Albanese gets the short end of stick from Bill

Those close to Anthony Albanese privately accuse Bill Shorten of deliberately playing the role of wrecker. But the Opposition Leader should thank him for the valuable service he performed this week.

Anthony Albanese has cleverly avoided Sydney since parliament rose for the winter recess, allowing him to campaign around much of the country.

This week, despite all the failures with the Covid-19 vaccine rollout and associated pandemic blunders, the opposition managed to make a meal of its own political and public policy strategy when attacking the Morrison government. Anthony Albanese was forced into a backdown. His attempt to divide and conquer was re-routed by a ghost of Labor leaders past.

The Opposition Leader had hoped to side with breakaway premiers by throwing mud at the Doherty Institute’s targets for lifting restrictions. He’d been working up to such a stance for weeks.

The intent wasn’t to undermine the reputation of the institute. Throwing doubt on the modelling – indeed, claiming that the advice from the institute was changing, with material implications for how and when we open up – was all about making political life that little bit harder for Scott Morrison, feeding into the problems the Prime Minister has had controlling the agenda recent­ly.

Then former Labor leader Bill Shorten entered the fray, siding with Morrison and the plan originally agreed to at national cabinet. The news landed with a thud on Wednesday, with those close to Albanese privately accusing Shorten of deliberately playing the role of wrecker. Shorten supporters weren’t going to let that criticism go unanswered, reminding anyone who would listen that Albanese wasn’t exactly Shorten’s most loyal lieutenant during the six years the latter led the party.

With some of the premiers having attempted to crab-walk away from national cabinet’s staged targets for opening back up – yes, Mark McGowan, we are looking at you – Albanese hoped to be the beneficiary of such parochialism by egging on the contrarianism. But once Shorten belled the cat, doing so would have divided the federal opposition more than it would the relationship between Morrison and the premiers.

Albanese was forced to retreat, all the while claiming he wasn’t retreating. Of course the federal opposition supports the reopening plan agreed to at national cabinet.

Albanese had hoped to be able to continue to box Morrison into a corner on what happens next in dealing with Covid, but instead he was outflanked. Yes by Morrison (armed with focus group research on community attitudes showing a shift is under way), but also by Shorten (who still has a leadership baton in his backpack, as Kevin Rudd used to say).

Those close to Albanese are privately accusing Shorten of deliberately playing the role of wrecker.

Make no mistake, Shorten is coming for Albanese. He may not be able to seize the leadership this side of the next election or after. But he is happy to use his authority as a former leader to stir trouble when he believes he’ll be on the right side of history eventually. This was one of those moments.

Either way, Shorten forced Albanese explicitly to back the national plan, and thus back the Prime Minister. Maybe we really are all in this together.

Shorten did so despite Albanese starting the parliamentary week casting doubt on the modelling and the consequences of opening up later this year.

A week is a long time in politics after all. Of course, there is a long way to go until election day, the timing of which is at the Prime Minister’s discretion. By the time election day does roll around, any Australian who wants to be vaccinated will be. Those who aren’t won’t be able to blame the government. There will have been ample vaccinations available for long enough, such that few can reasonably complain that opening the economy up isn’t fair.

That will be the climate in which the next election campaign will be fought. Because of the furore inside Labor this week, including the backdown by Albanese, Morrison will point out Albanese wanted to keep fully vaccinated Australians wrapped in cotton wool, long after the botched vaccination rollout had been fixed.

But that is a lesser of evils for Albanese compared with sticking to his guns arguing against opening things up, only to be left stranded when community sentiment shifts. Assuming that does happen – as both Morrison and Shorten are convinced it will – Albanese really should thank Shorten for the valuable service he performed this week. Messy, yes. Awkward, no doubt. Humiliating, maybe. But necessary to save Albanese from himself? Absolutely.

Most Australians do not live on taxpayer-funded salaries, guaranteed whether we are in lockdown or not, with a generous super scheme they know will get them by no matter what. They are nervous about their economic future, the mental health of their children; indeed, their own mental health. The health risks remain real but, once they are vaccinated, people aim to be hopeful. Hence Australians are rapidly shifting their thinking, wanting restrictions lifted so they can get on with their lives in a world of Covid.

Albanese has cleverly avoided Sydney since parliament rose for the winter recess, allowing him to campaign around much of the country. He therefore hasn’t experienced the Sydney lockdown. It has left a blind spot.

While people are angry and frustrated with the failures of a slow lockdown in Sydney and a botched vaccine rollout nationally, the only thing that would make these failures even worse would be if once fully vaccinated we still weren’t let out of our cages. That was Albanese’s emerging position before Shorten intervened.

On another topic, the debacle that has been our withdrawal from Afghanistan continues to worsen. We now know many of the locals who helped us while Australian troops were deployed will not secure asylum on our shores. Some will eke out an existence under Taliban rule, others will be killed.

Morrison likes to erode the uniqueness of the welcome to country for Indigenous Australians by including a thanks to those who have served in our armed forces. I could tolerate the departure from custom if such platitudes were supported by something substantial.

For a long time our military personnel had been warning the government it needed to act with haste to secure safe passage for Afghans who supported us. They were ignored. As Morrison has said, we knew that once US troops left, the Afghan army would capitulate to the Taliban soon enough. Why then were we too late? There are no excuses.

Whatever your view on the war in Afghanistan, the manner in which we have left has been handled badly.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.