Contest between sincerity and history

The battle for the real Anthony Albanese has begun. It is a contest between sincerity and historical record.

The battle for the real Anthony Albanese has begun. It is a contest between sincerity and historical record.

The Coalition’s claim is the Labor leader is a creature of the Left, a high-taxing social radical with a soft underbelly for national security, a leader who has more in common with UK Labor’s dismembered former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Albanese insists he is a reformed socialist, a pro-growth leader historically aligned with Bob Hawke and Paul Keating on economics and the more conservative world-view that has the US-Australia alliance as paramount to Australia’s foreign ­policy.

Many will find Albanese’s latest attempt to find economic equivalence with John Howard in a pre-positioning speech to counter conservative attacks on his factional pedigree as brazen as it is ridiculous.

Not because he may not be sincere in his vision for a consensus-built economic model and a pro-business Howard growth formula, but for the mere fact he may be desolate within his party in believing such a philosophy is possible under the current structural arrangement and factional atrophy of the party.

Labor doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to leaders promising in opposition and delivering in government.

It is also politically convenient. If only because the alternative didn’t work last time.

This is Albanese’s challenge.

While he has succeeded in steering the party back from its suicidal mission of 2019, his pre-election speech on Labor’s economic plan has all the hallmarks of Kevin Rudd’s promise of economic conservatism, a pledge undermined by his government’s actions in power.

It is heavy on rhetoric but bereft of detail – in line with his small target strategy of winning by default. It would be wrong to suggest that this is a Road to Damascus moment for Albanese.

He began to rail against the class-war rhetoric before he became leader.

This has been a consistent position he has held for some time, irrespective of whether its convincing.

In that sense, his speech suggesting a new era of Labor fiscal conservatism is nothing new. The question is whether it is believable and, more importantly, whether it is deliverable.