The federal government’s week went from bad to worse and has ended on a new low note.
None of the national security laws the government deemed so urgent at the start of the week has been passed.
In their place; a character assassination of Peter Dutton and childish parliamentary tactics.
The government is now firmly on the defensive.
Desperation and overreach, tactical misjudgment, a failure of political management, and sluggish policy are the new additions to collective hubris.
The Prime Minister is now at risk of heading to the end of the year with an incoherent forward agenda, self-inflicted political damage and mounting electoral anxiety.
It’s not all Albanese’s fault, of course. He has been badly let down by his ministry. But the government is now under sustained pressure for the first time, and it is beginning to show. And this inevitably reflects on him.
The government’s response to this new dynamic has been surprising, considering many of those in cabinet have been here before.
The decision on Wednesday to launch an unhinged personal attack on Dutton has left Albanese unnecessarily exposed. Even Labor strategists regarded it as amateurish and laden with risk.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who was subjected to a similar campaign as opposition leader in 2012, described Labor’s attack on the Liberal leader as a “contemptible smear”.
“The more lies that politicians tell about their opponents, the more desperate they look,” Mr Abbott told The Australian, adding: “This government is doing its best to turn itself into a one-termer.”
So much for the Prime Minister’s pledge for new politics.
The motivation for the sledging of Dutton was transparent. Nothing new here.
The government knew it had lost the argument over its bungled response to the High Court’s decision to overturn indefinite immigration detention.
As any political strategist will tell you, when faced with defeat the only option other than to admit it is to muddy the waters so much that your opponents share in the defeat as well.
The Labor Party isn’t alone in this behaviour.
But its execution in this case was clumsy and offensive.
The claim that Dutton was protecting pedophiles was clearly not a believable one. It just doesn’t pass the pub test.
So why make it?
There is no way that senior ministers would be allowed to go out and make such accusations without it being endorsed by the tactics committee or the Prime Minister’s Office.
Someone clearly thought it was a good idea to tar Dutton with the same brush and call the battle a draw.
It was undergraduate stuff.
That Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil doubled down in parliament Thursday by repeating the accusations, knowing full well the hypocrisy of the argument, is bewildering.
Having sought to tarnish the character of Dutton with accusations that were patently false and offensive, it is the character of those making the claims that have now been brought into question.
There was a better and less offensive way to make a point the government had a legitimate right to make.
Time will tell, but it’s this sort of stuff that eats away at the general appeal of a government already under pressure.
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