Tom Minear: Why Victorian Labor has lessons for new PM Anthony Albanese

Dan Andrews once prioritised lifting standards in politics but his record never lived up to the rhetoric. As our new PM vows to take responsibility for his failings, can he fulfill his promise?

In the first days of his prime ministership, Anthony Albanese has laid down some significant markers on the what, who, when and why of his plans to govern Australia.

But in the long run, it is the how that may well define the success or otherwise of his leadership.

“The how is important. I’m serious about the how,” the Prime Minister told his colleagues this week.

“We need to change the way that politics operates in this country.”

Anyone who has been around politics long enough will read that with a dose of cynicism.

Daniel Andrews, Albanese’s one-time housemate, also prioritised lifting the standards in politics in his campaign to defeat the scandal-ridden Victorian Liberal government in 2014.

Since then, between taxpayers’ money being misused to campaign, dogs chauffeured around in ministerial cars, allowances rorted for MPs to live by the seaside, freedom of information laws trampled on, rampant branch-stacking, questionable relationships with property developers and union chiefs, secret deals with coal-fired power stations, legal challenges and public sledges directed at independent watchdogs … well, let’s just say the Andrews government’s record on integrity and transparency never quite lived up to the Premier’s rhetoric.

Anthony Albanese is a decent and genuine person who is capable of living up to expectations. Picture: AAP

Of course, in the spirit of Albanese’s commitment, the new Prime Minister deserves the benefit of the doubt. He rightly diagnosed the shortcomings of the Morrison government, and he realised Australians wanted more from their politicians. Albanese is a decent and genuine person who is capable of living up to those expectations.

But if there is a lesson for him from his Victorian counterparts, it’s not to confuse popularity with credibility.

Through almost eight years in power, the Andrews machine has treated scrutiny like a bad smell and stubbornly refused to own its mistakes, believing they will be forgiven by voters more focused on the government’s record of delivering on its promises. While that has proven to be the correct political calculation up until now, it doesn’t make it right.

During the election, Albanese and his team were taken aback by how he was treated by elements of the media, especially at some press conferences they felt were unnecessarily hostile. It prompted the Labor leader to seek to impose strict discipline on journalists, only allowing them one question at a time, a practice he has continued in government.

Through almost eight years in power, the Andrews machine has treated scrutiny like a bad smell. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

“You get to ask the question, then we have the answer. That’s the way these press conferences are going to operate. It’s not an exchange,” he tersely declared on Tuesday.

In the aftermath of the campaign, there is a valid discussion to be had about what the media got right and wrong. But Albanese should not assume that allows him to dodge follow-up questions of his responses that aren’t actually answers. That would be a slippery slope down to the level of his predecessor.

The Prime Minister appeared to take some pride during this week’s Labor caucus meeting in the fact that he wasn’t “intimidated by anyone” during the campaign.

“We dealt with that, and maybe they don’t have as much influence as they think,” he said.

If that sort of us-against-them attitude to the media hardens over the months and years ahead, then Albanese risks falling into the same trap as Andrews.

The Prime Minister has vowed to admit when he is wrong and to take responsibility for his failings. The longer he is in power, however, the harder that will be. Labor’s honeymoon period will ebb away and the difficulties of governing will kick in.

There is a need for politics to be done differently. Hopefully Albanese lives up to his promise.

Did Peter Dutton forget he was in power for the past nine years? Picture: Tracey Nearmy

Dutton can’t forget his party’s past

Peter Dutton started life as the Liberal Party’s new leader with an obvious nod to its founder Robert Menzies.

He promised to focus on the “forgotten Australians”, those living in the suburbs and running small businesses who feel like “the system is against them”.

It was a variation on the theme of Menzies’s famous “The Forgotten People” speech, which has been followed more recently by John Howard’s battlers and Scott Morrison’s quiet Australians.

As the Liberal Party struggles over its identity in opposition, Dutton’s positioning was sensible. These are the voters he needs to reach to have any chance at the next election.

But couldn’t he have found his own label for them, instead of saying they were “forgotten”? Did Dutton forget he was in power for the past nine years? If these Australians feel abandoned by the government, then the Liberal Party only has itself to blame.

Menzies described the middle class – “professional men and women” – as “the backbone of the nation”. He considered them to be forgotten because they were “not rich enough to have individual power”, but not poor enough to require the support of trade unions or the state.

Menzies also praised them for providing “the intelligent ambition which is the motive power of human progress”, filling universities and driving Australia’s “intellectual life”. That is often missing from the way his successors have sought to frame the “forgotten people”.

Yes, they are aspirational, but they also sound like Australians who would care about issues where the Morrison government fell short – climate change, integrity, equality. Something for Dutton to remember.

Tom Minear is Herald Sun national politics editor