On his first week back on the campaign trail after catching Covid, Anthony Albanese has stumbled yet again, fluffing questions from journalists. This time, though, it wasn’t a “gotcha” on economic figures, it was a Dorothy Dixer on one of Labor’s signature policies.
Trying to capitalise on its traditional strength, healthcare, Labor is spruiking its “six point plan” to reform the NDIS. The very fact that Labor is even having to reform its own generational healthcare policy ought to be sign enough that Labor is all mouth and no trousers. But the fact that Albanese can’t even remember a key policy of the election campaign is much worse.
Mr Albanese not only repeatedly deflected when asked to list the six points, but was also forced to hurriedly seek a copy of the policy from his minders, awkwardly leafing through the document before reading directly from it in a sequence glossed over in Labor’s transcript of the event […]
Ahead of a lunchtime speech to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in which his team had indicated he planned to speak of building upon Labor legacies such as the NDIS, and after he had made reference on Wednesday to Labor’s “six-point plan”, Mr Albanese was asked to outline the six points.
“The six points are, what we will do, in terms of, was outlined by Bill Shorten,” Mr Albanese replied. Pressed again, Mr Albanese said: “What that’s about is making sure that we take pressure off people who are at the moment having their programs cut” […] Asked to outline the “other five points”, Mr Albanese could only repeat that he would put “people at the centre of the NDIS”.
When the question was put to him again, one of Albanese’s minders slipped him a folder. This prompted a journalist to ask, “You’ve just been handed your policy document, Mr Albanese. You don’t know. Mr Albanese, this is embarrassing, isn’t it?” Despite the “loud, clear interjection”, Labor’s transcript of the presser merely lists it as “inaudible”.
Albanese, 59, has tried to explain away his latest gaffe as “long Covid”. This isn’t good enough. Consider the 2020 US presidential campaign, where Donald Trump was struck by the earlier, much more severe variant of the virus. After less than a week, the 73 year old Trump was bouncing back on the campaign trail.
Some of his own MPs are privately joking that it would be better for the campaign if he caught Covid again and disappeared. How many times have they seen these sort of stumbles, others ask.
A senior Labor figure described the mistake as “horrible” and “embarrassing”.
“The bloke didn’t know his own policy,” the Labor figure said.
Other Labor MPs and figures dismissed the mistake as being inconsequential to the campaign.
The Australian
Compounding Albanese’s flip-flopping and evasiveness on the NDIS, he also refuses to say categorically whether or not Labor would cut NDIS funding.
Then asked by The Australian whether he would promise not to cut funding for health, education or the NDIS, Mr Albanese said Labor would “always be better” than the Coalition on those issues, before taking issue at attempts to elicit a categorical answer.
The NDIS is classic Labor brain-fart policy, announced with great fanfare by Julia Gillard — who at the same time, hid the real costs of the massive program, by scheduling the bulk of funding beyond the Forward Estimates. This effectively meant that most of the cost of the program never appeared on the government books until Labor was long out of office. A decade later, the NDIS has metastasized into a monstrous white elephant that threatens to eclipse the entire Medicare budget.
As Scott Morrison witheringly observed in the first leaders’ debate, Labor comes up with the big ideas, but the Coalition has to figure out how to pay for them.
Albanese’s latest stumble is yet another campaign headache for Labor. Another is the continued question marks hanging over its supposed commitment to border protection, a key policy issue for many Australians. Labor is also backflipping on live exports, in a blatant attempt to pander to West Australia.
Anthony Albanese has confirmed Labor has changed its live sheep export policy overnight, following pressure from West Australian Premier Mark McGowan.
Only yesterday, an opposition spokesperson confirmed in a statement to the ABC that an Albanese government would shut down the $250 million industry.
The confirmation followed months of agriculture spokeswoman Julie Collins refusing to say whether Labor was sticking with the policy of banning the live sheep trade which it took to the last federal election.
The Australian
Labor was mauled in WA at the last election. The question is whether playing “Each-Way Albo”, and saying one thing to the watermelons and another to the farmers is going to convince anyone.
