This was published 2 years ago
Opinion
Has-beens or heroes? Labor veterans line up for one last roll of the dice
Rob Harris
Europe correspondentIn politics, like life itself, a second chance is never guaranteed. History is littered with hard-luck stories. Events dictate a career and fortunes don’t always favour the brave. For some, another opportunity will come their way. John Howard, Robert Menzies and Kevin Rudd all got another chance. But others, no matter how talented, can be eaten up and spat out. When seeking election you know your fate is in the hands of others.
Twelve members of Rudd’s 2013 cabinet are still on Labor’s frontbench, nine years after that chaotic final year of Labor in office. Come the next election, the cards of those MPs will be stamped either hero or has-been. If there was a fourth (some might argue fifth) successive election loss for Labor, the pressure will mount for some of those MPs to move on. The next election is potentially their last roll of the dice.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Anthony Albanese, who was deputy prime minister under Rudd, still has Chris Bowen, Richard Marles, Mark Dreyfus, Tanya Plibersek, Bill Shorten, Brendan O’Connor, Tony Burke, Penny Wong, Mark Butler, Julie Collins and Catherine King around his table. Another six Labor MPs were in junior portfolios during Rudd’s last term and are now part of Albanese’s shadow ministry: Don Farrell, Amanda Rishworth, Ed Husic, Jason Clare, Shayne Neumann and Matt Thistlethwaite.
Among the handful of those added to the shadow cabinet since 2013 are former NSW premier Kristina Keneally and former ACT chief minister Katy Gallagher, both of whom sat around the Council of Australian Governments table with Rudd while he was prime minister. Linda Burney, a former member of Keneally’s NSW cabinet, has also switched to federal politics.
They hardly represent a new era. The past nine years has been anything but a renewal of federal Labor’s talent pool. Only Jim Chalmers and Terri Butler (both elected in 2013) and Madeleine King (2016) offer a fresh perspective in the shadow cabinet.
In contrast, just four members of Tony Abbott’s first cabinet, sworn in on September 18, 2013, still have offices in the ministerial wing of Parliament House. With the retirement of Greg Hunt at the next election, only Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have stayed the course. Barnaby Joyce, another who seized a second chance, has returned after three years in the wilderness. For various reasons, including the leadership mutiny which also plagued the ALP, the past nine years have ushered in a new generation of Liberal politicians.
Illustration: Simon LetchCredit:
Some will say an Albanese election victory would deliver a ready-made cabinet with a level of executive experience that is rarely seen. Others might argue the quest for redemption or vindication by so many MPs is stymieing talent and frustrating the next generation at a time when the party needs to move on from the Rudd-Gillard years.
The resignation of veteran Joel Fitzgibbon in November 2020 allayed those concerns somewhat and eased some tensions within the NSW Right, which is chock-a-block full of egos and ambition. But there’s still a handful of young and hungry MPs within the Labor caucus, either on the backbench or holding junior portfolios, who wonder when their chance will come. Up-and-comers such as Jenny McAllister, Clare O’Neil, Kimberley Kitching, Murray Watt, Pat Conroy, Peter Khalil and Meryl Swanson are all thoughtful, hungry and capable.
Labor spent seven years in opposition when Malcolm Fraser was in office. When Bob Hawke finally returned Labor to power in 1983, he took just four members of Whitlam’s last ministry into his cabinet – Paul Keating, Bill Hayden, Tom Uren and Lionel Bowen. Almost a quarter of a century later, when Rudd led Labor from opposition to government, only Simon Crean and John Faulkner came with cabinet experience.
For context, when Abbott returned the Coalition to government after two terms in opposition, his first cabinet contained seven members of the final Howard cabinet and eight members of Howard’s outer ministry. There’s an argument to be made that this contributed to Abbott’s quick downfall. Yesterday’s men soon made way for a group of hungry and ambitious youngsters who were willing to switch their loyalties for opportunity.
Kevin Rudd and Anthony Albanese, second from left, with Mark Butler, left, and Alan Griffin and Jenny Macklin, right, during a ministry meeting in July 2013.Credit: Andrew Meares
When mutterings began about Albanese’s future in late 2020, some argued that too many Labor frontbenchers had not been pulling their weight. Many even appeared exhausted. The disappointment of losing the 2019 election and the public’s rejection of a massive reformist agenda weighed heavily.
Journalists become familiar with “hunter’s hunger” in the eyes of a new backbencher or shadow minister who has never served in executive office. But history shows few make the transition in reverse, from the hunted to the hunter. And the case could be made that too many on the Labor frontbench have failed on this front.
There’s a reason why Morrison will remind voters of the Rudd-Gillard years or of the Shorten era suite of policies. It’s because so many of the key players from those times are still at the decision-making table. But maybe those lines are tired too.
Some polls show Albanese may well win in May, when most expect the next election to return the Coalition. And he might just do it because of the fact he’s not Morrison. He will have waited a long time. It has been 26 years since he made his first speech to Parliament. In modern politics, only Harold Holt (31 years) would have waited longer to reach top office. Howard, Keating and Billy McMahon each waited 22 years. By comparison Hawke, Rudd, Julia Gillard and Malcolm Turnbull came and went in a flash.
Albanese is fighting history to win the election. It might be a case of now or never.
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