Anthony Albanese has regained some parliamentary equilibrium after losing balance over the crushing defeat of the voice to parliament referendum but he still can’t answer the most important questions about what Labor is going to do now.
The Prime Minister is caught in a bind of his making over the future of Indigenous treaty and the proposed $26m Makarrata commission for truth-telling.
After Tuesday’s parliamentary question time confusion over post-voice referendum politics and policies, Albanese was clear and succinct about Labor’s reaction to the 60 per cent No vote on the referendum, saying: “We said we would do it, we did it, the people have spoken and we accept that result.”
He avoided the overly pious claims of being a conviction politician who lived up to his commitments and more calmly sought to fend off Coalition attacks designed to niggle him into error and prolong debate over the voice to parliament.
It is not in the government’s interests to stretch out the remains of the voice to parliament after such an emphatic defeat and much more in its interests to concentrate on economic management and the cost-of-living pressures on households.
Yet there is an intrinsic difficulty in Albanese trying to move on – even allowing for his own disappointment – and that is the Labor claim that it was only doing what it was asked by the Indigenous leadership and now must wait to be given a direction on where to go with the Makarrata commission, which has had $1m spent on it but doesn’t exist.
Albanese’s cover has been that it was just responding to a generous offer in proposing the voice and promising to implement the Uluru statement – which includes treaty and truth-telling – in full.
Peter Dutton is holding Albanese to his self-declared convictions and commitments and at the same time demanding answers as to the fate of the Makarrata commission after a repudiation of the Indigenous voice to parliament.
Albanese abandoned true leadership early on when he allowed Indigenous leaders to control the model of the voice to parliament – a model that was utterly rejected.
Now the consequences render Labor and the Prime Minister captive to Indigenous leaders and powerless to make a decision that would further offend or disappoint the failed Yes campaigners.
But the political exigencies demand a quick exit from the referendum campaign and a switch to economic management.
Albanese is stuck between competing demands for action and conflicted politically by his convictions.
The longer he is stuck in the middle, the more trouble he will be in.
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