James Campbell: Anthony Albanese in a precarious spot as party’s left starts to dominate

The Opposition may not be giving Anthony Albanese too many sleepless nights at the moment, but the rise of the Left within his own party looks set to cause headaches as they seek more radical change now Labor is in power, writes James Campbell.

Back in the ’80s when Bob Hawke strode the Australian landscape as a silver-quiffed political colossus it was fashionable for Liberals to bemoan their seven wasted years under the leadership of Malcolm Fraser.

The principal charge against the recently defeated Coalition government was that having had unfettered control of the Senate from 1975 until midway through 1981, it really ought to have done more to reform the Australian economy.

Today, three months into the reign of Albo, which some columnists reckon is going so well they’re already talking second term, Liberals are asking themselves similar questions.

What, they wonder, was the point of the last 8½ years when everywhere you look the government is spending more money than it was when they came to office?

The only great social change one can point to from the previous government was the legislation of same-sex marriage, which passed over the objections of many of its current and previous leaders.

In other words, while the more conservative sections of the Liberal Party and their Nat allies were keen to fight so-called culture wars, the struggle always seemed to end with them looking as out-of-time as the frock-coated Japanese delegation that in 1945 found itself on the hotspot on the USS Missouri standing next to the open-necked Douglas MacArthur.

Anthony Albanese has tough job walking the middle ground in this parliamentary term. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

The big difference between the Fraser years and the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era is that at no point during their time in government did the previous mob have a Senate that would have contemplated radical change.

In which case what was the point of trying? The one occasion when the government attempted to be radical – the 2014 budget – it produced a laundry list of broken promises and unpalatable proposals that will surely stand alongside Bill Shorten’s 2019 election manifesto as the longest suicide note in Australian political history.

Indeed, you could argue the Coalition spent seven years trying and never wholly succeeding in getting out from under that political disaster. Though in the years since his colleagues gave him the flick, Tony Abbott fans have done their best to create a stab-in-the-back legend of a dastardly Turnbull plot to undermine an “elected prime minister”, the truth is simple: a majority of its MPs – especially the Queenslanders – had reached the fixed view they were toast if he stayed. And that catalyst for the collapse in Abbott’s support was the 2014 budget – the one time when the Coalition actually tried to be radical.

Fast forward to today, we find Albo in a very different position.

Although he might not have a Senate majority in his own right – as John Howard did in his last term – it has become clear that between the Greens and the teal-ish Canberra senator David Pocock, the PM won’t struggle to pass any lefty legislation he cares to put up. Forget about the noises coming from Adam Bandt about not passing the outcomes from next week’s job summit if it doesn’t include what he wants – that’s all just noise. The moment Bandt buckled last month and backed the government’s climate change bill, it was clear he isn’t up for playing the spoiler role that Bob Brown did with the last Labor government.

Not that he wouldn’t like to – the inner city trot is strong in that one – it’s just that he knows the upper-middle class Leftoids that keep him and his colleagues in their lower house seats won’t tolerate him playing a destructive role.

The Greens’ Adam Bandt. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

For the next three years you can expect to see the little fella bitch then fold on government legislation. In these circumstances, Albo’s problem will be dealing with those in his own caucus who want him to be more radical.

What, these voices will whisper, is the point of being in government if we don’t take this opportunity to make historic change? And make no mistake, there are plenty of MPs who hate some of the things they had to swallow in order to get elected, starting with legislated stage three tax cuts and no changes to negative gearing or tax free super.

What has not yet been grasped by the public is that holding the line against these Labor voices outside the parliamentary party is about to get much harder thanks to the collapse of the Right wing of the Labor Party in both Queensland and Victoria. Earlier this month, the Right was given a shellacking in the ballots for Queensland’s state conference with the dose certain to be repeated in the southern socialist republic when its members are again trusted with voting. The consequence will be to shift the majority of the delegates at Labor’s national conference in Brisbane next August to the Left for the first time in decades. Across those years, Labor’s leaders have always been able to rely on that majority to hose down the demands of the more excitable comrades.

It will be interesting to see how Albo copes with an open goal in the Senate and a Left majority on the floor of the ALP conference.