Would it be a kind of heresy, as a political columnist, to admit that I have fought, this past week, to pay close attention to politics? And that, of course, is not just any week. This is the first week since the Morrison government’s sharp defeat. And it’s the first week of a new Australia, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Maybe I’m just tired of politics after a campaign rush. Or maybe it’s the lack of vigilance caused by the last government, to always look at what new crisis had been fabricated for political purposes (Novak Djokovic, anyone?). And maybe that’s what made me think of our tendency to give the new prime ministers some approval.
Whatever their previous public performance, we offer them an act of charity: everything is forgiven, or at least forgotten. Perhaps, as a leader, we will be surprised. I made this mistake with both Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. Many did so with Scott Morrison. In the end, the failures of all three were perceived in their previous actions.
Anthony Albanese and his partner, Jodie Haydon, and Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale on Saturday in Eastwood. Credit: Dean Sewell
I’ve been thinking especially about Tony Abbott’s early aphorism: “Happy is the country that is more interested in sport than politics,” echoed Malcolm Fraser’s joke about keeping politics off the cover. It is a common conservative return, the rhetorical cousin of small government. But Abbott’s opposition had been fueled by the exact opposite approach, as had much of his ministerial career: it would never work. It will be interesting, then, if Anthony Albanese, a Labor in his boots, ends up being the one closest to fulfilling that promise, not by keeping the government small, but by somehow reducing the temperature of the political debate. He is already being kinder to Peter Dutton than one might expect.
Last Saturday, Albanese made history. Yes, as he and several commentators have often told us, Labor has only won the opposition government a handful of times since the war, but as a friend pointed out to me, this is also true for the Coalition. Three facts were most noteworthy. The first was his status as a left-wing party leader. After several decades in parliament, this does not mean that he is radical, but that his instinct is for change.
The second and third are about how he won. It has been said so many times that it was tedious, but it is still important: it did not try to impress voters with great promises. And finally, he won without passing the test that the press pack had taken care of fixing it, of being able to answer questions about figures and points and details.
A leader who breaks with history doesn’t just do things a new way. In doing so, they make the above assumptions anachronistic. Albanese, unlike some of his predecessors, did not try to be the star of television reality or the successful contestant of the test program. As my former colleague Lachlan Harris told Deborah Snow, she broke with the “hyperprofessional, scripted” politician. And by turning these old-fashioned models, it also has the potential to change the way our leaders are judged. If he performs well as prime minister, surely the “gotcha” questions of this campaign will seem, in the future, even more ridiculous than now.
Illustration: Jozsef BenkeCredit:
But the most important question is about Albanese himself. If his performance as opposition leader was a good guide for his prime minister, what does that predict? A government that is firmly left-wing, but that works quietly and without drawing too much attention? Okay, but can this approach be maintained in government? It would also be a break with previous models, not just Labor. John Howard warned of the need to use political capital soon because it will fade one way or another.