Wooley: We’re not exactly fielding our top political teams
There have been fumbles and own goals, making it tough to pick a winner from two uninspiring players, writes Charles Wooley.
Opinion
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Anyone who knows me will know that I am far from full bottle on sport. My friends once took me to a grand final at the MCG (I think it was) and posted pictures of me doing the Australian crossword (don’t hate me, it wasn’t cryptic) during the nailbiting, on-field action.
But I will risk borrowing from sport to illustrate an argument in another arena. In terms of the present political contest, the curtain raiser is over and – now that it’s been officially announced the federal election will be held on May 3 – the real game is afoot. And I think I can detect a drift away from the rusted-on loyalty to team that still characterises the game of football.
As Australians lose their traditional faith in fairness and social equity, sociologists tell us political loyalties are in decline. We are losing belief in the political system and are increasingly disappointed with the main players. Which is why in our fickle electorate we are almost certainly heading for a minority government.
The only question is who will win the contest for what is, in all reality, a political wooden spoon?
When he became team captain in 2022, Albo was a little known, middling talent in middle age and certainly one never to be described as a champion. He was soon widely regarded not as one of the greats but just an ordinary player whose socks were down, kicking into the wind without scoring any goals.
“How did he ever become leader and prime minister?” many disheartened ALP supporters were asking.
They even wondered why Labor hadn’t chosen one of the JCs. The smooth-talking Treasurer Jim Chalmers, or the talented and fluent Education Minister Jason Clare.
Albo, it was soon revealed, was not one of the most compelling public speakers. But as for charisma; at least he was line ball with the leader of the opposition.
Being a little more interested in politics than footy, I suggest that Albo has talents not revealed to the voters. He must have dominated in the factional ruck and clearly his compelling political skills were off field and behind the scenes.
ALP factional battles are bare-knuckle and bloody power struggles and whatever we might think of Albo’s political performance in office he is a champion factional ruckman. He had a lifetime of training in what were once called “smoke-filled rooms” where he eventually rose over the shoulders of many more-talented on-field players.
But in politics, getting to be captain does not guarantee a winning performance. That has been apparent with Anthony Albanese and might be so with Peter Dutton.
“Why Dutton?” you ask.
Possibly because the former Queensland copper stood out as a ‘unit’ as tough players are often called. Besides, the team was so depleted there was little choice.
The Opposition Leader started out being thought “unelectable” and “Albo’s secret weapon”. Then as Albo faltered, Dutto started to win ground in the polls. Some bookmakers even had him as favourite to win the election.
At first this transformation was achieved by maintaining a low profile and setting low expectations which could easily be cleared, while Anthony Albanese was busy scoring magnificent own goals. Like having personally and vainly championed and lost a referendum that should never have been put and was beyond his ability to sell.
Don’t mention the little things like buying a retirement clifftop mansion at Copacabana during a national housing crisis.
Somehow Dutton was starting to look better, coming from behind and surprising those of us who had been saying he was so dud he made Albo look good. Or at least not so bad.
I admit it. I started to write that Dutton was looking like the least-worst choice.
But good thing I didn’t put money on it (only my non- existent reputation for picking election results) because now Dutton has started to fumble the ball. The wind has changed and suddenly he is the one kicking into it.
He can’t take a trick. In the present climate, even a serious proposition can look like a thought bubble if accompanied by an astounding lack of detail. Thus, Dutton allowed the not necessarily bad idea of civil nuclear power to become a runaway scare campaign for the Labor Party. And on Sunday this week, his shadow treasurer Angus Taylor couldn’t even put a dollar price on the promise.
Then there was that opulent fundraiser at the $100m harbourside mansion of Sydney billionaire hotelier Justin Hemmes at the same time as tropical cyclone Alfred was bearing down on Dutton’s Queensland electorate. His attendance risked comparisons with Scott Morrison’s “I don’t hold the hose,” Hawaiian holiday during the bushfires.
Why did he do it?
Well elections are expensive, and Mr Hemmes had been generous to the tune of $300,000 to the Liberal Party at the last election. But this only allowed those meaner minds in the ALP to characterise Dutton’s clumsy play as a preference for hobnobbing with billionaires rather than checking in with endangered neighbours. Ouch.
He might have said: “We need the money to win the election and save the nation.” But the Liberal leader’s best and only excuse was “diary commitments”.
It wasn’t entirely fair of course and politics rarely is. But not boldly heading into the eye of the cyclone did count as an own goal and given memories of ScoMo’s fatal Hawaiian holiday, a weird risk to take.
Especially given the ALP dirty tricks department’s earlier revelation of Dutton’s bank share speculations during the global financial crisis.
No one in politics is pure, well rarely. But Albo’s adventures in property speculation and negative gearing go nowhere near the revealed details of Peter Dutton’s 35 years of property trading. The Sydney Morning Herald gleefully reported how dozens of Dutton properties were sold in an accumulation of nearly $20m.
It is no secret that many politicians on both sides (witness Rudd and Turnbull) have been filthy rich. There is nothing illegal in that. Ours is a democracy in a capitalist country, and you need lots of money to play.
Otherwise, you must sell your soul to a rich backer.
Still, you might have thought that the Libs would be prepared for Labor throwing a class-envy stink bomb. Even if it reeked of hypocrisy.
After all, we know they are all at it and, besides, being personally financially competent shouldn’t necessarily make you unsuited for political leadership.
(We could probably do with some of that in Tasmania).
Anyway, as the wily old premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, once said when caught out secretly owning shares in an oil company which wanted to drill the Barrier Reef: “Well what, what, sort of person do you, you, you want to run the state. Someone who, who, has no idea how to make money or someone who knows what they, they, are doing?”
It was a stunning admission though hardly a compelling argument. But somehow Joh got away with it.
Could it have been the charisma so lacking today?
Meanwhile, until election day the political game is tight and will shift one way and then the other. Beyond the leaders’ clumsy mistakes there will be more extraneous matters like Trump’s tariff unfriendliness and that disturbing Chinese naval sail past.
When Dutton described Albanese’s weak reaction to Chinese adventurism as “limp-wristed” he then had to apologise when the possible politically incorrect implications were pointed out.
Penny Wong fired up that Dutton’s comment was no surprise because he had opposed marriage equality.
Over the next few weeks of what will feel like the longest of drawn-out campaigns, might I suggest you seek solace in such amusing distractions. We should welcome every surprise as a diverting relief from the awful truth that the two contestants, Albanese and Dutton, must be among the dullest and the least interesting in living political memory.
(I really should write about fishing.)
In the contest to lead our nation, drawing from a population of 27.3 million people, should we feel mere disappointment or profound unease that these two uninspiring players are apparently the best we can field.
Charles Wooley is a Tasmanian-based journalist
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