Opinion: Time for Anthony Albanese to start acting like a leader

Twenty twenty-four revealed the truly tawdry side of some of our political elite, but there’s hope for the year ahead. Albo might even grow a pair, writes Mike O’Connor.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (right) with Treasurer Jim Chalmers

This was the year that was, 366 days during which political fortunes ebbed and flowed while undercurrents carried the ship of state perilously close to the rocks of social upheaval.

The degree to which hate speech towards our Jewish citizens was allowed to spread and fester until it erupted in a fireball was a national disgrace and revealed the truly tawdry side of some members of our political elite, morality cast aside in the hope of securing minority group votes and keeping their place at the publicly funded trough.

It was the low point of the year but rather than bemoaning the depths to which some people who should and more shamefully do know better descended, let’s look forward to our progress through the sunlit fields which hopefully lay ahead.

There we will rejoice in the news that David Crisafulli’s Queensland government will stop replacing English place names with those in Indigenous dialects which mean nothing to 98 per cent of the population and use every means in its power to stop the steady, incremental handover of publicly owned land to native councils. Native title now covers almost 30 per cent of the state. Enough is enough.

It will also abolish employment quotas which favour one person of a certain race or gender over another better qualified for the role. It’s called giving everyone a fair go.

It would be nice to think that it would also ban all lobbyists, registered or otherwise, from having any contact with government but pigs will fly down George Street before that happens.

Will it be the year in which the developers, architects, concert promoters, sports administrators and everyone else furiously pushing their blatantly self-interest wheelbarrows finally agree on Olympic venues?

Will this be the year in which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese finally grows a pair and rather than dither, duck and weave, starts acting like the leader of our great nation?

Perhaps Treasurer Jim Chalmers will realise that trying to buy the next election by giving away more money will extend the suffering which inflation has inflicted on millions of people.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek

Prices have risen by 16 per cent over the past three years and living standards fallen by more than eight per cent since the beginning of 2022.

He might also stop blaming the war in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East, the Reserve Bank and the dog that ate his homework for this dire state of affairs.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen will hopefully be swayed from his course of destroying the economy with his manic pursuit of a renewable energy nirvana and tour the huge number of nuclear power stations that are now being built by nations intent on improving their people’s living standards rather than trashing them.

Tried to get an appointment with a GP lately or with a specialist? Good luck with that. Successive government have allowed medical colleges to exert a stranglehold on the supply of specialists and the system as it stands is crumbling beneath the pressure of a booming population fuelled in part by excessive immigration. Will 2025 be the year in which somebody actually gives a damn?

We can only hope it will be the year in which Mr Albanese dumps Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who seems to think that her brief is to destroy the extractive industries which are the lifeblood of the economy to protect mythical figures which exist only in folklore.

The federal government might also introduce a law that states that any member of federal parliament who is elected as a member of a political party and then resigns from that party automatically forfeits their seat.

It might also be the year in which people devoid of so much as a milligram of humility stop declaring that they are “humbled” to accept a position of which they are patently unworthy, and in which people will stop “moving forward”, “reaching out” and “calling out”, and that the public utterance of the word “sustainability” will be made a criminal offence punishable by six months’ imprisonment, while people who allow their dogs to urinate on the footpath will be tied to a post in the middle of a dog park and pelted with rotten fruit.

I look forward to the new year with a mixture of trepidation and hope, succoured by the knowledge that we will manage to get by in spite of our politicians and not because of them.