Steve Price: Weak Albo and Allan captive to union mates and factional bosses
There’s never been a better example of how out of touch Victoria’s politicians are than Jacinta Allan and her ministers bagging Chris Minns’ get-back-to-work edict. His tough leadership is in stark contrast to what we see from the Labor Left.
Opinion
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Star Sky News presenter Peta Credlin blurted out on live TV this week that even she could be convinced to vote for Labor.
Not the weak federal version, but for NSW Labor and its Premier Chris Minns.
She’s not alone. The Sunday Herald Sun columnist nailed it when praising Minns for ordering his state’s public servants back to their desks.
The Premier not only said the days of lazy working from home were over but that the thousands of workers – paid by taxpayers – had to be back at work within 24 hours.
No arguments, no union bullying, no exceptions. Just get back to your desk by Tuesday morning.
Contrast that sort of tough leadership with what we are seeing from the Labor Left leaders like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.
Minns is strong and decisive. Albanese and Allan are weak and captive to their union mates and factional bosses.
Allan and a couple of her hard hat-wearing ministers were trotted out to bag NSW’s get back to work edict, while making ridiculous noises about attracting any lazy NSW public servants who wanted a better life to head to Victoria.
If there was ever a better example of how out of touch Victoria’s politicians are I haven’t seen it.
A broke state, offering stay at home jobs to people paid for by hard working Victorians. In a nutshell, right there is the problem you have when the Labor Left run anything. Money becomes no object because it’s your money not theirs, and giving people taxpayer-funded jobs means they are much more likely to vote for you come the next election.
The tough talk this week from Minns has really shone a light on the weak leadership from Anthony Albanese.
The Prime Minister might be a good bloke to be on the beers with, footy scarf around his neck, but he is weak, and given the state of the world right now the last thing Australia needs is a weak leader.
While the NSW Premier was ordering public servants back to work, the PM was back-tracking and running away from an election night promise and making mealy-mouthed speeches at an Indigenous festival in Arnhem Land.
Rocked by his failed Voice referendum, I don’t believe Albanese’s confidence has ever returned, and after promising to deliver the Uluru Statement from the Heart “in full” and failing, he looks weaker than ever.
Even Indigenous leaders and the Indigenous treaty and makarrata crowd have lost faith in the PM. One this week accused him of “gaslighting the nation” over the Uluru statement.
It’s not just Indigenous Australians feeling they are being led by a weak man.
Jewish Australians this week watched the PM’s pathetic response to a social media post from the Iranian ambassador to Australia.
Rather than boot Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi out of the country he was simply asked to turn up and explain himself to some faceless bureaucrat in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
How weak is that.
Sadeghi used social media to call Israel a “Zionist plague” and described Hamas’ commitment to the “wiping out” of Israel by 2027 as a “heavenly and divine promise”.
So, what does your PM do? He uses just words not action and calls the Iranian diplomats’ comments “abhorrent, hateful and antisemitic. His Foreign Minister Penny Wong joined in calling the comments “repugnant and inflammatory.”
The pair then waffled on about protocols and told the ambassador via a faceless public servant that it was entirely inappropriate for him to engage in the way he did. Seriously, have Albanese or Wong even read their own hate speech laws? This bloke endorsed the destruction of Israel using words like Zionist plague and all he gets is a slap on the wrist!
Wong, who was in the US when this happened, defended her actions and even trotted out some line about maintaining Australia’s relations with Iran to “further our interests”. What interests?
Iran, as we know, funds the terrorist group Hamas – responsible for October 7 massacre – and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and Wong kids herself having this Israel-hating diplomat stay in our country somehow gives us some leverage in a Middle East conflict that threatens to spill into all-out war.
Can anyone imagine Bob Hawke or a John Howard being so feeble. Under those two this Iranian bloke would have been on the first plane out of Canberra.
Australia in 2024 can’t afford weak leadership. Australia can’t afford to be led by a nice bloke who wants to be loved by his left-leaning constituency leading to a big-spending Government afraid to take even the most obvious tough decisions.
Anthony Albanese – and I take no joy in saying this – has been a major disappointment as Prime Minister. The past week alone has seen him not only disappoint Australians who didn’t vote Labor at the last election but those who did.
Right now, the strongest political leaders in Australia are two State Labor Premiers – Chris Minns from NSW and Peter Malinauskas from SA.
Both are from the Right faction of Labor and like former Labor leaders such as Bob Hawke and Paul Keating – or even former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks – they are not wedded to a hard left ideology so hated by most Australians.
Like Credlin I’d think about voting for one of those two if they were in charge in Canberra.
The PM insists he will not call an early election and wants to run his full term. He also promised to implement the Uluru statement in full and not change the stage three tax cuts and give us cheaper electricity.
Time is running out for this weak man.
Love
• Gold medals for Australia in unlikely sports like BMX bikes and Skateboarding – well done girls.
• A visit to graffiti free Adelaide if they can do it why can’t we.
• Tributes for two modern day giants of the AFL Dustin Martin and Tom Hawkins.
• Top lawyer and former chief crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert KC using twitter to call for an end to unnecessary Welcome to Country acknowledgements.
Loathe
• Royal Children’s Hospital CEO Bernadette McDonald being pushed out of her job by the Allan government’s Department of Health.
• Global stock market crash and fears of a USA recession rocking the world economy.
• AFL media rights contracts insisting on gender quotas for on-air commentators with more females – seriously.
• Idiotic French Olympic decision to hold the swim legs of the triathlon in the Seine river.
Originally published as Steve Price: Weak Albo and Allan captive to union mates and factional bosses
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