Peta Credlin: Does no one in the PM’s office do their homework before trying a political stunt?
It’s hard to credit that it could have happened so quickly, yet with at least six months to go in its first term, the Albanese government looks to be on the verge of disintegration, writes Peta Credlin.
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It’s hard to credit that it could have happened so quickly, yet with at least six months to go in its first term, the Albanese government looks to be on the verge of disintegration.
Its legislation has stalled, its forward agenda is threadbare, its senior members are at odds, and it appears to have lost any moral compass. And yet most of them, including the Prime Minister and his office, appear to be in denial about how bad things are.
The government’s inability to commemorate the slaughter of Israeli men, women and children as the result of a terrorist attack with a simple condolence motion shows how far modern Labor has travelled from the days of Bob Hawke, who famously said that “if the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all mankind”.
As things stood on the evening of October 7 last year, there was only one victim – and that was Israel, with 1200 civilians killed and 250 taken hostage.
If the government really felt it necessary to mourn equally those dead in Israel’s counter-attack, it could have waited a week or so and moved a separate resolution, perhaps on the anniversary of Israel’s incursion into Gaza. Instead, by trying to conflate the victims of a terrorist atrocity with the dead civilians that Hamas and Hezbollah use as human shields, the Albanese government diminished itself, as well as spelt the end of Australia’s historic bipartisanship in support of Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself.
The inability of senior ministers to articulate a uniform position on anything to do with the Middle East, and the PM’s unedifying insistence that his position was the same as Joe Biden’s, when clearly it was not, just added to the sense of drift and confusion that began when Treasurer Jim Chalmers reportedly leaked that the government was looking to revisit the tax treatment of rental properties and capital gains.
Then there was the obvious trickery of rushing in legislation to prevent the privatisation of the NBN, that no one has proposed, that could only be sold at a massive loss, and that even Kevin Rudd said should eventually be sold.
Seriously, does no one in the PM’s office do their homework before trying on a political stunt in case it backfires like this?
Add in the government’s equally transparent game-playing with a Labor-dominated parliamentary committee inquiry into the feasibility of nuclear power to report a few weeks prior to the likely May election.
Rather than govern the country, it seems ministerial offices in Canberra are fixated on political games, when Australian’s are struggling to afford even the basics.
And speaking of ministerial offices, the shock press conference last week from Defence Minister Richard Marles’ chief of staff, who claims to have been bullied out of her job, is a big problem.
It’s less about the hypocritical contrast between Labor’s alleged treatment of this former diplomat-turned-staffer – and its sanctimonious weaponisation of the Brittany Higgins situation – and more about the inertia this saga creates in one of the most important offices in the country.
Is it any wonder that defence experts are alarmed at our lack of military preparedness, bumbling speeches from the minister, budget blowouts and lagging decision-making if internal issues inside his office are not resolved and allowed to fester like this? To keep someone on full pay yet ban her from her office for months is like nothing I have seen, but it speaks volumes to me about what else is happening behind closed doors.
Even on the current polls, the Albanese government is all but certain to have to do a deal with the Greens, post-election, to stay in office. And this is before most voters are even focused on the election.
If the polls are bad now, they are only likely to get worse because, let’s not forget, Labor was elected in 2022 on a record low 32 per cent primary vote. If a first-term margin is supposed to be your high-water mark, that’s grim, isn’t it? Add in the fact that a government vying for a second term usually has a record to run on, but ask yourself this: What has the Albanese government achieved?
After six quarters of negative growth in per capita GDP, meaning the country is in a sharp recession, there’s no way that most voters will feel better off under the Albanese government.
The second question voters normally ask is: Does the opposition deserve my vote? Unlike state Liberal oppositions, Peter Dutton is offering people a clear alternative to Labor based on conviction – supporting emissions-free nuclear power, wanting sharply reduced immigration, and offering first homebuyers a leg-up into the housing market. Overwhelmingly, people will make a choice based on who they think will best help them keep their head above water as the cost of living continues to bite.
But, increasingly, character will play out, too – both the character of the person chosen to lead us and the character of our country that we’ve seen on display recently over the Voice and Middle Eastern problems imported here.
All elections matter but it’s hard to see one that matters more than this.
IT’S GAME OVER IF ALBO GETS HIS WAY ON MUZZLING FREE SPEECH
The Albanese government’s “Misinformation Bill” is the biggest assault on freedom of speech ever attempted in Australia.
The fact that Labor wants to try to ram it through the parliament before the next election says it all.
And confirmation of its chilling impact on debate came courtesy of Aboriginal activist and Uluru Statement from the Heart co-author Megan Davis, who recently castigated Labor for not legislating against so-called misleading campaigns advocating a “No” vote.
Reflecting on the 12-month anniversary of the Voice defeat, on Monday, Davis argues that the laws before the parliament now would have helped defeat the “Trumpian” lies of the No campaign.
What Trumpian lies?
During the Voice debate, I spent months and months highlighting what Davis and other Indigenous leaders had said on the record over six years – in speeches, published articles and interviews – about the breadth of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which was a long manifesto that included treaties and reparations.
There was no lie in any of my material. In fact, I used their own words and official government documents issued under a Freedom of Information application to the legal section of the government’s peak Indigenous department.
Without a free media and freedom of speech, none of this would have come out. As it was, some of what I said was taken off social media until lawyers at Sky News and this paper demonstrated it as fact, and it was forced to be reinstated.
If the Prime Minister gets his new laws, it’s game over for debate in this country and our democracy will be fundamentally constrained.
For those who voted No this time last year, the fight is still not over.
Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm
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Originally published as Peta Credlin: Does no one in the PM’s office do their homework before trying a political stunt?
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