Campbell: Is a show even a show if Albo isn’t in audience?

With his elderly ears no doubt still ringing from two big gigs in two nights, how can Anthony Albanese tell voters he understands how they are doing it tough, asks James Campbell.

You could almost feel sorry for Albo. As sure as night follows day, going on one FM station to play Santa to a Taylor Swift fan would provoke another rival FM station to get him to play Scrooge.

On Wednesday the PM dropped by the Fitzy, Wippa and Kate breakfast show where he agreed to ring “Taliah” to “give her the news, which I reckon is pretty good news” that she would be off to Swift’s Sydney show. It was apparently such a big moment that his staff felt it would be a good idea to post it to the Prime Minister of Australia’s official social media account. Perhaps he was hoping to repeat the trick the next morning when he appeared with rivals Hughesy, Ed and Erin. Instead he was confronted by “Natalie” who begged him to give up his ticket. It was a tense moment for the leader of the nation. How would he answer?

Taylor Swift performing in Sydney. Picture: David Gray/AFP

Three options presented themselves:

(A) “Absolutely you can have it. Upon mature reflection I realise I’m a 60-year old bloke who shouldn’t be jumping on these sorts of bandwagons. In fact, not only can you have it, but I will make a solemn promise to the Australian people that I will stop embarrassing myself by calling Taylor Swift ‘Tay Tay’”.

(B) “Get nicked.”

(C) “Sorry but I can’t. I made poor Jodie sit there for hours with my credit card – at one point she had five screens open – and she’d kill me if we didn’t go.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese watching Test cricket. It seems that in his mind there’s no show without Albo? Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Obviously in reality there was no option C because, well, that would have required him to have actually paid for a ticket himself, so instead poor “Natalie” got a polite version of Get Nicked: “I am going on Friday night and I am a real Swifty.”

Maybe it’s because after listening to Swift’s back catalogue for the past week I reckon the filler-to-killer ratio on her records is pretty high, but I rather have my doubts about that.

Really Albo? Are you really a Swiftie? Is it not perhaps more the case that this was an “event” and if we’ve learned anything about our Prime Minister in the past year and half, it’s that in his mind there’s no show without Albo?

This isn’t a moral criticism.

It goes without saying that we journalists are pretty good ourselves at gobbling up free shit. No, my criticism, is how politically reckless it is. Is there nobody in this bloke’s office with the authority to say no?

Flying around the country from A-list event to A-list event – the Sydney Test Match today, the Australian Open Final tomorrow – might be OK for a minister, even an Opposition Leader. But somebody needs to get it into his head that when you get the top job, it’s not like finally achieving lifetime platinum plus Chairman’s Lounge membership with Qantas.

Sorry but if you’re the PM, different rules apply. If the punters decide this isn’t the Albanese Government they’ve got but the Albo-freebie Government, it won’t just be the PM but everyone in the show who suffers.

It’s clear, however, that almost two years into office and only weeks after he was roundly booed at the tennis, this hasn’t penetrated the Prime Minister’s skull. Either that or he thinks he’s so special the rules don’t apply to him.

How else can you explain the fact that, at the time of writing, Albo was due to back up his comped tix to Taylor in Sydney on Friday night with popping into a private Katy Perry concert at the Pratt family pad on Saturday night?

In a week’s time Labor faces a by-election test in the outer suburban Melbourne seat of Dunkley, which has been belted by the increases in the cost-of-living.

On Sunday, his elderly ears no doubt still ringing from two big gigs in two nights, he will presumably tell the voters he understands how they are doing it tough.

But if he holds a press conference and finds that instead of being asked about tax cuts, he’s being asked to say who was better – Taylor or Katy – he will have no one to blame but himself.