As Labor attempts to end the chaos in Canberra … it just gets worse

Andrew Giles, Anthony Albanese, Chris Bowen and Bill Shorten. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Albanese government is paradoxically descending into a dangerous zone of chaos and loss of direction on key political and policy issues just as it tries to end disorder and find a new path forward.

Within the space of a few chaotic hours in parliament, Chris Bowen has sought to appease car owners and manufacturers by watering down fuel efficiency standards, Andrew Giles has moved extraordinary legislation to impose mandatory 12-month jail sentences for newly-created immigration offences and Anthony Albanese has opened a new front on religious freedom reforms declaring he’s prepared to work with the Greens if he fails to get Coalition support.

There was also concern within the Labor backbench that Bill Shorten’s “push back” against the states and territories over cost-sharing of the mammoth NDIS program was a sign there was not a full agreement on the biggest cost-cutting item in the budget.

All four issues are white-hot political problems for the Prime Minister and at first flush the attempts to defuse the problems have created a new sense of crisis, chaos, ministerial failure and ineptitude.

Albanese’s direct intervention is also a sign that he has finally recognised the discontent and growing anger among Labor MPs with the Climate Change and Energy Minister’s rigid pursuit of overly-ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets which have fuelled voter backlash over renewable energy costs and job losses, lack of consultation in regional areas and threats to the price and choice of utes and larger family cars.

For almost two years Bowen has been an untethered hot-air balloon careening across the countryside, upsetting regional voters with a lack of consultation over renewable energy schemes, expanded transmission lines and fuel-efficiency standards so high they threatened to push up car prices and reduce the range of models for sale in Australia.

Labor electorates on the north and central coast of NSW have virtually been turned into marginal seats after local opposition to offshore wind turbines and transmission line plans. Even his cabinet colleague Catherine King complained about a lack of consultation in her electorate.

Senior Labor ministers believe the Dunkley by-election would have been lost because of a backlash against the ‘ute tax’ without the promise of tax cuts on July 1.

Even Bowen’s backdown on fuel efficiency, on the back of US President Joe Biden’s walking away from America’s targets in the face of electoral backlash, is not great and has a future hike built in which will not reassure car buyers.

The Immigration Minister’s rushed, extraordinary and wide-ranging legislative changes, including a minimum mandatory 12-month sentence for people refusing the new direction to return to their home country – even if afraid of persecution – is a radical remedy for a failing in preparation six months ago.

Once again, Albanese has handed the initiative to Peter Dutton on immigration and border security because his own ministers have failed to take such steps before the High Court’s telegraphed decision overturning immigration detention.

Albanese’s handling of his election promise of providing religious reforms has added to the sense of a government now knowing what it is doing, springing surprises on voters, breaking promises and putting politics ahead of negotiations in good faith.

It is almost as if Albanese has planned the religious freedom reforms to fail by putting conditions on the passage of the laws which he knows the Coalition will not accept and then shifting seeking “bipartisanship” with the Greens and including conditions they cannot accept.

Albanese is trying to get all of these problems and issues off the agenda before the May budget and in a curtailed sitting week by ramming laws through the parliament, which only adds to a sense of chaos and crisis.