Albanese team looks all at sea across a broad front

The Albanese government is fast approaching an extended pre-budget parliamentary break with a range of big issues unresolved and an electorate that is running out of patience. Immigration, energy prices, fuel regulations and car prices, protections for religious schools and runaway spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme are all issues on which the federal government lacks a clear pathway and coherent message.

This provides an opportunity for Peter Dutton on which he must work to capitalise. There are growing complaints that Labor has failed to deliver on its promise of better consultation and renewed respect for the parliamentary process. For industry, religious schools and others the reality is one of a government that makes stakeholders sign non-disclosure agreements and agree not to speak out in public if they want to know what is going on. Premiers also are feeling left out in the cold, criticising the federal government for its proposed changes to the NDIS without providing a clear outline of how much it is likely to cost. In this instance, it is the politics and not the policy that is the problem. States have been guilty of cost-shifting areas that are rightly their responsibility on the NDIS budget.

Religious schools, however, have every right to feel they have been abandoned by a government that said it would not proceed with changes to religious freedoms without bipartisan support from the Coalition one minute, and that it was prepared to do a deal with the Greens the next. The danger in accepting the recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission to remove limited exemptions to anti-discrimination laws that are currently available to religious schools is that identity politics will make it impossible to arrive at a workable replacement.

In a cost-of-living crisis, two of the issues that play most heavily in Middle Australia are energy prices and immigration. On both fronts the Albanese team is facing heavy weather. On energy, the opposition is using question time to hammer the government over what it says is a broken promise to cut electricity prices by $275 a year. Industry is now openly questioning the government’s ability to meet its legislated 2030 emissions targets. Regulators are warning there will be a shortage of gas within two years and the electricity grid will have to resort to burning diesel fuel. Anthony Albanese has had to step in to rewrite vehicle emissions standards that favour electric vehicles after an industry and potential consumer revolt.

Having been caught flat-footed by the High Court on the unlawful detention of violent criminals, the government on Tuesday sought to ram through a response that included minimum mandatory 12-month sentences for people refusing a new direction to return to their home country – even if afraid of persecution. The new proactive approach is welcome but the rushed nature of it increases the sense of desperation and adds to the perception of a government out of control on an issue that is an accepted strong suit for the Opposition Leader. The federal government no doubt will be looking to the budget to act as a circuit-breaker to steady the ship, but the economic news remains mixed. The Prime Minister was able to change the atmospherics following the failure of the voice to parliament referendum by modifying the stage three tax cuts. But a series of by-elections and opinion polling since then have shown the sugar hit was short-lived. The political cost of breaking a clear election promise will be longer-lived.

For an enduring turnaround in fortunes the Albanese team must demonstrate it is up to the task of government. That includes an economic agenda that prioritises building productivity to help the Reserve Bank tame inflation. It must stop making things worse in the energy space and show that when things do go wrong in areas such as immigration it has the wisdom and fortitude to set them right.