Albanese says he knows what it is to struggle. As PM, he’s been coasting

Every expert under the sun seems to have a view about the implications of the American election for Australian politics. I have nothing to offer on that front. But I do see a similarity between Joe Biden as president and Anthony Albanese as prime minister. In truth, Biden was the real loser of last week’s vote. The way he conducted himself as president, you could be excused for believing that he actually set out to ensure defeat.

What were he and his advisers thinking? They sat on their hands while unauthorised arrivals crossed the southern border in their millions, failed to focus rhetorically on the cost of living and tried to pretend that he hadn’t lost too many of his faculties. He reluctantly chose not to run again just four months ago, having placed his party so far behind the Republicans that it never stood a chance of catching up.

Illustration: Dionne Gain

Biden and Albanese share a love of their respective personal backstories – the hardscrabble upbringing, the lessons learned from devoted parents – as a way of explaining themselves. They are all too ready to roll out yet another rendition of their respective tales. Both men were long-term political servants who were passed over as leadership aspirants by their parties before eventually proving the doubters wrong and winning the highest political office.

What else do they have in common? Once they got the job they had craved so desperately, they both lost sight of their obligation to never stop campaigning and for too long exuded a misplaced confidence that a second election win would be a formality. Eventually, they wised up. Biden stood aside. Albanese is staying and will face the people in a few months. He is now rolling out announcements in a frenzy as he attempts to retrieve the government’s – and his own – fortunes.

The problem with each politician’s origin story is that it can help them get where they want to go but can’t keep them there. In fact, after years of being played on high rotation, it can start to hurt them. Last month, in response to questions about his purchase of a $4.3 million second home with clifftop views, Albanese averred: “I know what it’s like to struggle.” That would have gone down like a wrought iron kite with a lot of voters.

The government has not been static. Ministers have been working hard, producing and implementing policies. The prime minister has his list of them all, but there was one thing he didn’t do when he was installed. With every passing day, his decision not to do it threatens to consign him to the ranks of Australia’s great election losers: he did not declare himself as a genuine agent of change.

Imagine if, after winning office, he had said that Australia needed not just a series of cautious readjustments but a substantial overhaul because too much of this great country was not working properly. Rather than using his origin story as his default fallback, he could have said: “The system isn’t working as it should. You know and I know it. I was that kid who grew up in public housing but now I’m the guy who’s running the country and I’m going to fix it for you. But it’s a big job and we’ll need to work with each other.”

He could have said the price of getting a roof over your head was out of control for too many Australians. That our schools needed to be better and the streets needed to be safer. That he would work with every section of the community, every agency, every level of government, to solve these problems. Improvement would take time but fixing the country was his mission. That would have signalled the government’s larger reason for being and set him up for an endless campaign throughout his first term, with an obvious second-term agenda.

Instead, on election night he highlighted his personal journey and flagged that he would devote a good deal of 2023 to a referendum campaign on what, like it or not, a large majority of unprepared voters would ultimately view as a second-order issue. The result placed a “loser” stamp on his forehead. Now he is viewed by far too many voters as a waste of space or, as his Coalition opponents now consistently say, with focus group findings as their guide, “weak”.

What an incredible situation the government has got itself into in its first term. It’s almost as if the leadership convinced itself it is operating in the days when A Country Practice was on the telly. Back then, in a three-year electoral cycle, there was time for a government to lose popularity and then regain it. There is no sustained incumbency advantage today – not for a federal Labor government, at least. Let things drift and they will keep drifting.

If you don’t establish yourself as the player with the greatest degree of dynamism, someone else will, and they will direct the political narrative. Is that not what most voters now appear to see when they look at Peter Dutton and the PM? The latter wants to observe Marquess of Queensberry rules while the former always carries a knuckle-duster. Who do you think scores the knockout?

Shaun Carney is a regular columnist.

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