Albanese attacks Scott Morrison for being “addicted to marketing spin”, but does anyone actually buy Bill Shorten introducing his longtime leadership rival as the “next prime minister of Australia”.
The virtual “ALP Special Platform Conference” has been carefully managed, from amendments to speakers, to deliver an uncontroversial policy blueprint.
The outcome will be a small-target platform compared with the visionary agendas of Labor leaders such as Gough Whitlam and Ben Chifley.
Albanese is keeping his powder dry ahead of the next election, purposefully dodging vexed issues such as specified emissions targets and big spending social policies. Cheap hits on Morrison and the “tired” Coalition government are expected. Making Labor a small target after successive election defeats and a one-in-100 year pandemic is politically astute.
At some point, differentiation will be required. The use of Jeremy Corbyn’s “On Your Side” slogan is typically vague — Australians would hope a political party was on their side after slogging through the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession.
Without the coronavirus outbreak in Queensland, Albanese would have been accused of gagging heated debates, which often spill on to the floor of ALP national conferences. Albanese’s Left faction has engineered these fights at previous ALP conferences, trying to undermine Shorten and test the Right faction’s numbers on the floor.
The Opposition Leader views himself in the same mould as British prime minister Clement Attlee, the Labor hero who beat Winston Churchill and led his nation’s post-war recovery. He wants to be Australia’s reconstruction tsar, leading the nation out of the pandemic haze.
“In Australia’s moment of greatest crisis, at the height of World War II, John Curtin led the nation out of military danger. Then Ben Chifley led it into reconstruction,” Albanese told Labor’s faithful on Tuesday. “Their motto: Victory in war, victory in peace. Remember it. Victory in war, victory in peace. After triumph, something better.”
Labor has to stop living in the past. As leader, Shorten invoked Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Whitlam. They avoid mention of the Rudd-Gillard governments, where most of shadow cabinet cut their teeth as ministers.
In his opening ALP conference address, Albanese listed Labor’s priorities, many shared by the Coalition. Fixing the aged-care crisis, protecting and creating jobs, listening to women, providing a voice for Indigenous Australians, making things in Australia and climate change.
Labor’s recent improvement in the polls, off the back of the government’s handling of rolling sexual harassment and workplace culture scandals, has overshadowed Albanese’s inability to cut through with voters. A large rump of Australians remain undecided on the career Labor politician, who was a central figure in the Rudd-Gillard governments.
With pandemic incumbency on his side, at this stage the election is Morrison’s to lose.
Punters ultimately want a government that delivers on its promises, doesn’t take money from their pockets, keeps them safe, protects their lifestyles and governs for all.
Labor hoping to retain WA seats
Labor is increasingly confident it can hold on to most, if not all, of its gains in the key state of Western Australia as it invokes the voice of Mark McGowan in its push to hurt Peter Dutton.
Coalition costings: Is this a joke? Am I being pranked?
If the Coalition is claiming to be the superior budget manager, these figures are a poor start. In fact, they underline an unwillingness to confront the real fiscal challenges ahead of us; the fact is we are spending far too much.
Anthony Albanese’s sanitised national conference, engineered to censor debate under the cover of COVID-19, is a political management exercise manufactured to neutralise controversy and division inside Labor.