Go-with-the-flow Albo a scary prospect as leader

Anthony Albanese is far too often guided by emotions, not reason, and his judgment is what makes him a risk as a prime minister.

The Liberals are now frantically thinking up reasons for you to be scared of Labor leader Anthony Albanese. But they miss the big one with go-with-the-flow Albo.

There are just 13 weeks to go before the most likely date of an election Labor looks like winning, and the worried Liberals have decided – belatedly – to start attacking Albanese personally.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday trotted out a new line: Albanese was “snarling”.

It’s true, Albanese’s voice does often sound like a snarl. It’s also true that snarling at the government is mostly what he does.

I mean, ask yourself: what Labor policies can you actually remember, other than its insane global warming ones?

The attack on his “snarling” also invites us to ask if Albanese truly looks like your next Prime Minister, even now that he’s lost weight and started wearing stern glasses.

I’ve found Albanese to be a nice bloke. Warm heart. Direct. But does he have the gravitas to snarl for Australia?

But this attack will only get the Liberals so far. Tony Abbott hardly looked prime ministerial, yet still made it because he was so good at making the Rudd and Gillard governments look stupid. Much like Albanese is now doing with Morrison’s.

So what else have the Liberals got?

Well, their new attack ad hits Albanese for his lack of experience, and there’s truth in that, too.

Sure, he studied economics at university, but he’s never been in charge of one of the nation’s big portfolios – Treasurer, Finance Minister or Defence Minister. He’s instead been in charge of things like roads, rail and airports.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has never been in charge of one of the nation’s big portfolios. Picture: Tim Hunter

But that still isn’t what worries me most. After all, prime ministers can surround themselves with good advisers and ministers and still do a good job. Bob Hawke had no ministerial experience at all before becoming PM.

But for me what makes Albanese a risk is his judgment.

Albanese was of Labor’s far Left from his university days, and has only gradually tacked to Labor’s centre. He seems a collectivist, too keen to hunt with his tribe, and too often carried away with its shared emotion.

In fact, Albanese in 2012 famously described his job in politics as belting conservatives, as if half of Australia were his enemies: “I like fighting Tories. That’s what I do.”

As recently as 2019, Albanese was still attacking “the top end of town”, and opposing richer Australians from getting their share of the Liberals’ tax cuts.

Even Albanese now admits that tribal language was “terrible”, and he backs the cuts he recently opposed. He wants to win.

If only that was all.

Again, as late as 2015, Albanese was still fighting the Liberals’ tactic of turning back the boats, even though Labor had then agreed they’d worked to stop the huge flood of illegal immigrants – 50,000 – that previous Labor governments had lured over. More than 1000 people had drowned.

Albanese instead openly put his feelings over what was clearly the national interest: “I couldn’t ask someone else to do something that I couldn’t see myself doing.”

Is that the test? I’m sure Albanese also couldn’t shoot anyone. So should he, as prime minister, scrap our army?

Three years ago, Albanese attacked former PM John Howard for writing a character reference for Cardinal George Pell, to plead for a light sentence for a man he – correctly – believed was unfairly convicted of paedophilia.

Albanese fed the mob, saying Howard’s reference was “very unfortunate and it does show a lack of judgment”.

What makes Albanese a risk is his judgment. Picture: Tim Hunter

In 2014, Albanese again hunted with his pack, accusing Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians in Gaza and telling it to stop firing back – firing back, that is, at the Hamas terrorists who run Gaza, had fired first, and had kept firing rockets they’d hidden among the population, to create martyrs for propaganda.

Again, here was Albanese putting his emotion above a hard assessment of the facts.

Lastly, there’s Albanese’s passionate belief – against the facts – that the planet is heating dangerously, and Australia should cut harder to pretend to stop what his defence spokesman absurdly calls “the greatest threat to our national security”.

Dear God. Would Albanese ever consult the science, not his beating heart?

I know, Albanese has now dropped a lot of his baggage, and is no great radical. Yet this record scares me.

We don’t know what challenges Albanese would face as PM. But I fear he will too often be guided by his warm fuzzies and not cool reason.