Anthony Albanese is not a serious man: he’s a serious national embarrassment. If the crude sexist jokes about another head of state weren’t bad enough, ‘DJ Albo’ has a long record of making a complete clown of himself in his endless quest for ‘bloke’ points.
Coming, as I do, from a long-ago background in music journalism, I very early became used to enduring greybeards wobbling about in their XXXL YouAmI T-shirts and gushing that, ‘Our new PM likes the Celibate Rifles! It’s so cool!’ I, on the other hand, found it embarrassing. Like that drunk uncle in the ’70s crashing the kids’ part of the family gathering, snapping his fingers and assuring us he was ‘hep to the kid’s groove, man!’
He is the nation’s leader, not some washed-up ex-Neighbours cast member desperately trying to find clout on TikTok. He should act like it. Instead, he just keeps on acting like exactly what he is: an overgrown man-child whose only compass is his own ego.
Even if it means grotesquely insulting one of our most important allies.
First Anthony Albanese skipped a diplomatically-charged gala dinner celebrating Australia’s pivotal relationship with Japan.
Then the PM went on a podcast and made a gag – delivered with cupped hand gestures – about the two melons he was gifted by his Japanese counterpart, Sanae Takaichi – that nation’s first female prime minister.
And, if you can believe it, things get worse for champions of the relationship between Australia and its most important security partner in Asia.
A dinner event was staged in Parliament House’s Great Hall, to mark the 50th anniversary since then prime minister Malcolm Fraser and Japan’s Miki Takeo signed the Australia-Japan friendship and co-operation treaty. Japan’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs flew in especially for the gala. Dozens of high-profile Australian politicians attended. Yet, even though he was just a hundred metres away in Parliament House, Albanese didn’t bother to show up.
Because he chose to instead whoop it up at a Spotify party in one of Parliament House’s alcoves.
There’s ‘DJ Albo’s’ priorities for you.
One wonders: would Albanese dare snub a Chinese event, or mock Xi Jinping with a few Winnie-the-Pooh gags? Or is the ‘bloke’ act reserved only for allies who won’t put him in the diplomatic doghouse?
While he couldn’t find five minutes for our most important security partner in Asia, he has plenty of time for others.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has attended an exclusive dinner hosted by the son of Chinese billionaire property developer Phillip Dong Fang Lee, who has reportedly pledged about $1 million to the Labor Party.
It was a regular Rogues’ Gallery.
Guests also included Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn, former Victorian premier Dan Andrews, former ASIC chairman James Shipton and former Future Fund chairman David Murray.
Lee reportedly committed about $1 million to Labor, which, according to the source, secured Albanese's attendance at the dinner.
Phillip Dong Fang Lee is no ordinary donor. For 15 years he was a VIP high-roller at Sydney’s Star casino, turning over more than $2 billion. He once swiped his China UnionPay cards a dozen times in a single night to withdraw $11 million. Casino staff raised money-laundering concerns, but management overruled them rather than lose a “$20 million player”. The same UnionPay transactions later featured in inquiries into breaches of both Australian anti-money-laundering rules and Chinese capital outflow laws: the very channels long linked to Chinese Communist Party-linked fund movements.
The Lee family is also deep in a massive tax fight with the Australian Taxation Office. A 189-page ATO affidavit details suspicions of sham loans, unexplained wealth, and repeated deception to funnel money from China into Australian banks and mansions. Freezing orders once covered 16 properties, including the $40 million Point Piper estate, a Bentley, a Rolls-Royce and a Porsche. Phillip Lee’s Australian assets were frozen over a $272 million tax debt. Questions remain about whether he secretly retained control of Chinese business interests after claiming otherwise.
Any serious statesman would have recognised the glaring conflict of interest, or at least the catastrophic optics, and stayed well clear. Albanese is no such statesman. He is an ageing clown whooping it up on the taxpayer dime, too busy chasing ‘bloke’ points and donor dinners to notice the national embarrassment trailing behind him.
