Each-Way Albo Goes Up and Down

Labor leader Anthony Albanese was asked a question on day one of the 2022 election campaign that every Australian politician should be easily able to answer.

Today’s Daily Telegraph front page

Albanese, who aims to become our next prime minister, was asked to identify Australia’s unemployment rate. Astonishingly, he did not know it.

Moreover, his eventual guess was well wide of the mark.

“The national unemployment rate at the moment is … I think it’s 5.4 … sorry,” Albanese told a media conference. “I’m not sure what it is.”

As every politician, and indeed many Australians would know, the actual rate is just four​ per cent – the lowest jobless rate in decades.

Albanese’s error was out by the equivalent of 189,206 people. This basically amounts to the combined populations of Wagga Wagga, Coffs Harbour, Albury and Port Macquarie.

Additionally, and just as worryingly, the Labor leader could not recall the current cash rate.

This is hugely important, because Labor is campaigning against low wages and stagnant wage growth – which are both obviously connected to the cash rate and employment levels.

(The Guardian’s Amy Remeikis pronounces it “Albaneez”)

Voters might reasonably ask how deep is Labor’s commitment to driving wage increases if the party’s leader is not up to speed on the primary factors that influence our wages.

Albanese’s subsequent correction may only have increased voter concerns.

“Earlier today I made a mistake,” he said. “I’m human, but when I make a mistake, I’ll fess up to it. And I’ll set about correcting that mistake.

“I won’t blame someone else. I’ll accept responsibility. That’s what leaders do.”

But Albanese did not make a mistake. Instead, he simply did not know about elemental economic information.

That isn’t an error. It’s a lack of awareness – from someone bidding for the most important job in the land, but who did not know the most important statistic about jobs.

Senior Labor figure Tanya Plibersek tried to defend her leader, saying the election was not a “test of memory” but a “test of leadership”.

Knowing the unemployment rate is not a memory test. It is a knowledge test. There is a significant difference.

It is also a test of a candidate’s suitability to become the prime minister of Australia.

(This morning’s Daily Telegraph editorial.)

UPDATE. Leftist Ben Eltham pretends that Albanese was asked something difficult:

Today's question for Albo: Can a rugby ball in 3‑dimensional space be decomposed into a finite number of disjoint subsets, and then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball?

— Ben Eltham (@beneltham) April 12, 2022