Albanese’s greatest election threat isn’t Dutton. It’s the woke left

The severed feet of Captain Cook’s bronze statue in St Kilda made for a sorry sight on Australia Day eve last year.

This year, Australia Day falls in the shadow of a looming federal election. No doubt Peter Dutton would welcome another opportunity to position himself as an antidote to the “woke” politics he claims is dividing the nation.

The statue of Captain James Cook in Randwick has been vandalised for the second time in 12 months.Credit: Nick Moir

With the St Kilda statue being guarded by round-the-clock security, Sydney’s homage to the captain being defaced with red paint and losing a hand and nose, and the bronze statue heads of former prime ministers Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd being removed and stolen from Prime Ministers Avenue in Lake Wendouree on Friday, the ammunition is arguably being handed straight to him. While one can’t help but admire the brazenness, such hijinks are quite the own goal.

The opposition leader’s campaign staff have been on high alert for any happenings with even the slightest whiff of woke, knowing that the more airtime Anthony Albanese wastes defending against attempts to associate himself with left-wing activism, the less he’ll spend talking about the future of Australia.

Last week, the PM was being blamed for UK High Commissioner Stephen Smith skirting this year’s Australia Day festivities in London, with Dutton declaring he should be recalled from the posting if he was “ashamed” (Smith has since said he’ll attend events). Days later, Albanese was fending off questions about Dutton’s intent to force local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on January 26.

Aside from the odd snarl, Albanese isn’t biting. But just because he refuses to take the bait doesn’t mean someone else won’t.

When Dutton announced he will not stand before the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags should he win the election, Labor MP Linda Burney went on the attack via Instagram, saying, “This is the man who gave no support to the [Voice to parliament] referendum.”

The former minister for Indigenous Australians’ words reflect a belief that the moral case for a constitutional Voice to parliament is obvious and irrefutable. Ipso facto, anyone who didn’t support the Voice is morally bankrupt. She may as well have told the 9.4 million people who voted No to turn out for the Coalition on election day.

Far too many social progressives fail to understand that there can be moral grounds for holding reservations about enshrining racial identity in the highest law in the land. And while Burney’s heart is no doubt in the right place, her words are redolent of the absolutism and outrage that drives fringe activists to commit headline-stealing acts that alienate the average punter.

It’s worth remembering that 117 of the 151 federal electorates registered a No vote at the referendum. Keeping this in mind helps explain Dutton’s posturing, given the Coalition needs to gain only 18 seats to form a majority government. Of course, such a feat will be harder than it sounds, not least because six of the 34 seats that voted Yes were former safe Liberal seats that turned teal at the last election. And so, stoking culture wars over Indigenous issues is unlikely to help win back those electorates, including Kooyong and Goldstein in Victoria.

In 2024, the Captain Cook statue in St Kilda’s Catani Gardens was hacked off at the ankle bones. In 2025, the replacement statue was under guard leading up to Australia Day.Credit: Diego Fedele

A more likely scenario is that the Coalition sends Labor into minority government by nicking seats in the outer suburbs in places like western Sydney, where they managed to turn somewhat more conservative migrant communities against the Voice in 2023.

Victorian lefties may consider this to be just deserts for a prime minister whose achievements seem underwhelming compared to those of former premier Daniel Andrews. In 2022, the Andrews government held the nation’s first truth-telling commission to investigate and address historical and ongoing injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria. Three years earlier, the same government also legislated a democratically elected First Peoples’ Assembly to negotiate a treaty with the state.

While Andrews was a formidable communicator, Albanese is stodgy by comparison. But blaming him for not being Andrews is overly simplistic. Capturing hearts and minds from Cape York to Hobart and across the Nullarbor is somewhat more challenging than being a Labor premier at the helm of one of the federation’s most progressive states.

What’s more, Andrews’ heyday occurred before the global backlash against “wokeness” fully took root. But more importantly, none of his government’s reforms required a referendum, which meant they could be implemented without much fuss.

Victoria is also the birthplace of the Australian union movement and remains a hub of progressive activism. Furthermore, a smaller proportion of our population resides in regional areas, which tend to be more conservative on average. These factors could explain why Victorians may be more inclined to support a progressive cause than the average Queenslander or West Australian.

The rank and file of Victorian Labor have deep and meaningful connections to grassroots movements. This – along with a crack social media team – no doubt gave Andrews the confidence to stare down hostility as his government went about its business.

Albanese held the referendum at the behest of Indigenous leaders, who insisted that the Voice be embedded constitutionally. Burney herself says the PM chose to be led by the advice of indigenous leaders, who made no indication they’d accept a deferral of the vote once bipartisanship was lost and support collapsed.

The referendum took place at a time when inflation and interest rates were beginning to cause electorates to sour on incumbent governments around the world. As a result of the vote’s timing, Albanese lost a lot of paint and has never recovered his sheen in the electorate’s eyes.

As Australia Day approaches, those who lean harder towards the left perhaps owe Albanese the courtesy of thinking twice before providing further ammunition for Dutton’s war against wokeness.

Gary Newman is a Melbourne-based filmmaker, journalist and communications specialist.

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