Anthony Albanese hits back, accusing Labor veterans of ‘romanticising the past’

Anthony Albanese has lashed his critics after another senior figure from the Hawke-Keating era criticised Labor’s ‘cautious’ policymaking.

Anthony Albanese in Cairns. Picture: Brendan Radke

Anthony Albanese has defended his government’s record of making “tough” decisions while hitting out at those who “romanticise the past”, after another senior figure from the Hawke-Keating era ­criticised Labor’s “cautious” policymaking.

ALP veteran Gareth Evans warned a growing number of voters were questioning what the government stood for, in a critique that followed former union leader Bill Kelty’s declaration Labor was “mired in mediocrity” and needed to confront “the big issues”.

Mr Evans, one of Australia’s longest-serving foreign ministers, said it was time for the party leadership to “recover its mojo” and tell voters they wanted a “prosperous, secure and above all more decent society, of the kind that only a Labor government can deliver”.

ALP veteran Gareth Evans warns a growing number of voters were questioning what the government stood for. Picture: AAP

“The Albanese Labor government has enough obviously first-rate talent in its ministerial ranks to be a great reforming government in the Hawke-Keating tradition, one that sees political capital as something to be spent in office, not hoarded indefinitely while its value gradually erodes,” Mr Evans said in the Wyndham City Barry Jones Oration delivered on Wednesday.

“But its instinct, on an increasing number of issues, has been to move into cautious, defensive, wedge-avoiding mode on gambling advertising, on electoral funding, on census questions, on the Makarrata, on any further commitment to constitutional reform of any kind, including the republic, and – perhaps most disconcertingly of all, given the security and sovereignty stakes involved – AUKUS. The government’s reward for all this has not been an increase but a decline in its popularity. Other factors have of course contributed – not least cost-of-living and housing availability concerns, difficult now for even the most competent government to address – but one can’t avoid the impression more and more people are asking what exactly this Labor government is for.”

The Prime Minister said Mr Kelty had been a great secretary of the ACTU but he was governing in 2024 and rejected the suggestion his government was being timid.

Mr Albanese cited his government’s overhaul of the Coalition’s stage three tax cuts, including lowering the 19 per cent marginal tax rate to 16 per cent, as a “very good decision”.

“If you go back and look at the first 48 hours after that decision, every front page of the paper was not exactly lauding us and saying we were a mild government,” Mr Albanese told ABC radio. “It was the right decision made for the right reasons, but it was a tough decision … and it was one that was not the politically safe decision to make. There was nothing timid about it. Many people will look back at the past and romanticise the past. What my government has done is dealt with the present and set us up for the future.”

Mr Albanese also referenced reforming the NDIS, avoiding a recession, delivering up to one million new jobs, increasing wages, delivering for the care sector, fee-free TAFE, a $32bn housing plan, intervening in the gas and coal markets and transitioning the economy to net zero as delivering for Australians.

“There’s nothing timid about reforming the NDIS so it’s sustainable. There’s nothing timid about the largest reform to aged care in 30 years,” he said.

It comes as the latest Newspoll showing the major parties are locked in a dead-heat battle.