Anthony Albanese might have rearranged a few deckchairs and thrown the first women and children in his cabinet overboard, but the ship is still sinking. To damn him with faint praise, Albanese has finally admitted what everyone knew all along: appointing a boat-chasing ‘refugee’ activist to the immigration portfolio was always going to be a disaster.
What no one could have foreseen, perhaps, was the enormity of the disaster that was to come. In the first year of the government, now-former Immigration Minister Andrew Giles oversaw the release of more than 500 violent non-citizens from immigration detention. These included rapists, murderers and paedophiles. Many were turned loose without any sort of supervision and many went on to reoffend.
Giles’ replacement also has form on immigration disasters.
Opposition finance spokesperson Jane Hume says the Albanese cabinet reshuffle is an “admission of failure”, particularly in the immigration and home affairs portfolios.
Senator Hume said the appointment of Murray Watt to the employment and workplace relations portfolio would make the CFMEU “just as thrilled with that as they were with Tony Burke, who is the best friend of the CFMEU”.
“Let’s not forget that under Tony Burke, the last time he was immigration minister, 83 boats arrived with more than 6000 illegal immigrants,” she told Sky News. “That was more than one boat a day. So I would imagine that those people smugglers are rubbing their hands together at the idea that Tony Burke is now responsible for the immigration portfolio.
One silver lining of the reshuffle is that the ludicrous portfolio of “assistant minister for a republic” has been dumped.
The opposition’s deputy leader, Sussan Ley, also hammered the government’s record.
“Well we were told this reshuffle was about replacing three retiring ministers,” she said. “Now Anthony Albanese has had to change half his team including Tony Burke. That’s a huge concession the government’s failing to deliver because if there were problems in housing and immigration, why did the Prime Minister wait to move these ministers on?
“The housing crisis has become worse. The boats have restarted. Hundreds of violent criminals have been released from detention. All of these issues have got worse over months and months. We’ve seen nothing from the Prime Minister.
“So this reshuffle, including every individual within it, confirms that the Prime Minister is always focused on politics. Not the cost of living. Not the national interest.”
A new poll confirms the areas where the government is out of touch with voters.
Health is the top priority for Australians in terms of government spending, followed by public housing, law enforcement and education.
Notice what’s not in there? ‘Net zero’, mass immigration and race politics: all the areas the government has been hyper-focused on to the detriment of the nation.
The poll shows that, instead, the government is solely focused on pandering to wealthy elites.
One in three of the poorer households feel Australia is placing too much emphasis on climate change action, compared to barely one in five wealthier households [..]
Poorer households, earning less than $100,000 a year, show lower levels of support for climate change action.
Low-income families are more likely to suffer the hip-pocket pain of spiraling power prices, which are being fuelled by the high cost of replacing coal-fired electricity to “green electricity’’ generated from wind and solar power.
The poll also shows that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Especially when their electricity bill lands.
Resistance to climate change action has grown over the past decade.
The Growth Distillery poll conducted for The Australian in 2024 shows that 29 per cent of people feel Australia is “placing too much emphasis on dealing with climate change’’.
This is significantly higher than the 19 per cent recorded in a comparable Newspoll survey in 2014.
It was all fun and games when it was just scowling Swedish morons blithering about saving the planet. Then the power bills started going up and reality hit hard.
