If this government is forgettable, Albanese is counting on you remembering the last one

Ten years ago, I came up with what a sharp headline writer deemed “every parliament’s rule of three”. Think of any term of a government – then think of its three most memorable political events. Now, about those three things: were they good for the government or bad? If mostly good, the government won. If mostly bad, it lost.

The illustrations I gave were Howard’s first term (gun laws, waterfront, GST) versus his last (WorkChoices, leadership chatter, rising interest rates).

Illustration: Jim PavlidisCredit:

What is likely to linger in our memories from Anthony Albanese’s first term? The referendum definitely. Inflation? Maybe: it’s one of those things that dominates now but which in a few years we might struggle to remember. The stage 3 tax cuts were a big story, but tax cuts tend to be forgotten fast.

So … the National Anti-Corruption Commission? The beginnings of a climate strategy? Remember, this isn’t about listing achievements – it’s a question of what’s large enough to shape the story we later tell about these years. Can you easily get to three?

Of course, the term is not quite over. Except: let’s say the election is held at the latest possible date, in May, the campaign starting in April. From the remaining eight months subtract a chunk of summer – which leaves just over six months of governing. At most.

There is still time to make some large announcements – and there is policy waiting in the wings. How much of it will we see this year? Various ministers have settled policies and been told to wait: a campaign is coming and policy will be needed then. This is standard practice but is still worth noting because of the sense right now that the government has hit a defensive holding pattern: that the focus may have already shifted squarely to the election.

A crucial part of this new mode is shutting down potential weaknesses. Which was of course the main story of last Sunday’s reshuffle. The most notable move was Tony Burke replacing both Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles in Home Affairs and Immigration. Burke was once briefly immigration minister – but perhaps more significantly he was shadow immigration minister, in the nervous term leading up to Labor’s 2007 election victory. That means he will have a historical appreciation of the fact that the political task of Labor’s spokesperson in this area is to draw as little attention as possible.

It is, in other words, a defensive appointment. And it will be surprising if he is left in the portfolio for long after the election – because the appointment is just as notable for what it wasn’t. Burke, in industrial relations, has been one of the very few ministers in this government who has managed to make a virtue out of doing controversial things, even out of making enemies. In a different phase of government, you would want him in the type of portfolio he’s just come from: making the case for large changes. But that is not the phase we’re in.

Is this defensive stance sufficient? Can it last those six months of governing? Governments typically control the narrative with actions: without them, the vacuum is soon filled by others – as has largely happened since the budget.

Still, it would be wrong to assume Labor is operating without a rationale. What may seem like bog-standard political events – visiting childcare centres, say – is seen as preparing voters for coming announcements. The government wants to ensure that when election-friendly policies do arrive, they don’t come out of the blue, shocking voters then vanishing, but land in a context. There is a belief at senior levels that governments are re-elected not on what they’ve done but on what they’re going to do.

The truth about the “rule of three” is that it’s actually quite difficult to summon up three things about any term: it is, above all, a reminder that so much of what we think important at the time ends up forgotten. Still, it is interesting that it seems already difficult to name three things about this term. To some it will be a little disheartening that an already defensive government may be entering an even more defensive phase.

For those looking for predictions, I think the rule comes up empty right now. The referendum result was clearly a political negative. Inflation – if it even makes the three – is more ambiguous. It’s obviously difficult to live through. But with markets pricing in a rate cut by February, there is some chance it ends up looking like a positive for the government: a difficult situation managed well enough.

What about that forgettability, then – is it a political weakness? Perhaps, if you read it mostly as an absence of good things. But if you read it as an absence of bad things, perhaps it will work out fine for Labor: who, outside of diehard Liberal partisans, has the government actively annoyed?

Here, then, is the final interesting thing about the rule of three right now. It is plausible that the most memorable things about this term of government may be revelations about the government that preceded it. The robo-debt royal commission was scathing and historic. A series of court cases has kept Bruce Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins in view. Scott Morrison, we found out, had secretly had himself sworn in to several ministries. Three things about the Coalition, it turns out, spring easily to mind.

What hindsight often overlooks is just how dominant, at the end of a government’s first term, the memory of the previous government remains. This may be one of the reasons governments tend to get a second term: voters haven’t forgotten what came just before.

Peter Dutton has managed to dominate debate for a surprising portion of the past few months. But given how large the Coalition’s recent past still looms, there is a more important question to ask. With Dutton’s forays on migration and nuclear, has he done enough – or anything, really – to convince voters the Coalition has escaped that past and become something appealingly new?

Sean Kelly is author of The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.