Anthony Albanese’s ‘gotcha question’ excuse for campaign gaffe isn’t good enough

Anthony Albanese has blamed “gotchas and game-playing” for his latest blunder on the election campaign. That doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

COMMENT

Anthony Albanese reckons he has been the victim of “gotcha questions” during this election campaign – the implication being that his stumbles under pressure have been caused by unfair treatment from the media.

The Labor leader appeared on the ABC’s Q&A program on Thursday night, where he was asked about an awkward moment earlier in the day.

The context: during a press conference, Mr Albanese was asked about his six-point plan to improve the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

“What are the six points?” a reporter asked him.

Mr Albanese quite obviously didn’t know. He tried to spin up an answer anyway, talking vaguely about Labor’s goals to “take pressure off” people whose programs were being cut and increase “administrative efficiency”.

Under a barrage of follow-up questions again asking for the six points, he merely repeated the same one-sentence slogan: “We will put people at the centre of the NDIS.”

A few minutes later, having ducked out of the press conference briefly, he returned with notes and appeared to read out the points.

Anthony Albanese reading from a document during Thursday’s press conference. Picture: Sky News Australia

On Q&A, host David Speers asked Mr Albanese whether the incident qualified as a stumble.

“You did say earlier in the campaign that when you stumbled, you would own it. Was that another mistake today?” he asked.

“No it wasn’t, David. No, it wasn’t. It was … one of the things that puts people off politics, I think, is the sort of gotcha game-playing,” Mr Albanese replied.

“The point here isn’t some bureaucratic gotcha game. The point here is putting people back in charge of the NDIS and at the centre of it, and one of the things I reckon that really alienates people from the political system completely is this idea that politics is about a sort of series of gotchas and game-playing.”

How does Anthony Albanese plan remove layers of bureaucracy and make the NDIS agile? #QandApic.twitter.com/AUTWZ3J3vS

— QandA (@QandA) May 5, 2022

So apparently it’s “gotcha game-playing” to ask a politician for the details of his own policies.

I could call my wife right now and tell her I have a six-point plan to make us billionaires. I guarantee she would have some follow-up questions.

It’s the same deal in politics – if you say you have a six-point plan to fix the NDIS, you can expect someone, at some point, to ask you what those points are.

That’s not unfair or unreasonable.

I’m not saying it was some egregious error for Mr Albanese to have forgotten the six points. We don’t expect our politicians to have perfect memories. They’re going to forget things and suffer the occasional mind blank, just like anyone else.

And as leader, it is not necessarily Mr Albanese’s job to know every minute detail of every policy. It would be a bigger deal if the shadow minister in this area, Bill Shorten, suffered a similar memory failure.

What I am saying is the question was reasonable. And instead of blaming the media for going all “gotcha” on him, maybe Mr Albanese should consider the way he responded.

He could have been honest. He could have said, “Sorry, the exact details slip my mind at the moment, I’ll check and get back to you later.” He could have said, “Look it’s not my job as leader to know every single detail, so I’d refer you to Bill Shorten.”

Most people who aren’t rusted on Liberal partisans would have understood. I daresay voters value honesty more than policy minutiae.

Instead he tried to BS his way past the question, and then acted aggrieved when the press pack didn’t let him get away with it.

Anthony Albanese during the press conference in question. Picture: Liam Kidston

Mr Albanese says “gotchas and game-playing” put people off politics, and maybe that’s right, but I can think of something else that does the same thing: politicians being disingenuous.

So here’s a generic plea to our politicians: if you don’t know a fact or a figure or the answer to a question, just say so. It will be far less embarrassing than trying to dodge the question for five minutes when everyone can see exactly what you’re doing.

Voters might even give you credit for being honest.

Thursday’s incident was reminiscent of the infamous moment from the 2013 campaign involving Liberal candidate Jaymes Diaz.

“We have a six-point plan to make sure that we do stop the boats,” Mr Diaz told Channel 10 journalist John Hill.

“Six points. Could you run through them for us?” Hill asked.

“Well, I could run through all the details of the points, but the main thing is-” Mr Diaz started to say.

“The six points?” Hill pressed.

“Here’s the thing. The boats started under Kevin Rudd. Under the Coalition government, we’d stopped the boats,” said Mr Diaz, in a feeble attempt to dodge the question.

And so it continued for a cringeworthy amount of time.

Was it unreasonable of Hill to ask Mr Diaz to outline the six points? No. Of course it bloody wasn’t. The same standard applies to the Labor leader now.

And Mr Diaz made the same mistake. Instead of admitting he couldn’t recall the answer, he repeatedly tried to talk past it, and made a fool of himself.

Mr Diaz’s party leader at the time, Tony Abbott, acknowledged his candidate had frozen under pressure and offered sympathy, saying he’d done the same thing.

“He’s a relatively young bloke, he’s in his early thirties, he has a lot of potential. He’s quite smart, he’s very well connected in the area,” Mr Abbott said.

“Inevitably, a very experienced and slightly aggressive journalist shoves a microphone in your face and starts barking at you, and it is possible to freeze.

“I’ve done it myself.”

Which is true! At some point every politician has been caught not knowing the answer to a question. We judge them by how they respond.

Were the Albanese stans who are currently ranting about the nasty, unfair media on Twitter defending Jaymes Diaz nine years ago? I would guess not.

The other “gotcha” moment of the campaign, of course, came on day one, when Mr Albanese couldn’t remember the unemployment rate or the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate.

Again, is it unreasonable to expect the alternative prime minister to know the unemployment rate (i.e. the most basic and widely publicised economic figure)? No. It’s not as though Mr Albanese was being asked to recall some super obscure number.

To his credit, Mr Albanese fessed up to his mistake on that occasion.

“I don’t want to make excuses,” he said.

“The key test of character is that when you make a mistake, do you own it? Do you set about fixing it? And then do you accept responsibility for it? I accept responsibility for it.”

He was right then, and wrong now.