Andrew Bolt: Why Albanese must be sweating just 10 months into top job

It’s only 10 months into Anthony Albanese’s tenure as Prime Minister but it seems there’s already a knife-fight in the queue to eventually replace him.

No wonder Tanya Plibersek reckons she’s a chance for Anthony Albanese’s job, writes Andrew Bolt.

I worried last week I’d pushed the boat out too early by calling Anthony Albanese’s government “worse than Whitlam”.

But up popped Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek on Saturday, declaring she was the people’s choice for Prime Minister, as if Albanese was now chopped liver as his government kept beclowning itself.

True, Plibersek actually said that some time ago to journalist Margaret Simons for an upcoming biography: Tanya Plibersek: On Her Own Terms.

But it’s now landed like a seagull’s dropping on Albanese’s picnic: Plibersek denying she’d have lost the 2019 leadership contest against him had she not pulled out to help her daughter deal with alleged domestic violence.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must now be sweating that his colleagues are too ambitious for his job. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“That’s absolutely what people who like to background against me would say,” Plibersek retorted, implicitly confirming there’s already a knife-fight in the queue to eventually replace Albanese, not yet 10 months into his term as prime minister.

“I am pretty confident that if I had run, I would have won,” Plibersek added, this time implying Albanese was just Labor’s second best.

Albanese refused to laugh this off. He falsely claimed Plibersek had “been a friend of mine for a very long period”, when in fact he’d demoted her after the election, but then came the slap: “I was elected unopposed after the 2019 election and I won in 2022.”

Strong men don’t boast how strong they are, but Albanese must now be sweating that his colleagues are too ambitious for his job, drunk on their unaccustomed power.

For instance, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has a Messianic fire in his eyes as he pushes Albanese’s government into ever more extreme and disastrous global warming policies to supposedly save the world.

This – coincidentally, I’m sure – makes the very hungry Bowen seem Labor’s great crusader, a man from Labor’s Right who can inspire Albanese’s Left.

Then a third candidate, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, last week tried to announce himself as Albanese’s natural successor with a grandiose essay boasting he was inventing a “better capitalism” – actually a woke-age socialism.

His vanity triggered a month of turmoil for Labor, with voters wondering what tax hits were coming.

Tanya Plibersek declared she was People’s Choice for Prime Minister. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

We didn’t have to wait long. It was Chalmers’ tax slug on super accounts worth more than $3 million, which sounds a lot now but won’t so much after 10 or 20 years of inflation.

Chalmers made such a dog’s breakfast of selling his plan, and left so many details unexplained, that I’m not surprised if Plibersek reckons her chance is coming.

Chalmers even torpedoed any leadership hopes of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who on Friday summed up the economic cluelessness of the lot of them by being unable to explain a key detail of this super plan that Marles himself had just approved in Cabinet.

The detail is this: Chalmers actually plans to tax unrealised assets in those big super accounts, like houses, shares or farms.

Marles’ inability to explain the inexplicable in a debate with Opposition leader Peter Dutton on Nine’s Today Show was so embarrassing that you wouldn’t believe me unless I ran the transcript.

Chris Bowen is pushing Albanese’s government into ever more extreme and disastrous global warming policies. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

KARL STEFANOVIC (host): How are you going to tax the increased paper value of an asset that hasn’t been sold?

MARLES: Well, this is a tax in respect of earnings. And so it’s a detail which goes to that question …

STEFANOVIC: Again, how are you going to tax the increased paper value of an asset that hasn’t been sold?

MARLES: Well, as I say, this goes to the question of earnings in super funds with more than $3 million …

STEFANOVIC: Just one more time, how are you going to tax the increased paper value of an asset that hasn’t been sold? If you don’t know it’s okay.

MARLES: Well, a process will be worked through …

DUTTON: If you don’t understand the detail, how on earth can the Australian public understand what it is you’re proposing here? …

MARLES: I mean, there is a process that will be put in place …

What a perfect metaphor for this government’s bizarre approach.

How will Albanese stop electricity prices exploding as his global warming policies bite?

It’s a detail that goes to this question …

How will Albanese replace all the coal-fired electricity he’s driving out?

A process will be put in place …

How will Albanese prevent his planned Voice – a kind of Aboriginal-only parliament in our constitution – from blocking governments from acting without its advice?

A process will be worked through …

Worse than Whitlam. No wonder Plibersek reckons she’s a chance.