As I wrote yesterday, this is one of the worst election campaigns I’ve ever witnessed. Labor are hopelessly incompetent and out of ideas – so what’s the coalition’s excuse? The opposition who bravely opposed the heinous ‘Voice’ referendum on strong, principled, grounds and dared start a mature dialogue with the electorate on nuclear energy are a distant memory.
Instead, they’ve apparently turned into a crew of bumbling cowards intent on trying to be a small target. Which is kind of crazy, when the government is clearly on the edge of exploding into a leadership fight right in the middle of the campaign. The awkward ‘air kiss’ between PM Anthony Albanese and senior minister Tanya Plibersek at the campaign launch lobbed Labor’s simmering leadership tensions into the campaign like a ticking bomb.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek have a “professional working relationship” after the prime minister on Monday refused to confirm Ms Plibersek would continue to serve as environment minister under a second-term Albanese government.
“It looked uncomfortable at the policy launch,” Senator Gallagher was told.
‘Uncomfortable’ doesn’t begin to describe it. So, why aren’t the opposition making it the centrepiece of a campaign ad. Cut to Bob Hawke’s famous ‘if you can’t govern your own party, you can’t govern the country’.
The fact that Anthony Albanese is having to hose down talk of a leadership challenge during an election campaign should be easy meat for the opposition.
Anthony Albanese has again promised to serve a full term if re-elected as prime minister and has assured that his Labor team is “looking forward” and past the “revolving door” of Labor leaders in the past decade […]
“I’m not looking over my shoulder, I’m looking forward.”
If he’s not looking over his shoulder, he’s even more stupid than we thought. Plibersek has never forgiven the Labor boy’s club for denying her the leadership and then relegating her to a thankless environment ministry to add insult to injury. The PM has repeatedly overruled Plibersek on key decisions. In return, Plibbers has created multiple headaches for the government, over mining in Western Australia, salmon farms in Tasmania and new gas and coal developments.
It all goes back to 2019 and the bunfight to replace Bill Shorten, who’d just lost a supposedly ‘unlosable’ election. Plibersek had not only been a deputy leader in opposition for six years, but a senior minister in portfolios she was strongly dedicated to. But she not only lost the leadership bid to Albanese, but her preferred portfolios.
The long-term Labor left stalwart and most senior Labor woman in the House of Representatives was bitter and resentful.
She wanted a place further up the government front bench and everyone knew it.
She still does.
The appearance of a strained political relationship between Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek is continuing to attract attention.
Mr Albanese has pointedly refused to promise his long-time Labor rival will keep her job as environment minister if he wins the election on May 3, despite pledging to keep Jim Chalmers and two of his closest allies Penny Wong and Richard Marles in place.
The aftermath of the awkward “air kiss” between the prime minister and Ms Plibersek at Sunday’s Labor campaign launch has put a fresh election spotlight on the political tension between the pair.
Especially with Albanese pointedly refusing to say whether Plibersek would even keep the environment portfolio, despite going on the record declaring that a raft of other senior ministers will keep their jobs.
A government that descends into leadership in-fighting during an election campaign of all times ought to be a sitting duck for the opposition.
So, where are they?
