Albanese must steer clear of la-la landers

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

The Cronulla Sharks won last weekend, Australia retained the Ashes, debate was dominated all week by Scott Morrison’s favourite subject — boats rather than the economy, which only just flopped over the line into positive territory — when it wasn’t focusing on corruption in NSW Labor, and his preferred candidate won a coveted Senate spot.

On top of that Labor’s national president, Wayne Swan, who must have watched the election from planet la-la land, was urging Anthony Albanese to stick with the tax-and-spend policies of his predecessor (dumb), claiming that was not why they had lost the election (dumber).

No wonder little more than three months into his leadership Albanese looked spooked.

It was hard to see how it could get any better for the Prime Minister, who has been running political masterclasses, reigning supreme as the Mr Politics of parliament. He is very good at it, but he doesn’t always get it right. Early in the week it had his colleagues recalling that their best leaders, their longest serving, such as Robert Menzies and John Howard, had taken charge when their parties were in smoking ruins. They were not ready yet to quote what Mark Twain reputedly said, that while history doesn’t repeat, it does rhyme, but they were daring to think it, despite knowing it is too soon, that there are still too many unknowns about their leader and so many things that can go awry.

And actions by two very different women soon justified those twinges.

The day before parliament resumed, hours before Newspoll showed a big dip in his personal ratings, when he was responding to Morrison’s braggadocio, the Opposition Leader sounded off his game. He batted back questions from the media on all the tests Morrison had boasted he would be setting for Labor, which turned out to be warmed-up leftovers from previous regimes including drug testing and cashless debit cards for certain welfare recipients rebranded as compassionate conservatism (a label first adopted by George W. Bush as Texas governor). Albanese accused the government of having no agenda and searching for distractions, which was fair enough but it wasn’t said with confidence.

Liberals who have been through what Albanese is now experiencing, old enough to remember the 1993 election when they were supposed to thrash Paul Keating, predict it will get worse for the opposition before it gets better, that the middle year is even more difficult than the first year after such a defeat. The magnitude of the task deepens despair and widens divisions.

An honest appraisal of where they went wrong will help. Defeat under the circumstances Labor faced — a dysfunctional government producing three prime ministers in three years — did not come easily, nor was it the creation of only one person. The review being conducted by Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill can catalogue the mistakes (spoiler alert: everyone was culpable) and some of what they have to do to fix them, but it won’t happen if the la-la landers seize control of the agenda and the leadership stumbles.

Albanese has promised a series of headland speeches (which Howard used so successfully) to outline his agenda. Nobody really expects him to reveal policies, that would be madness, but he does need to outline his priorities and his values. He is an unknown quantity for many Australians — curious given his time in parliament. Then again, who knew Morrison before he became Prime Minister?

A back-to-basics approach for Albanese couldn’t hurt. Labor was always supposed to be about more jobs and better-paid jobs. If he made that a key objective then constructed policies around it — from climate change to infrastructure to tax — the workers might begin to rally around again. At Bob Hawke’s economic summit after his 1983 victory, it was Neville Wran who famously said Labor was all about jobs, jobs, jobs. He was right, but Labor — and the ACTU — has ceded that territory during the past few years in favour of catchcries and slogans about fairness and inequality that led to raids on retirees’ savings.

Morrison was in danger of looking a little too pleased with himself, like a cat playing with a mouse, then along came Jacqui Lambie and “How good is Gladys” — to quote Morrison — Liu.

Jacqui 2.0, as she has rebranded herself, is a slightly different character from the original. Still earthy, still unpredictable, Lambie has the potential to play Morrison and the government just like Morrison has enjoyed playing Albanese and others before him, including on his own side, first by appearing to back him on drug testing, then by making additional demands. Her hesitation gave Morrison another opportunity to turn the screws on Labor, making it look like a win-win for him on what is a peripheral issue. Except it was a reminder not to assume anything in politics, which Morrison knows all too well, and if it becomes a pattern of behaviour, it will make governing that much harder at a time it will matter more.

Lambie’s invitation to John Setka to come for a roast — literally and figuratively — where she urged him to stand down for the good of the union movement, or she would vote for the government’s legislation to make it easier to deregister unions, showed she used her time out to smarten up.

In the one interview, Liu claimed not to remember if she had been a member of Chinese propaganda units, then that she had “never” been a member, then that her name must have been used without her knowledge, then that she did not even know of their existence.

Miraculously her memory recovered, she admitted she had been “associated” with the groups, but was now no longer.

Liu was destined to become the centre of controversy. Almost every Liberal knew it before, during and after the election. Morrison should have known it too and been less effusive in her company.