Federal election 2022: Anthony Albanese’s plan shows arrogance and lack of professionalism

Illustration: Johannes Leak

Anthony Albanese’s announced plan for a two-person Albanese-Wong interim government is administratively untenable, politically flawed and unwise to be revealed pre-election.

The remark is an embarrassment. It suggests Albanese has failed to think through the transition to office of any Labor government. The ludicrous feature of the Albanese plan is that only two ministers would be sworn in and both would then immediately leave the country for the Quad meeting in Japan.

Albanese cannot be serious. This is absurd. The question immediately being raised is: where is the third man? Who runs the new government if the only two commissioned ministers are overseas?

Penny Wong will travel to Japan next week if Labor wins the election. Picture David Clark

The answer is Albanese must modify his plan, the obvious change being to also swear in Labor deputy Richard Marles who could serve as acting PM while Albanese and Penny Wong are in Japan. Albanese was involved in talks on Wednesday to sort out the mess. Indeed, it seems his declared position will be amended and fixed, with Marles being included. The duumvirate becomes a triumvirate. What next, can we ask?

How crazy to raise parallels with the Whitlam government ascent three days before the election. What was Albanese thinking? The last thing he needs is an invitation to compare his situation with that of Whitlam. Yet his remarks were presumptuous about the election result and highly arrogant.

This follows an exclusive interview in The Australian on Wednesday when he said he wanted only himself and Wong sworn in as prime minister and foreign minister immediately so they could leave the country and attend the meeting with leaders of the US, Japan and India next week.

The report said the intention was that Marles would not be sworn in immediately but await the full commissioning of the ministry. The only conclusion was the alarming lack of professionalism about the transition to power. How seriously has Albanese thought about governing?

It is essential, of course, that Albanese attend the Quad meeting if he wins. Nobody doubts that. The Whitlam experience with the duumvirate in December 1972 when Whitlam and Lance Barnard were sworn in with Whitlam taking 13 portfolios and Barnard 14 portfolios shows that an interim government is perfectly feasible.

This is providing the election result is clear, the outgoing PM has conceded, the incoming PM advises the Governor-General, the Governor-General presumably gets legal advice from the head of the Attorney-General’s Department and the Governor-General is satisfied the interim government arrangement makes sense. The constitutional novelty sounds neat. Whitlam felt the same way. Any interim government runs only as long as it takes the full ministry to be sworn in. But the optics are powerful – if Albanese wins, these will be the first images of his government. It will be a moment in time. He needs to get this right.