Anthony Albanese has wedded himself to a political strategy that is at risk of unravelling and leaving Labor stranded heading into the election next year.
In gaming parlance, he is betting against the house.
The first strategic mistake was to use the vaccine rollout as a proxy for the failure of the Morrison government.
This may have seemed like a good bet a month ago when the jab rates were at a level that meant that an 80 per cent coverage of the population probably wouldn’t have been achieved until March next year.
But since then the daily rate has tripled, with the end of lockdown horizon now appearing closer to November.
By Albanese’s own standard, the rollout has now become a proxy for the Morrison government’s success, with the likelihood that Australia will eventually overtake the US on vaccination rates.
The Labor leader bet on red and it has come up black.
A second strategic mistake is brewing with ambiguity clouding Labor’s support for the national plan to bringing an end to lockdowns.
Backing in the rights of the States to keep locking down its citizens beyond an 80 per cent vax rate may become an indefensible position.
Yet this is the message that some of his colleagues took out of caucus meeting yesterday.
Albanese is also reported to have lost his nerve during a debate on the Doherty Institute modelling and described the Morrison government’s handling of the vaccination rollout as a “clusterf..k”.
Three of Albanese’s colleagues, including frontbencher Mark Butler, have publicly backed the principle of ending lockdowns after the 80 per cent vaccination rate is reached. So far not Albanese.
The only assumption one can make is that Albanese’s position within the broader Labor movement is too weak to take on the Labor premiers, who have now become pin-up stars for lockdowns.
Morrison’s posture this week reflects a leader who clearly believes the momentum is with him. He has become the proprietor of responsible liberation. But he is also laying odds that his position will be a superior one that only becomes more entrenched as more people get vaccinated and demand their freedoms back.
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