Albanese leads Labor’s heroic fight against ‘girl germs’

The Albo-Tanya air kiss – Plibersek missed by a metre, which is admittedly better than my recent pickleball service game – may have also been part of a longstanding Labor pattern, writes Tim Blair.

In these topsy-turvy, tariffs-on, tariffs-off Trumpian times, it’s only natural to crave stability and sameness.

So it’s always reassuring to read about men winning in women’s sport, for example. It’s just the way of things these days. Impressive consistency. Happens all the time.

Less frequently, female athletes are now sometimes withdrawing from competitions against men. This is so shocking for officials and trans supporters that the women – the real women - invariably end up disqualified or banned.

Women getting dropped from women’s sport. Goes to show, you can’t be pushing back against the trend. Know your place, women! Which is apparently getting beaten by blokes.

I was planning to report these genuine female XX-chromosome lady bullies to our leftist gender fluidity police, hoping for some further condemnations, but the enforcers were all in Perth, cheering for Anthony Albanese at the Labor Party election campaign launch.

A kiss is just a kiss? Maybe, maybe not... Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

Gloriously, for us fans of dull continuity, there was yet more satisfying monotony on display. Good old Albo banged on again about his aversion to nuclear energy, combining this with a peculiar personal attack on Liberal leader Peter Dutton.

“My opponent is happy to talk about measuring up the curtains at Kirribilli House,” Albanese said, schpeaking schlowly because he’s been told it’s more statesmanlike, “but there is something he very rarely talks about — the N-word, the cost of his nuclear scheme, and the cuts he will make to pay for it.”

ALP Federal campaign launch held in Perth. Tanya Plibersek, Uncle Barry Winmar Whadjk Elder and Anne Aly, Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

As it happens, Dutton has never once mentioned the curtains at Kirribilli House. This is because he’s a conventional Australian male to whom curtains and all interior fabrics are basically invisible.

But Labor Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher, Labor Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and the Labor Prime Minister himself have all carried on at length about Dutton’s alleged decorative fixation. May be a little projection happening there.

The big shock out of Labor’s launch was that catastrophic air kiss between Albanese and his environment minister Tanya Plibersek.

Except it possibly wasn’t a shock. The Albo-Tanya air kiss – Plibersek missed by a metre, which is admittedly better than my recent pickleball service game – may have also been part of a longstanding Labor pattern.

From the PM down, Labor really has an old and ongoing problem with girl germs. You could see it in Labor’s previous state government strategies, when women were appointed as premiers only when their party was on the way out.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivering her famous ‘misogyny’ speech in 2012. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING

WA’s Carmen Lawrence, Victoria’s Joan Kirner and NSW’s Kristina Keneally all got smashed in subsequent elections. Speaking of which, remember Albanese’s hostile parliamentary interjection of 2015, when he urged a colleague to brutalise then-Health Minister Sussan Ley?

“Smash her!” surly Albo snarled, briefly looking up from his mobile phone. Could’ve been worse. It could have been a watch, then we’d have had a whole misogyny speech about it.

Former Labor PM Kevin Rudd was so spooked by Julia Gillard that even after he’d replaced her in 2013, he had to change her nominated election date for that year as well.

September 14 was out, seeing as it was covered in girl germs. Bitterly and pointlessly, the 2013 election was shifted by Rudd to September 7. And he still lost.

But back to that metre-missing air kiss. As SmoochVision footage clearly shows, Albanese had successfully interacted with a backslapping Treasurer Jim Chalmers and a handshaking Julia Gillard before he happened upon Plibersek.

Aiming for a proper kiss and hug, the environment minister leaned in. Albo, however, simply wasn’t having it, seizing Plibersek’s hands and keeping her safely at bay.

Incredibly, Plibersek’s explanation yesterday for that dreadfully awkward moment was … girl germs! She even blamed herself for putting Great Leader Albanese at risk of viral femininity.

“I reckon we should still all be elbow bumping,” Plibersek told Sunrise on Monday.

“During an election campaign, the last thing you want is to catch a cold from someone – so that’s on me. I should’ve done the elbow bump, I reckon.”

The only thing weirder than that long-distance air kiss would’ve been a 2020 Covid-style elbow with Albo. As for the PM, he was evasive and inclined to generalise when questioned about the incident.

“Tanya Plibersek has been a friend of mine for a long period of time,” he said “We live in neighbouring seats, we’re good mates and she’s doing a fantastic job. She’s doing a fantastic job.”

Never heard “we live in neighbouring seats” before as a measure of personal affection, but there you go. My own theory: Albo is now so confused by gender issues that he doesn’t know what to do.

Fair enough. He is a leftist, after all.

Originally published as Albanese leads Labor’s heroic fight against ‘girl germs’