Joe Hildebrand: Why all anybody can talk about today is THAT kiss

Who didn’t kiss whom? It’s difficult to determine, but regardless of the truth, for Anthony Albanese it would have felt like a betrayal, writes Joe Hildebrand.

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was betrayed with a kiss from Judas Iscariot. And now the Labor Party’s Lord and Saviour Anthony Albanese has been betrayed by a non-kiss from Tanya Plibersek.

Yes, despite Labor and the Coalition dropping a cool $10 billion each yesterday — which is substantially more than 30 pieces of silver — all anybody can talk about today is THAT kiss. Which is to say that kiss that wasn’t a kiss.

And it is here that things get a little bit tricky. Who didn’t kiss whom? It is very difficult to determine who instigated something that didn’t happen.

The Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek non-kiss. Picture: Jason Edwards

And this has sent the media into meltdown. Do the PM and Plibersek really hate each other? And if so why, given that they are politically like brother and sister: They are from the same wing of the same faction and their inner-Sydney electorates are literally next door to each other.

Albanese even helped Plibersek get preselected, and frankly in that part of the world no one gets preselected without Albo’s approval, so if he didn’t want her there she wouldn’t be there.

So what the proverbial is going on?

As Facebook would say: It’s complicated.

Mark Butler and Tanya Plibersek at Labor’s campaign launch on Sunday. Picture: Jason Edwards

Or as the Roman poet Catullus would say: Odi et amo — I hate and I love.

In politics, as in life, it is those closest to you who have the greatest power to hurt you and nobody is closer than Albo and Tanya. They are both from Sydney’s Inner West and both from the same sub-faction of the Left faction, known as the Hard Left even though it is actually softer than the Soft Left — or Ferguson Left — which is dominated by the CFMEU.

Or, more specifically, the construction division of the CFMEU because the mining division is headed by Albo’s best mate Tony Maher and recently split from the construction division which has gone to war with the Albanese government.

Keeping up? Just wait!

So the most intimate enemy of Albo’s Left sub-faction isn’t the Right, let alone the Liberals. It’s the other Left sub-faction.

Now again, Plibersek is NOT a member of that sub-faction, she is 100 per cent in Albo’s.

However she did run on a leadership ticket with Bill Shorten against him in 2013 and the pair won after a majority rank and file vote for Albanese was outweighed by a majority caucus vote for Shorten.

Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek on the campaign trail. Picture: Jason Edwards

Now again, this is totally normal — almost all Labor leadership tickets are a Left-Right combination, as was Albo’s with Richard Marles. In fact Plibersek even voted for Albanese when he was running against her as a sign of her loyalty.

But guess who didn’t vote for Albo? Yes, those pesky varmints from the Ferguson Left! Which in Victoria is known as the Industrial Left, which is a breakaway faction formed by Kim Carr — affectionately known as Kim Il Carr — that formed an alliance with the Shorten Right.

This was then known as ShorCon because of Shorten’s alliance with Stephen Conroy, however the Victorian Right has since split because of Marles’ ascendancy as a powerbroker, and of course his position is aligned with Albo’s, not Shorten’s.

So I hope that clears things up.

Point being Plibersek’s action felt like a betrayal, even though it technically wasn’t. And in matters of politics, like matters of the heart, it is perception that matters, not technicalities.

And so for the final answer as to why Albo and Tanya didn’t embrace let’s go back to the full poem of Catullus, the great ancient chronicler of human passion:

“I hate and I love,” he wrote. “Why do I do this, you ask?

“I don’t know. But I feel it happening. And I am crucified.”

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: Why all anybody can talk about today is THAT kiss