Shaun Carney: Will Albo just be one more failed Labor leader?

If Anthony Albanese imagines he’s got plenty of time to get in the government’s face, he’s wrong. If he won’t change it’s hard to imagine him as anything other than one more failed Labor leader, writes Shaun Carney.

Imagination is an underrated political commodity.

Most of us probably don’t see a connection between politics and creativity, but successful politicians understand that being able to make something big out of a mere idea is an essential skill.

Isn’t that what imagination is?

Look at Scott Morrison. He didn’t stop imagining first that he could be Liberal leader even though he wasn’t even thought to be in the running.

And second, that there was a way for him to lead the government to re-election when the rest of Australia couldn’t see it.

Morrison’s imaginings weren’t idle musings.

He applied himself relentlessly to making them real.

Anthony Albanese has been a member of parliament for 23 years, 18 as a frontbencher.

He made mistakes and chased cheap votes in his first few months as Prime Minister, but he kept trying to create opportunities for the Coalition to win back voters disgusted by the Government’s leadership shenanigans.

In the end, he got it right.

Morrison understood the bedrock truth of Australian politics in the digital age, with its super-quick three-year electoral cycle: if you want to win the next election, there isn’t a moment to waste.

You push and push and try things.

You make your story easy to understand and you keep it straight.

Bill Shorten did not understand that.

Morrison took the least complicated political message in modern political history to last May’s election: all Labor offers is lies and higher taxes, while he would not change anything except the tax scales, which would be lowered, not lifted.

He didn’t veer from it.

Telling a persuasive, digestible story is even more important for a Labor opposition.

Now that the new parliament has begun, it seems to me that 2019 should be seen as a landmark election, just as important as the change-of-government elections that saw the beginning of the Hawke era in 1983 and John Howard’s long stint in charge that commenced in 1996.

Scott Morrison understood the bedrock truth of Australian politics in the digital age.

What a clear majority of voters said on May 18 was that their default position is not to elect federal Labor governments.

They didn’t care that Morrison just sort of appeared as PM or that he didn’t have much to offer about the challenges Australia faces.

Bob Hawke’s death in the final days of the campaign was especially poignant, given that the election demonstrated beyond doubt that his long stint as PM was an aberration.

Labor’s success under Hawke was because of his almost magical presence and, to an extent, the qualities of his successor, the other outstanding member of his government, Paul Keating.

Without gigantic figures like Hawke and Keating, who come along perhaps only every 50 years or so, Labor struggles mightily to stay in the race.

Meanwhile, the Liberals can shoehorn an ordinary, ambitious political player like Morrison into the leadership months out from an election and be not just competitive but victorious.

Barring something sensational happening on the Labor side, this pattern is set to prevail. Unfortunately for the ALP, its new leader Anthony Albanese wants to head in the opposite direction from sensational.

Labor’s success under Hawke was because of his almost magical presence.

In an interview with The Guardian last week, Albanese said he wanted to take his time to work out why Labor had not just lost the election but lost so badly.

He characterised the ALP’s vote as the worst in a hundred years, 1.2 million voters short of what the party needs.

He says not to expect to hear too much policy before the 2022 election campaign.

Starting out by telling everyone, especially your colleagues and supporters, that your party is stuffed is an unusual first move.

Full marks for honesty, but is that the way to revival?

Albanese has been a member of parliament for 23 years, 18 of them as a frontbencher.

He’s long hankered for the leadership. He’s 56.

How can it be that he isn’t itching to run out a coherent assessment of the nation and what it needs and an explanation of why the government can never deliver the remedies, electoral majority or not?

Listening to Albanese’s tortured explanation of Labor’s ultimate endorsement of the government’s three-stage tax cut legislation is like finding yourself next to a stranger on a tram who insists on explaining the rules of contract bridge to you before you reach your stop: excruciating and pointless.

Gigantic figures like Hawke and Keating come along perhaps only every 50 years or so.

Boiled down, what Albanese appears to be saying is that Labor had to vote for a tax package it didn’t fully support because if it didn’t, the government would go around saying bad things about the ALP’s position on tax. Seriously.

If you dodge arguments and shape your behaviour around what your opponents will say about you, why bother to get out of bed in the morning?

His attempt to accommodate his opponents has gone even further, with him banning his MPs from accusing the government of lying.

Don’t expect Morrison to return the favour.

Albanese might think he has time. He doesn’t.

Australians will not line up obediently to hear what he has to offer them.

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LABOR STILL IN ELECTION DENIAL

The way our politics works, like it or not, is that oppositions must get in the faces of voters and hack away at the policies of governments, not boost their legitimacy by voting for them. That has not changed simply because Anthony Albanese has finally realised his ambition to become Labor leader.

It’s very early days, but if this is how he will go about it, it’s hard to imagine him as anything other than one more failed Labor leader.

Shaun Carney is a Herald Sun columnist