History shows Anthony Albanese selective on keeping promises

Anthony Albanese went ahead with the voice referendum despite the polls because he wanted to ‘restore faith in politics’, in a vastly inconsistent approach to tax cuts.

Anthony Albanese is using changed circumstances as cover for breaking his election commitment to deliver stage three tax cuts in full. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese proceeded with the doomed voice referendum because he wanted to “restore faith in politics” by sticking with an election commitment, in a vastly inconsistent approach to his brazen broken promise on stage three tax cuts.

Days after the voice referendum failure which left his Indigenous policy in tatters, the Prime Minister conceded the polling in the months leading up to the vote showed it was on track to fail.

But he said he went ahead with the damaging vote anyway because “I’m a Prime Minister who will promise to do things and then go and do them”.

“I think that’s how you restore faith in politics. That is something that we need to do,” Mr Albanese said last year.

Health Minister and Left faction heavyweight Mark Butler, a key internal backer of Mr Albanese, said the day after the voice result that it became “very difficult” to win the referendum when it became clear Peter Dutton would oppose it.

But despite this, Mr Butler and other senior ministers said Mr Albanese needed to go through with the vote because he was a conviction politician who made an election promise.

“We’re not entirely shocked by (the defeat). Obviously the polling had been demonstrating the scale of the challenge in winning this referendum campaign and history tells us how hard referendum campaigns are to win if you don’t have bipartisan support,” Mr Butler told Sky News.

When asked why the government didn’t shelve the voice vote when it lost bipartisan support, Mr Butler said: “I think what we know about our Prime Minister is that he is a man of his word”.

Mr Albanese during the election campaign said it was his “intention” to hold a first-term referendum on the voice, while his commitment to delivering stage three in full was made without any caveats or equivocation.

He said in July 2022 he would deliver the tax cuts in full because “my word is my bond”.

While he would not let changed circumstances delay a voice referendum, Mr Albanese on Wednesday said he needed to rejig stage three because the economic outlook had changed since the package was legislated by Scott Morrison in 2019.

Mr Albanese adopted stage three tax cuts as Labor policy in 2021 and retained them in the 2022 election when inflation was surging and the war in Ukraine was three months old.

“Since 2019, there has been a pandemic, there has been a recession, there has been global inflation, there has been not one war, but two wars that have had an impact. So, there has been considerable events,” Mr Albanese said.

Mr Albanese said advice from Treasury showed the people doing toughest in the cost-of-living crisis were low and middle income earners.

“My job is to do the right thing for the right reasons. That’s what I will do,” Mr Albanese said.

A day before the 2022 election, Mr Albanese — who said during the campaign he wanted to bring honesty back into politics as the nation’s leader — was asked the difference between himself and Mr Morrison.

The Labor leader said: “I have integrity, and the capacity to take responsibility”.

When Labor first floated the idea of amending stage three ahead of Jim Chalmers’ first budget, Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh said doing so would erode the trust the public had in politicians.

He said it was “dangerous” for governments to pick and choose what election promises they keep.

“I think it gets dangerous if you decide to pick and choose on policies, if you say, ‘well, parties should break promises I don’t like, but they should keep promises I do like’,” Mr Leigh said in September 2022.

“Fundamentally, we’ve got to restore a sense of faith and trust in democracy and that’s important for all political parties, but it’s particularly important for the party of government of the centre left, which I’m proud to represent.

“Our party really needs trust in government to work, and for that we need to keep our promises. That’s fundamental.”