Joel Fitzgibbon, Anthony Albanese and the ‘insane’ rift destroying Australian politics

Australia’s oldest and greatest political party is tearing itself apart something that is the very definition of “insanity” – and it’s bad for the whole country.

COMMENT

Joel Fitzgibbon might be reckless and rash but that doesn’t mean he is wrong. And he is certainly not alone.

The firebrand MP for Hunter and defacto leader of the Labor Right sensationally quit the shadow cabinet this week to sit on the backbench but this wasn’t a retreat, it was a battle cry.

Anyone who thinks this is a victory for the Labor Left might recall what happened when Kevin Rudd did the same thing in 2012 and Paul Keating in 1991.

Indeed, in that Golden Age of Labor, there were two great Labor double-acts. One was Hawke and Keating, who presided over the longest serving Australian Labor government, the other was Bob Carr and Michael Egan, who did the same in the Premier State.

In the dark days of opposition Carr and his leader in the upper house were swapping notes about what to do about the Liberal plan to establish an Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Egan warned Carr the Opposition must block ICAC at all costs. Carr responded simply with this: Given the Labor Party did not have a majority, by what precise mechanism did he propose blocking said legislation?

This line of reasoning is conspicuously absent in Federal Labor’s current climate wars. Australia’s oldest and greatest party is tearing itself apart over a policy platform that it has no power to implement. If there is a better definition of insanity I am yet to come across it.

The fact is the ALP cannot do anything to impact Australia’s carbon emissions, let alone the world’s, unless it wins government. Scott Morrison isn’t going to have an environmental epiphany just because green-left urbanites are cranking in their bedsheets.

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Joel Fitzgibbon stood down from the front bench this week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

This means that the party has to win enough seats to form government and the seats they need are in places like Western Sydney and regional Queensland. Blue collar seats, battler seats, no-bullshit seats.

That is the simple truth about Labor’s path to power. A digital watch could calculate it in a microsecond.

But there is also something greater at play. Labor needs to actually care about these people and connect with them. It has to relate to people in the suburbs and regions that have turned away from the party in droves.

This is what Joe Biden desperately tried to do in the US election and even all his efforts only just got him over the line. He rightly and unashamedly went after Middle America and disenfranchised Trump voters – both on the campaign trail and in his victory speech.

By contrast he embraced the contentious subject of fracking about as enthusiastically as one would embrace a 13th century leper. Biden might be losing half his marbles but he is a damn sight smarter than anyone who thinks the US presidential race was fought and won on climate change.

Because the truth is that the climate change debate is no longer just an argument about climate change policy itself. For many working people who rely on fossil fuels for their jobs or cheap power for their home and the many millions more who just want parties that relate to the day-to-day issues they face, climate change is just code for a largely inner-urban, educated elite that is comfortable enough to worry about the world in 30 years’ time while they are struggling to survive in the world today.

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Joel Fitzgibbon isn’t trying to kill Albo – he’s trying to save him. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

But don’t take my word for it. Take the word of a veteran Labor campaign strategist who contacted me immediately after hearing about Joel’s latest blow-up. This is what he said:

“Take away the name Fitzgibbon: The clear point is, as he said, unless we can win seats in Queensland and Western Sydney, we are f***ed.

“The ALP is reading the US result the wrong way. Trump shit it in in Ohio, would have won Pennsylvania if they’d had a postal vote strategy of any kind, and lost by a bee’s dick in Wisconsin despite the fact local coppers killed George Floyd a few months back.

“And don’t forget Florida, which taking away the high Jewish and Cuban vote, has a mix of Queensland and Western Sydney in its make-up. As for the popular vote, remove California and New York then take a look.

“Look at the seats Rudd won in 07 and the ones we don’t hold now. These people weren’t voting for solar panels and wind farms.

“Our strategy at the moment increases votes for us where we don’t need them and gets us a little smile from people drinking Chardonnay who will continue to vote Green anyway.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against action on climate change, but the fact is you can’t do shit from opposition.

“In the US election the road to victory was the so-called blue wall. That’s who Biden targeted. These guys didn’t care about climate change – in fact they are the same voters Labor needs, the blue wall in Western Sydney and Queensland!

“Bernie Sanders gets killed in this election scenario – the vote may have gone up in New York and California but zero blue wall states. Trump would have won them all. And at the moment the ALP is heading down the Bernie path.”

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Albo needs to do what Joe Biden did so well in the US – appeal to the working class, not just the urban elite. Picture: Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP

He is absolutely right and that is what Fitzgibbon is desperately trying to warn Albanese about. He’s not trying to kill off Albo, he’s trying to save him.

But Albo is in an impossible bind. In caucus he relies on the support of the Left faction led by Labor’s crusading climate spokesman Mark Butler and in his own inner-west Sydney electorate of Grayndler he is constantly beset by a challenge from the Greens at every single election. If he alienates either he risks losing both the leadership and his seat.

The irony is that when Labor’s previous leader Bill Shorten fell under the spell of the Victorian Left – leading the former Centre-Right hard man to start banging on about “the top end of town” and jogging around in silly woke T-shirts declaring him “Chloe Shorten’s husband” – it was the nominally Left-wing Albanese who became the voice of the sensible centre. And God bless him for it.

One solution to this Catch-22 would be for Albo to become factionally non-aligned, a time-honoured Labor tradition – indeed, once a condition of entry – for Left leaders to gain the support of the majority Right.

It would be a massive step for such a proud and longstanding factional warrior but pride never gets you far in politics. It would give him the freedom to pursue the more commonsense agenda he instinctively gravitates to and it is probably the only move that will make Labor a force at the next election.

And if the Greens of Grayndler still try to unseat the next Labor Prime Minister of Australia then, in the words of another great Labor leader, they will wear it like a crown of thorns.