Credlin: Why Albanese has managed to look both low and weak over ’protector of pedophiles’ smear
With the parliamentary year drawing to a close, even diehard supporters are starting to worry that the Albanese Government is in serious trouble, writes Peta Credlin.
Opinion
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By allowing his frontbenchers to call Peter Dutton a “protector of pedophiles” – but then neither repeating the line himself nor forcing them to withdraw – Anthony Albanese has managed to look both low and weak.
In a trainwreck interview with 3AW radio host Neil Mitchell on Friday, indeed a fitting finale for the famously combative Melbourne radio legend who is retiring from his regular morning spot, the Prime Minister tried to defend himself by invoking a bizarre new governmental doctrine: That PMs are only responsible for what they say and can’t be held accountable for the despicable claims of their ministers.
It was a garbage performance from a PM who’s looking more and more like he’s leading a one-term government.
With the parliamentary year drawing to a close, even diehard supporters are starting to worry that the Albanese Government is in serious trouble. It’s not just that Newspoll last week, for the first time, had the Government and the Opposition neck and neck; but also the catastrophic fall in Labor’s primary vote, to 31 per cent, which is Labor’s lowest result in more than a decade.
It’s not just that the foreign criminals legislation, that was so urgent that parliament had to pass it immediately at the beginning of the week – but it hadn’t even been introduced by week’s end.
Or that the Government’s own policies, on energy and on workplace relations, are making the cost-of-living crisis, worse. Or that the Government’s only real “achievement”, a budget surplus for the first time in 15 years, is an accidental one, that owes nothing to prudent decision-making and frugal Government, and everything to the serendipity of continued sky-high commodity prices – the very coal and gas resources that the Government wants us to keep in the ground and never use.
It’s more that this Government has been exposed as a bunch of third-rate amateurs, with ministers out of their depth and a Prime Minister who’s incapable of taking charge when his underlings stuff up. Ever since the High Court ruled that the foreign child rapist, known only as NZYQ, could not be kept in indefinite detention, the Government has been sinking deeper into a morass of its own making, first characterised by telling lies to exonerate itself, and then by telling lies about the Opposition leader in a pathetic attempt to mask its own ineptitude.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil’s monumental mishandling of this issue shows that she’s not fit for office: First, she had no plan B, despite knowing that the High Court was likely to release NZYQ; then she claimed that there was nothing that could be done because “you can’t out-legislate the High Court, only to then be forced into a humiliating backdown to do just that. But despite chest-beating with the cry, “these are the toughest laws ever introduced”, she was forced into another humiliation by needing Opposition amendments to strengthen her legislation. And then finally, in the ultimate low blow, she resorted to the pedophile smear as a smokescreen for her own incompetence. The fact that other frontbenchers, like Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, and Aged Care Minister Anika Wells, repeated the smear shows, in my experience, it was a co-ordinated strategy.
Seriously, given Dutton’s work as a Queensland police detective in the sexual assault squad locking up pedophiles, and later his efforts as home affairs minister in deporting them out of the country (along with drug-dealers, outlaw bikies, murders and more), is there really no line that Labor won’t cross?
But you know that a Government is in trouble when its senior members start disassociating themselves from its own actions. In parliament, the Speaker – who would normally be expected to protect ministers – ordered O’Neil to withdraw her pedophile smear.
Also tellingly, the Government’s two most senior ministers from the right, former leader Bill Shorten and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, pointedly distanced themselves from the “pedophiles” smear. Shorten said that Dutton should have supported Labor’s legislation earlier in the week but, when asked about the pedophile claim, could hardly have made his disapproval more clear, when he said: “They’re not my words”.
Of course, nearly all governments suffer from midterm blues. In this case though, the PM has seemed totally shell-shocked since the defeat of his signature Voice. And it’s clear he’s taken refuge in overseas travel rather than taking charge of his government.
Labor insiders and strategists are promising the party faithful that they will use the summer to reset. But the Government’s only idea for reviving its fortunes is more handouts, which will put its budget surplus at risk, make inflationary pressures worse, and – even if it succeeds in lifting Labor’s spirits, and its polls – will reflect better on the obviously ambitious Treasurer Jim Chalmers than on Albanese.
Meanwhile, having well judged the public mood on the Voice, and with a promise to start releasing key policy positions in the New Year, Peter Dutton is looking more and more credible as the alternative prime minister. And that’s exactly why Labor has attacked him as hard and as personally as they have this week.
But, given Dutton’s record, this smear says a lot more about the government’s character (or lack of it) than it does the Opposition leader.
O’NEIL MUST RESIGN – OR BE SACKED
The man at the centre of the High Court case, known only as NZYQ, came to Australia illegally by boat in 2012 during Julia’s Gillard government when Chris Bowen was the immigration minister and presided over the worst breach of our borders in history.
He applied for protection as a refugee (he’s an ethnic Rohingya Muslim) and, while in Australia, raped a 10-year-old boy and was imprisoned.
The rape conviction meant he did not then meet the character test to stay in Australia but, similarly, no other country wanted him. So into detention he went until he took his case to the High Court.
Last week we finally got to see the reasons for the NZYQ decision when the High Court’s written judgment was released.
And what was shocking to read was that the court’s decision only related to this one individual, not the 140 other foreign criminals the Albanese Government has released with him. Meaning the minister panicked and released the whole lot into the community, with no plan as to how to keep the community safe.
I have never seen such incompetence from a federal Government. I thought that the pink batts fiasco last time Labor was in office was about as bad as it could get ($2 billion to put roof batts into homes and, after four deaths and 200 fires, $2 billion to then rip them all out), but this detainee mess is worse because they were warned and did nothing. Even now, as you read this column, despite the promises last week, Labor have still not introduced the legislation to fix this mess.
With one week of parliament left, time is running out. The new laws must be passed and the minister must resign, or be sacked.
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