Bill Shorten safe as Labor leader — or is Anthony Albanese gunning for his job?
IT’S an indictment of where politics has headed that people are questioning Bill Shorten’s leadership of the Opposition. This is the guy who has just done what people thought couldn’t be done.
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IT’S an indictment of where politics has headed that people are questioning Bill Shorten’s leadership of the Opposition.
This is the guy who has just done what people thought couldn’t be done.
You can judge him for myriad things (you can start with the effective but duplicitous MediScare campaign) but you have to admire the man’s results in Saturday’s election.
Think about how it looked once the urbane Malcolm Turnbull cast the hairy-chested Tony Abbott into the wilderness. Mr Shorten — he who offed a couple of sitting Prime Ministers, whose charisma quota lagged so far behind his opposition — was zero chance of being PM.
But through dogged determination, daring policy announcements and rat cunning, he made it a live possibility.
On Sunday, in the turbulent wake of the double dissolution poll, reports emerged that leftie DJ and all-round good guy Anthony Albanese was a potential challenger.
“Albo” was the popular pick when he went toe to toe with Mr Shorten in a primary style contest for the leadership last year, but he lost on party votes. Now some are saying he wants back.
But The Advertiser could not find anyone who was actually saying that.
On the left, the consensus seemed to be that it was a Machiavellian conspiracy. Follow these twists.
They say that the Right want to flush out Mr Albanese, by spreading the story that he will challenge Mr Shorten for the leadership they might force him to say he WILL NOT challenge for the leadership, therefore ensuring that he never actually does challenge.
On the right, one Labor insider declared that to be “horseshit”. Others used similar terms.
Thing is, neither side seem to think it’s a good idea to take down such a successful leader and in the process remind everyone of the bad old Rudd-Gillard-Rudd days.
It has just become a done thing to talk of leadership change every time someone sneezes.
One MP even suggested that they were innocently talking to a journalist about the newish leadership rules whereby the Labor leadership is automatically declared vacant after an election,
creating a window where challengers can arise publicly rather than sneaking up from behind. That explanation seemed to fuel the leadership story unintentionally, that MP theorised.
Once the election is decided, the spot will be declared vacant. Mr Albanese may put up his hand, because otherwise he may have to wait years for another opportunity.
But that is a wildly different proposition to the idea that there is a coup underway before Mr Shorten has even had time to properly lose the election.
Originally published as Bill Shorten safe as Labor leader — or is Anthony Albanese gunning for his job?
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