Anthony Albanese wasn’t the only Hawke-era economic policy adviser

Anthony Albanese served as a research officer to the late Labor politician Tom Uren during the era of the Hawke government. Picture: Supplied

Like Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, I too was an economic policy adviser during the era of the Hawke Government, although I was in the private sector. It was my first full-time job and a daunting one. But like Albo, I showed a remarkable prescience for one so young in analysing market forces and applying this knowledge to the work environment.

My time in this role was short, but my advice and expertise were much sought after during the 12 months I was there. And I do not wish to appear immodest, but it is undeniable my former employer has since become one of the biggest and most successful companies in Australia.

Admittedly, I was not formally known as an economic policy adviser at the time, although every facet of my work involved that discipline. In hindsight, that was an injustice. I intend writing to Woolworths to demand my employment record be amended to reflect a job title more befitting, or at the very least acknowledging I was a checkout operator par excellence.

For obvious reasons, I empathise with Albanese. Last week, attempting to convince voters he has the know-how to manage the economy, he claimed he was “an economic policy adviser to the Hawke Government”. As this masthead observed, that claim was a tad tenuous and that Albanese served only as a research officer to the late Labor politician Tom Uren, who was in the outer ministry during the Hawke era.

An uneasy Albanese later denied suggestions he was being disingenuous given Uren’s opposition to the market reforms of the mid-1980s. “If you actually go and have a look at the relationship with [Treasurer] Paul Keating and Tom Uren, I assure you they had seats next to each other – they had a fantastic relationship,” he said.

They might have sat next to each other but the two could not have been further apart. Keating was the leader of Labor’s Right faction and an economic rationalist. Uren was a Marxist, as he explained in 1989, “but not a theoretical Marxist”. The best that can be said of this distinction is it was meant to reassure.

Fortunately, Uren’s influence on economic policy was not so much negligible as non-existent. He later complained he “had never felt part of” the Hawke ministry. As the Sydney Morning Herald noted in 1986, his ministerial colleagues had “little respect” for him. Suffice to say the cabinet deliberations concerning Keating’s great reforms did not end with prime minister Bob Hawke asking: “Paul, have you run these submissions past Tom’s 22-year-old research officer?”

Albanese is now 59, has been an MP for over a quarter of a century and the Opposition Leader for three years. Being a party elder and stalwart, he would no doubt readily acknowledge that even great leaders learn something new every day, as was apparent on the first day of the campaign when it was revealed he was unacquainted with the official cash and unemployment rates.

He is also still to grasp the concept of cost-analysis. Announcing last week Labor’s $135 million plan to trial 50 GP clinics and community health centres, he himself looked in dire need of medical assistance when challenged as to whether these figures had been properly verified. “This policy has been costed, like all of our policies … this has been fully costed by the Parliamentary Business – ah – Parliamentary Budget Office,” he insisted.

Unfortunately for him, the figures were not obtained from the Parliamentary Budget Office, but instead pulled out of the budgetary orifice, so to speak. It was left to shadow finance minister Katy Gallagher to clarify Albanese’s remarks. “The costing of Labor’s Urgent Care Centre policy is based on work done by the PBO, but for the avoidance of any confusion, has not been formally costed by the PBO,” she tweeted.

The costing of Labor’s Urgent Care Centre policy is based on work done by the PBO, but for the avoidance of any confusion, has not been formally costed by the PBO.

All of Labor’s policies and costings will be released before the election.

— Katy Gallagher (@SenKatyG) April 14, 2022

Like me, you too probably wondered who taught Gallagher basic sentence structure and grammar. Labor did not have the PBO formally cost this grand policy as the party did not want to confuse people? Okay, I’m confused.

Thankfully, Albanese, being a lightweight on economic policy, can take comfort in Gallagher’s excellent credentials. Before entering the Senate, she was treasurer in the ACT Government, and if not for her governance and Canberra being home to around 55,000 federal public servants, the city would have gone under a decade ago. “As Treasurer I helped steer the ACT through the global financial crisis,” she once noted on her resume.

Complementing Gallagher is shadow treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers. He is a protégé of former treasurer Wayne Swan, author of ‘The Guide to Giving Taxpayer Money to Dead People’ as well as ‘Four Consecutive Surpluses & Other Fairy Stories’. Impressively, Chalmers has a PhD in political science. His decision to use a formal title outside academia is a sound one, notwithstanding accusations of pretentiousness. He is, in effect, showing he has the gravitas, judgment and fiscal wizardry of those before him who did the same. Think former Whitlam Government treasurer Dr Jim Cairns and former Liberal leader Dr John Hewson.

And thankfully Albanese is opposed to wasteful government spending. At least that is what he said during the leaders’ debate last night. This is the same bloke who last August demanded the government give every Australian $300 to be vaccinated, a policy that would have cost taxpayers $6 billion.

But in fairness to him, he is in one sense financially astute. When he is not fighting Tories, Albanese oversees a very healthy $5 million property portfolio. That is the beauty of being at the vanguard of class warfare, you see. You don’t have to adhere to the same standards you demand of those dastardly free marketers. By drawing on your generous taxpayer-funded wage you can make some lucrative investments. All that is required of you is to foment hatred and resentment against those in the corporate sector.

And regardless of Albanese’s economic policy illiteracy, some elements of the media will play it down. People like ABC presenter Richard Aedy, who last week declared he no longer wanted to hear about Albanese’s “gaffe”. According to him, “most people (do) not think it was important”. How he arrived at this conclusion he did not say.

I want to stop hearing about 'the gaffe'. Not only do most people not think it was important, most people are still not paying attention to the election. But almost a week later, here we are. A thread. 1/12

— Richard Aedy (@richardaedy) April 17, 2022

In one sense I agree with Aedy. For the alternative prime minister to be ignorant about the official cash and the unemployment rates is not a “gaffe”. It is a monumental stuff-up, and that is putting it politely. As for Albanese and that ‘b’ word he has trouble pronouncing regarding his economic policies … Let’s just say it is a derivative of, but not to be confused with, “bovine”.