Inept Andrew Giles shows Anthony Albanese is the true weak link

Andrew Giles, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

It has been obvious for some time now that this is the most left-wing government we’ve ever had, certainly the most left wing since Gough Whitlam. But it’s starting to look like it might also be the most incompetent ever.

Let’s put aside all its incorrigibly politically correct ideological measures, from the separatist voice and the undermining of Australia Day to the “back to the 70s” pro-union workplace changes, and instead consider only its capability to actually get things done.

It is a government that can spend money, pass laws and make statements but as for making anything worthwhile happen, such as keeping criminals off our streets, giving the armed forces new equipment or keeping the lights on, it’s almost completely useless. It’s a performative government rather than one that actually performs.

Everywhere, things seem to be drifting: whether it’s record-high immigration that successive governments have used to pump prime the budget but instead has put us into a per-capita recession because those of us already living here are struggling to afford the basics like housing, power and food. Or it’s Anthony Albanese’s continued determination, as revealed this week, to push on with treaties between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, despite the clear rejection of this division by voters.

It’s not just that our country seems to be drifting backwards but that the national government appears incapable of leadership, either because it thinks it’s someone else’s job or because it’s all too hard.

Take last year’s release into the community of 149 foreign criminals after the High Court ruled that just one, a child rapist, was being held illegally. Clearly the minister panicked, but by putting seven murderers, 37 sex offenders, 72 violent criminals, 13 drug traffickers and five people smugglers onto the streets, he put every Australian at risk.

Indeed, we know of their crimes only because he was forced in Senate estimates to reveal the details and, what’s worse, we’ve also learned that he was warned last year this might happen, or at least his office was.

On August 8, September 14 and October 12, advisers in Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’s office were warned about the looming High Court case. And yet despite being the one man who could have averted this crisis, Giles never attended any of these critical meetings. Instead he was off spruiking the voice (September 14 in Canberra and October 12 in London respectively), and despite being in Canberra on August 8 (as Hansard records), for whatever reason he didn’t front up.

So leaving aside the fact the government was clearly on notice that it was going to face a problem in the High Court, why – when it inevitably blew up – was Giles so slow and seemingly incapable of fixing it? After all, he and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said in the parliament they would leave no stone unturned to protect the community.

Andrew Giles and Anthony Albanese

It now turns out the legislation that the government belatedly put in place (only after opposition pressure) to allow the worst offenders to be locked up and the rest carefully monitored is not working. Twenty-four of those freed by Giles have reoffended but the minister can’t (or won’t) say what has happened to them.

The government has revealed, though, that 36 of the 149 have been exempted from wearing ankle bracelets. Why? And despite a large official task-force working on their cases, we also find out that no applications have even been made to have these foreign criminals re-detained because, the Prime Minister lamented this week, the legislation “sets a high bar”. But if that’s the case, why did his government proceed with an inadequate bill and why didn’t it amend the new law once these deficiencies became known?

Giles has insisted none of this is his fault because the decision-making on who needs to wear ankle bracelets has been outsourced to a board of bureaucrats, although the legislation actually states that the final say rests with the minister. Worse still, a minister whose bumbling and ignorant performance last year deeply embarrassed the government then has obviously not spent the summer swotting up on his portfolio.

Could it be that his time working as a lawyer acting for boatpeople on the notorious Tampa means his sympathies lie with these foreign criminals and not the community? I hope I am wrong.

Then there’s the shambolic state of the defence bureaucracy. To be fair, this is not entirely the current government’s fault. Defence officialdom has long raised analysis paralysis and strategic procrastination to an art form. But it’s almost criminally negligent to have allowed this to persist at a time when the world is closer to major conflict than in decades.

Andrew Giles

And Defence Minister Richard Marles did promise to be a fresh start. He commissioned what he said would be a swift Defence Strategic Review to get cracking on giving our military what they need to keep the peace, given the government’s view that there might no longer be a 10-year window before a major war.

This review duly reported in April last year, only for the minister to commission a further review into the navy that reported in September last year but whose report still hasn’t been released. With its term more than half over, all the government has managed to do is take weaponry out of service and come up with crazy schemes like training eagles to take out energy drones (I kid you not).

Finally, there’s the energy policy trainwreck.Thanks to the government’s emissions obsession, and legislated target for 82 per cent renewable energy within just seven years, all of the coal-fired power stations that currently supply more than 60 per cent of our electricity are likely to be gone within a decade.

Climate fanatic Energy Minister Chris Bowen has admitted that this will take the installation of 22,000 new solar panels every single day and the erection of 40 large wind turbines every single month for seven years – plus the addition of at least 10,000km of new transmission lines – which already is years behind schedule as experts declare his green dream is fanciful.

Clare O’Neil holds press conference with Chris Bowen

Meanwhile, the east coast power grid is only ever one awkwardly timed unplanned outage away from massive price hikes, electricity rationing and blackouts – as graphically illustrated in Victoria this week.

But should we even be surprised? After all, Bowen’s the bloke who, as immigration minister in the Gillard era, presided over the largest number of illegal boat arrivals in Australia’s history and then later as opposition Treasury spokesman lost Bill Shorten the unlosable election with his attacks on negative gearing and superannuation. And now our whole energy security is in his hands. God help us all.

At one level, it’s individual portfolio ministers who are to blame for this gross ineptitude, but it’s really the Prime Minister who’s at fault. A PM’s main job is to manage his ministers and to replace them if they’re not up to it. The fact Albanese has not reshuffled any of these poor performers out of harm’s way means he owns their outcomes, or lack of them.