Campbell: We wanted direction but Albo’s just aimless

Anthony Albanese has found out the hard way, in an election campaign you don’t get to pick and choose what you’re asked about. So why hasn’t he learned from it?, asks James Campbell.

Chatting recently with a Labor operator about the Government’s prospects for re-election, the talk turned to the party’s dismal primary vote at the last election.

The reason it was explained to me, in part anyway, why it had dropped to 32.58 per cent – down 0.76 per cent from 2019 – was the underwhelming campaign performance of Anthony Albanese.

Had the then Leader of Opposition, among other things, been able to name the cash unemployment rates and been across his own plan to fix the NDIS, well, things might have been very different.

The suggestion – unspoken – was that Albo won’t be caught short like that again. He would be like John Howard, who Laurie Oakes once observed had made every political mistake in the book but only once.

But watching the Prime Minister over the past few months, I’m starting to wonder if this is the case.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese still does not appear to be alive to the political danger of not being across the details of things. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

After his election mistakes, you would think he would be alive to the political danger of not being across the details of things.

But during the Voice debate, instead of boning up on how the thing would work, he tried to get out of offering any detail at all.

Defence Minister Richard Marles announced ADF spending would increase by $50 billion over the next decade – but Anthony Albanese was nowhere to be seen. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Even that flop doesn’t seem to have caused him to change course.

Fresh back from holidays in January, he was asked about reports foreigners from neighbouring countries might be permitted to serve in the ADF. His answer was, basically, you’ll have to ask Richard Marles about that.

All politicians ignore questions and the good ones are experts at answering in such a way that you don’t notice they’re answering the question they wish they’d been asked rather than what’s actually been put to them.

But with Albo you sometimes get the impression he’s just filling the air with whatever factoids he’s managed to commit to memory.

In the wake of last weekend’s terrible events in Bondi, he was asked if violence against women should be considered a terrorism offence.

Personally I think it’s a daft idea but, given how high emotions are running at the moment, it clearly merited an answer.

Instead we got this: “Look, I know that in the wake of the terrible attack last Saturday, has had a devastating impact on people. And we know as well that violence against women is far too prevalent. We’ve seen last week a demonstration by people in Ballarat saying enough is enough. What we know is that violence against women is far too prevalent. It too often occurs from a partner or a family member. And we know that the statistic of a woman on average dying every week due to violence from a partner or someone they know, it doesn’t tell the story. Numbers don’t tell the story, these are human tragedies as well. Violence has an impact on, an intergenerational impact on children who witness it in the home. And we need to do more to combat violence against women. My Government’s committed to doing that and I know that state and territory governments are committed to that as well.”

I think the question deserved better than that meandering garbage.

Just back on Defence, last week the Government announced spending would increase by $50 billion over the next decade, taking it from 2 per cent of annual GDP to 2.4 per cent, which will see the ADF given new long-range missiles, warships and landing craft as well as air and sea drones.

It was clearly a big deal, so big it’s impossible to imagine any other PM would have left it to their Defence Minister to announce. But for some reason at the big reveal, Albo was nowhere to be seen. Why?

As he’s already found out the hard way, in an election campaign you don’t get to pick and choose what you’re asked about. It’s all very odd.

Originally published as Campbell: We wanted direction but Albo’s just aimless