Peta Credlin: Anthony Albanese no longer one of the ‘workers’

The Left elite’s disdain for ordinary people has been on stark display through the Prime Minister’s flights perks saga this week, writes Peta Credlin.

It was Neville Wran, the former NSW premier and national president of the Labor Party, who used to say that “the best thing about the working class is getting out of it”.

That’s an attitude that “A-List Albo” seems to have taken to heart, with his avid attendance at celebrity events, his impending abandonment of his electorate for a clifftop mansion on the Central Coast, and his obvious reluctance to sit down the back of the plane, even on a private holiday (as long as someone else is paying).

After nearly a week of verbal gymnastics, the PM did finally release a statement emphatically denying that he’d ever telephoned Alan Joyce for an upgrade to business or first class – meaning that for days, he must have feared that calls had been made.

It’s partly why he ran a bogus line about a hotline that no one has ever heard of to explain the upgrades, all 22 of them, some worth upwards of $10,000 each.

As numerous reports make clear, he’s obviously had a close relationship with Joyce plus other senior Qantas staff, such as David Epstein (who’s now the PM’s chief political strategist in his private office) and Andrew Parker (whose house-warming party the PM attended).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (l) with then-Qantas CEO Alan Joyce at the Qantas 100th Gala Dinner. Picture: Getty Images

In the end, the issue is less that he was offered upgrades but the fact that as transport minister – in charge of regulating the aviation industry – he accepted them.

By contrast, John Anderson, the transport minister under John Howard, says he never accepted upgrades because it was a clear conflict of interest, a matter of integrity.

Put aside the PM’s love of a perk, what’s most telling is the general disdain that the Left elite has for ordinary people.

We see it in the email that emerged last week, via FOI, from the office of former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, referring to members of the public concerned about his draconian lockdowns as, quote, “pig-headed know-it-alls”. And in the Left’s constant sneering at Voice opponents – who ended up being 60 per cent of the public – as “dinosaurs and dickheads”.

Above all, we see it in the Left’s general contempt for anyone who doesn’t share their worldview.

Hillary Clinton’s description of Donald Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables” cost her the 2016 election and haunts her to this day. Just as Joe Biden’s line about Trump supporters being “garbage” will likely cost Kamala Harris her shot at the top job. It enabled Trump, ever the showman, to turn up to a rally driving a garbage truck to ram home the point that elite Lefties despise the working people whose votes they’re still desperate to harvest.

Donald Trump turned up to a rally in a garbage truck to highlight how Joe Biden called his supporters ‘garbage’. Picture: Julia Demaree Nikhinson

In Western democracies like ours, political demography has been shifting for a generation at least: Think Margaret Thatcher’s blue-collar Tories; and, here, the Howard battlers. In those days, though, while aspirational people were more and more voting right, so too were well-off people.

These days, the more income you earn, the more likely you are to vote Green, or their rich sisters, the Teals. Hence the Left’s attitude to the voter on struggle street who doesn’t agree with them – it’s a mixture of green sanctimony and old-fashioned, elitist snobbery. Despite the reality that Labor governments can’t win without the working people of western Sydney and Melbourne, who now vote Labor more out of habit than any affinity with the green-Left snobs running what was once the party of the worker.

Politically, Anthony Albanese’s obvious fondness for life’s luxuries is deadly, because it shows how out-of-touch he is with Labor’s traditional base. Whatever he is these days, notwithstanding growing up in public housing with a single mum on the pension, he’s no longer one of them.

Any wonder a lot of former Labor voters are starting to feel conned.

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews referred to members of the public concerned about his Covid lockdowns as ‘pig-headed know-it-alls’. Picture: David Crosling

It’s not just that he hasn’t delivered on his promises to cut power bills, boost wages and ease the mortgage squeeze. It’s more that he’s not the kind of person he said he was – and that’s lethal. It’s why his backbench is increasingly worried and it’s why his backroom strategists are pulling out all stops for an early election.

Labor is buying up ad space. They’re madly getting candidates named in every seat – something the Libs still haven’t done – and they’re flooding the airwaves with more and more government advertising to win you over.

The Electoral Commission, too, is on high alert and already getting the mechanics in place to run an election whenever the PM calls it.

It’s why the election will be held as soon as possible, not when the PM has indicated in May. In my view, he will call it in early February for March. Before a new budget makes the red ink and deficits more obvious. Before the government has to declare the new 2035 climate targets, that will hit agriculture (making food more expensive) and transport (dictating what cars the government will let us drive, if at all). And, most of all, before ministers have to deliver bad news, like the looming shutdown of Tasmania’s salmon farming industry, and with it thousands of jobs in the must-win seat of Lyons.

Yes, Labor wants a rate cut before it goes to the polls but it’s now becoming obvious that the longer they wait for that, the more damage the Prime Minister is inflicting on the Labor brand.

Once a positive for battlers, Albanese is becoming a liability the longer he stays in the top job, as everyday voters come to understand that “Albo the Houso” is no longer one of them.

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Anthony Albanese no longer one of the ‘workers’