Albo Hasn’t Got a Political Paddle to Save Himself

Australian PM Anthony Albanese must be looking forward to the summer break with more anxiety than a schoolkid dreading the end-of-year report. Not because of the chance to goof off all summer, because, let’s face it, who’d notice the difference, with this government? Frankly, the country might be better off if the government just shut up shop for the next eighteen months and stopped even pretending.

Although, horror of horrors, “Airbus Albo” would have to pay for his own overseas holidays instead of pretending he’s “working” and charging it to the taxpayer.

But if Albanese thinks the silly season is going to be a reset for his woeful prime ministership, he’s got another thing coming. As I wrote recently, Albanese is looking down the barrel of nosediving poll numbers and a tsunami of issues, any which of could prove fatal for his leadership, if not his government.

The only thing he hasn’t got is, it seems, a clue as to what to do about it all.

None of them he can allow to resurface as legitimately contested space for Labor in government.

Economic management, border protection and national security/defence; all three, however, have now landed back on the Prime Minister’s table with a thump.

As opposition leader Albanese fought to successfully neutralise all of these ahead of the last election. His promise of a safe pair of hands on the economic tiller and the pledge of a unity ticket with the Coalition on boats and defence – despite his own pedigree – were electorally accepted.

Ever since the election, though, Albanese has consistently failed on all three. And it’s getting worse, from refugees turned loose to rape more women, to a spiralling cost-of-living crisis.

Yet there appears to be no political strategy for how to deal with this perilous triumvirate.

Even more lacking is a unified message that would seek to convince the electorate Labor has command of any of them. The polls bear this out.

It’s all beginning to look a lot like 2013 again. Especially when it comes to border protection.

Albanese has done everything within his power since becoming leader to avoid this topic ever becoming a problem again for Labor in government, even staring down his own left faction on boat turnbacks and offshore processing.

He gets the issue more than many in his caucus, having lived through it last time Labor was in government, and despite his previous ideological leanings.

So, how to explain his immediate decision to unilaterally overrule dozens of refugee tribunal rulings, and allow a pair of former Tamil Tiger illegal immigrants and their anchor babies to stay in the country? Or his government’s complete inability to do anything about nearly one hundred foreign criminals given a Get Out of Jail Free card by activist judges?

And whatever political damage has been caused, or may present in the future, it has been entirely of the government’s own making.

While Albanese’s instinct was to look tough, this again was undermined by other ministers who overreached with their attacks on Peter Dutton. Somehow, the government turned a wedge against the Coalition into a wedge against itself. This was a major tactical error on a critical political issue.

If Labor are weak on border protection, they’re even more supine against China.

Albanese’s response to the Chinese aggression against Australian navy divers and Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s handling of the domestic messaging over the Israel-Hamas conflict have undone some of the kudos Albanese had worked hard to establish through his international engagements.

By which they presumably mean Albanese’s shameless grovelling to brutal dictator Xi Xinping.

And then there’s the economy, stupids.

The risk for the government is that it emerges in the new year with Australia having lost its economic pre-eminence among OECD countries, a status it has enjoyed for more than a decade, and being at the back of the pack on dealing with inflation.

This will go to the heart of the political contest over economic management, with Labor having also lost its political advantage over the Coalition on cost of living – aka, handouts – lest it risk adding to the inflation problem.

The Australian

Not to mention endless, turbocharged mass immigration, which is also driving inflation (and house prices through the roof).

Voters aren’t going to forget it all over a single summer.