Anthony Albanese has wagered his own standing on the perceived integrity of his besieged Finance Minister Katy Gallagher.
He has signalled defiantly that he intends to defend her to the end. While the senator for the ACT appears on face value to have misled the Senate, the Prime Minister will be of the belief that the prospect of the opposition claiming a political scalp over this is remote.
But if Gallagher keeps sticking to the line that there is “nothing to see here”, then at some point the cabinet minister risks becoming politically damaged.
Loyalties could then be tested.
For the opposition, this is a slow burn.
Labor’s strategy so far is uncomplicated: stonewall until the Coalition, or the media, runs out of steam and return fire with fire, as Albanese did in parliament on Tuesday when he attempted to drag Liberal leader Peter Dutton into the mire of who knew what and when ahead of the Brittany Higgins rape allegations first becoming public.
Part of Labor’s broader defence now is that the Coalition’s line of questioning is an attack on victims of alleged sexual assault. This a transparent attempt to deflect attention away from Gallagher, and others, by muddying the waters further.
There can be no winners from such a strategy. But now the opposition has started down this road, there is no turning back for either side. Albanese will believe the government can ride out a potential scandal on its own side until parliament rises in under a fortnight for the long winter recess. And the Prime Minister may well be right. But two weeks is a long time in politics. Anything could happen.
Albanese seeks to delegitimise the fundamental question about whether Gallagher misled the Senate by arguing that the attacks on the cabinet minister are “mind-boggling” and “bizarre”.
The confected outrage might appear to the ordinary person just as bizarre.
It’s worth recalling that Albanese as opposition leader asked 25 questions of Scott Morrison in parliament on who knew what and when between February 15 and May 25, 2021.
Gallagher has doubled down on her defence that she did not mislead. Morrison, on the other hand, has conceded that he might have, although he claims not intentionally, in previously claiming to have had a conversation with a staff member about the rape allegations, which it now appears he didn’t.
Gallagher also claims that she kept the information confidential as she was requested to do. This is the additional defence now being used to obstruct the opposition’s attempts to dig deeper into who might also have known and what, if anything, was done with that intelligence, in a political sense.
Gallagher was adamant in the Senate on Tuesday when she faced the expected barrage of questions that she did not tell the Prime Minister or any of her staff. Gallagher maintains she acted appropriately at all times.
But all the Coalition needs to do is create sufficient doubt in the public’s mind about whether Labor weaponised rape allegations to gain political advantage and have the government tied up in knots over it for as long as it can.
The opposition has little to lose in all of this. For Albanese the risk is that the average person watching on will see the political tussle as the government playing games at a time it should be focused on them.
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