbers.

One day, he denied receiving freebie flights from his bestie Gina Rinehart. Days later he admitted he had, then he disappeared for days. No worries, journos always have Albo to kick around.

It seems destined to continue during the campaign, with Dutton emerging unscathed from his media encounters, paying little or no penalty for inconsistencies or vagaries, while his sharp lines skewering the prime minister are amplified by his cronies.

An undisciplined, unprepared Albanese ties himself up in knots. As George Megalogenis wrote in his excellent quarterly essay, Minority Report, Albanese “lacks the poetry of his predecessors”. Megalogenis writes that Albanese has yet to find his “leader’s voice” and observes that his sales pitch is timid because the ideas are stale.

Add to that Albanese’s bad calls which have wasted precious time and eroded public confidence.

Albanese blindsided colleagues when he bought a $4 million beach house, which screamed retirement without regard for the inevitable backlash. He took a week to respond fully to damaging stories about Qantas flight upgrades, apparently because he thought it was such a rubbish story it would soon disappear.

Albanese did win Senate approval for 45 pieces of legislation in one week, 31 in a single day, including the passage of long-stalled housing bills and the social media ban on kids under 16. But the way he went about dumping environmental legislation to screw the Greens and save seats in the west ended with accusations he had slapped down his environment minister, Tanya Plibersek. Again.

It marred his sales pitch. Again. Although Labor’s situation is grim, it is salvageable. It is within Albanese’s power to fix much of it.

Without in any way reflecting on the minister for finance and women, Katy Gallagher, who remains a star performer, Albanese could show magnanimity, and dispel notions of rifts or spite by, say, creating a super portfolio to deal with the economic and physical security of women, then put Plibersek in charge of it in his reshuffle early next year. While he’s at it, he should promote Anika Wells into cabinet.

It is true, Dutton is electable. He is also beatable. The right ground campaign will be critical but not enough. It needs a fault-free performance from Albanese – not one sloppy interview, not one chaotic day – selling a bold second-term agenda. According to Labor’s research, the more potent question is not whether people are better off now than they were three years ago, but who they think will make them better off three years from now.

The Coalition also remains vulnerable to community independents, particularly in the once blue-ribbon Liberal, now marginal, NSW seat of Bradfield, even before Paul Fletcher (who insisted on showing how bereft of leadership Liberal moderates are now with the departure of Simon Birmingham), told his constituents they were dopes for backing teal candidates. Knocking on 5000 doors, independent candidate Nicolette Boele and her volunteers found, among other things, that the mood has swung from anti-Scott Morrison to anti-majors and strong ongoing resentment of Dutton among Chinese Australians.

Labor has detected that resentment not only in its own seats with large populations of Chinese Australians like Bennelong, but in other Liberal seats including Menzies and Deakin. Stabilising relations with China has produced more than economic benefits.

One other single act can influence next year’s election – a cut in interest rates. Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock should not follow the example of her predecessor and baulk at moving rates either through stubbornness, a misreading of an economy clearly on life support, or fear that acting would be seen as politically driven. Not acting is as much a political act as acting.

Niki Savva is a regular columnist and author of The Road to Ruin, Plots and Prayers and Bulldozed, the trilogy chronicling nine years of Coalition rule.

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