‘Answer the question’: Anthony Albanese’s reckoning

Anthony Albanese claims he will be radically different to Scott Morrison as PM. Right now, his actions on the campaign trail suggest the opposite.

ANALYSIS

Here’s an idea: if you are running for public office, and you’re asked a basic question, and you know the answer, you should say it.

Radical, I know. Anthony Albanese certainly doesn’t agree.

The Labor leader’s press conference in Perth on Tuesday morning ended in farce as he fled from questions about his party’s costings.

It was the second day in a row that Mr Albanese had faced a sustained interrogation on whether or not deficits would be higher under a Labor government. And for a second straight day, he had refused to answer.

Mr Albanese kept repeating that Labor’s costings would be released on Thursday – 48 hours, at most, before the polls open on election day.

That timetable is in line with what some (not all) previous oppositions have done. He seemed to think that was a compelling excuse.

To be clear: Mr Albanese knew the answer to the question. Everyone else knew that he knew the answer. He knew that everyone else knew that he knew the answer. And still he refused to say the answer. It sounds like the premise for a Monty Python or Clarke & Dawe sketch.

This from a politician who is campaigning on a platform of integrity and transparency.

Anthony Albanese speaks at a press conference during a visit to Alstom Transport Australia on May 17, 2022 in Perth. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Then he walked off after refusing to answer key questions. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Mr Albanese ultimately ended the press conference after just 20 minutes, more than five of which were spent on a lengthy preamble. He was chased from the room by several reporters, who were still trying to squeeze something resembling a satisfactory answer out of him.

It would have been easier, and far less embarrassing, for Mr Albanese to simply say: “Yes, deficits will be higher under Labor. Here is why I think that’s necessary,” and to then explain his reasoning.

He could have done that yesterday, or indeed weeks ago, when the reports that Labor’s deficits would be higher first emerged. He’ll have to do it on Thursday anyway.

Why delay? What’s the Coalition going to say? “The fact that Labor’s massive deficits are slightly bigger than our massive deficits prove that only we know how to manage money?” It’s hardly a lethal argument.

But this isn’t just about budget deficits, or any single issue. Today’s mess was illustrative of a broader problem with Mr Albanese’s approach, to a great many questions, during the campaign.

To put it concisely: he doesn’t like follow-up questions. At all.

Albo the grump schoolteacher. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Albanese the ‘grumpy schoolteacher’

For weeks, he has been conducting his press conferences like a grumpy schoolteacher, scolding reporters for shouting (he calls this “incentivising politeness”) and shutting down their attempts to ask follow-ups.

Previous days have given us such risible proclamations as “I’m running the press conference!” and “I’m in charge!”.

Today proceeded in much the same way.

“You get a chance to ask a question, and then we have the answer. That’s the way it works,” he lectured one journalist this morning.

“But you’re not giving us an answer,” the reporter pointed out (correctly). “Will the deficits be higher?”

Mr Albanese responded by having a go at the government’s record on debt and insisting Labor was being “fiscally responsible”.

“We can do without the interjections. What you do is, you get to ask a question, and then I get to answer it,” Mr Albanese said during his next answer, which was equally evasive.

“If you actually answer the question, we won’t need to interject,” someone, ahem, interjected.

“Will you have a higher deficit?” a reporter asked Mr Albanese again. The pair got into a somewhat tense back-end-forth.

“Are you finished? When you’ve finished, I’ll answer it,” said Mr Albanese. He proceeded to not answer it.

A subsequent, unrelated question on whether Labor would support a looming pandemic accord which would give the World Health Organisation more powers also passed without a clear answer.

Mr Albanese has been accused of doing exactly what the PM does by avoiding scrutiny. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

‘Isn’t this just like the PM?’

It was Channel 9’s Jonathan Kearsley, one of Mr Albanese’s more persistent tormentors, who got to the crux of the issue.

“You’ve said you’re going to be a prime minister who answers the questions. You’ve been asked this morning about deficits, higher or lower, haven’t answered it. You’ve been asked about a treaty, haven’t answered that one either. Aren’t you doing exactly what you accuse the Prime Minister of, and that is not being transparent?”

“Not at all. And I’ll be at the National Press Club tomorrow,” Mr Albanese said.

“Yeah but you’re here right now,” someone said.

“We will announce – our costings policy will be released on Thursday,” Mr Albanese reiterated.

That wasn’t the end of it, but this will get pretty damn repetitive if I keep transcribing, so we’ll leave it there.

Here’s the point: if a politician doesn’t answer the question put to them, journalists have every right to ask follow-ups. That’s not being rude, it’s not being partisan, it’s our job. The alternative is to let politicians soak up time with answers that have nothing to do with the questions, which does not serve the public in any way.

Apparently, after a 26-year career in politics, Mr Albanese still hasn’t grasped that.

Originally published as ‘Answer the question’: Anthony Albanese’s reckoning