If Anthony Albanese wants Labor to remain in power for the long haul, it will need to offer more than competent management, says Jack Waterford.
Anthony Albanese is not busy stealing Liberal Party policies and shifting his party to the right simply because he admires Tory politics and practices. Despite his supposed dedication to the old two-party system, he is trying to crowd the Liberals out. They are being squeezed by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation from the right and finding it almost impossible to manoeuvre against her because her position is constantly shifting, and because she can always outflank them with more extreme and irresponsible statements. But they cannot reposition themselves into a more comfortable middle ground since Albanese and Labor are there. Labor plans to kick downwind in both halves of the game. And to regard about 60 per cent of the ground as its own “half”.
The extra space is ground Albanese could claim has been surrendered by the opposition. Labor has simply moved into a void created by conservative geniuses who have argued over time that the only way to respond to steady and comprehensive defeats was to make their parties even more conservative. The coalition has made no effort to woo back Liberal moderates, whether still in the party or out of it, as represented by community independents and Teals. Some Liberals seem to see their departure as a bonus, making the remnants more unified and monolithic in their policies, and thus far more attractive to an electorate they are convinced wanted and needs Angus Taylor, or is pining for Scott Morrison or Peter Dutton or some reincarnated Tony Abbott.
The same Liberal strategy in 2025 brought disaster. The Liberals misread the electorate badly. It was not so much a lurch to Labor as a retreat from the coalition. Albanese’s charisma or personality did not draw votes. The prospect of Dutton was the motivator. 2025 was not won by specific Labor campaign promises, even as to tax, so much as by doubt and uncertainty about coalition policies. It was won by fear of Dutton’s extremism, and the opposition’s lack of understanding of the mood and the temper of the electorate. Dutton had made a party whose councils were dominated by angry old men (and a very few old women) even more out of touch with middle Australia, particularly among women, professional women, younger Australians and better-educated Australians. Because of this it also lost heavily in capital cities, to the point that the Liberals now hold very few metropolitan seats, particularly in southeastern Australia. Nothing in the character of Angus Taylor or the present coalition suggests a new approach to voters by more likeable, or less frightening characters.
Timidity and caution may have reassured those who feared Labor would be too radical and too impulsive
During Albanese’s first term, Labor’s reach for the middle ground was more a matter of being slow and steady. It shrank from bold steps or complex solutions. Albanese was not one for frightening the horses, for being described as bold or visionary, or for dramatic changes.
The critics from the left side of politics lambasted Albanese and the government for its irresolution, timorousness and hesitancy, and there was a widespread view that the government was “disappointing”. Those of that opinion may have inadvertently helped quell any suggestions from the right that Labor had some sort of secret agenda, particularly one involving bold tax reform. The government’s own predisposition for inaction may have also received a boost from the resounding defeat of the Voice referendum in 2023, which seemed to stifle any Albanese impulse to make grand gestures in circumstances where it did not seem to mean much. The government’s response to the defeat was not some defiant decision to pursue justice for Aboriginal people by other means, but depression, policy paralysis, and, ultimately, a feeling that they had brought it upon themselves.
This lack of energy and zeal, and the apparent lack of any sense of urgency for an agenda wrestling with limited time may have assisted Labor’s capture of the electorate in 2025. But the size of the majority inspired hopes, not least in Labor’s own ranks, that Albanese might see himself as now having a mandate for action, particularly action which could be dressed to appear to reflect Labor’s view of the world.
But it was a sense that Albanese seemed immediately at pains to restrain. He’s offering John Howard, not Bob Hawke. Certainly not Gough Whitlam or Paul Keating.
Albanese wants Labor to be the natural party of federal government, not one continually wondering and worried about overreach, about running ahead of public expectations. Labor had won big, but it should not run the risk, at what he hoped would be a long period on the Treasury benches, of getting out of touch with its constituencies.
More so, Albanese did not have to say, when the opposition was in such disarray, still split on fundamental issues, now facing serious structural weaknesses, particularly in metropolitan areas, and which was in denial about the source of its defeat. The Liberals simply did not “get it”, and tended to blame voters, rather than itself, for the profound vote of no confidence.
The prize example of Liberal deafness to public opinion might have been its approach to women’s representation in the parliamentary party, and in its organisation. As Mark Kenny put it in a recent ANU seminar, it seemed that some in the party would rather die than see any effort to improve the proportion of women in the party, particularly by means such as quotas, which had been recommended by review after review of the party.
The Albanese model of good government is an essentially managerial one, with a limited agenda, and a plan of seeming competent in responding to events as they came up. The figure for imitation is the calm of John Howard, one of the few giants of the Australian political landscape with a personality and charisma matching Albanese, and, like Albanese, reluctant to deal in visions, long term plans or discussions with voters.
Neither the coalition nor Hanson deserves federal power yet. Though, at state levels, some Labor governments deserve to lose
So far as political mischief was concerned, neither Albanese nor the party have had to do much to help the Liberals or the Nationals to sabotage themselves and any hope that their time in the wilderness would be a short one. It was obviously better to stand by as coalition players stabbed each other in the back, and undermined opponents and each other. As arguments raged about how the party should position itself to face the electorate, it has seemed clear that most are fixed in their views and not much interested in shaping a party in touch with the community and its changing character. Or with policies adapted for their needs. If anything, rather, most members remain focused on finding ways to straitjacket voters into pre-set ideas, ideologies and pseudo-solutions, some borrowed from abroad, and offering them more medicine of a type they had repeatedly said they did not want.
Whether under Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor, the coalition has seemed unable to provide any sort of effective opposition to Labor, had Labor wanted to do anything. But Labor was doing little to pursue any coordinated policies, and many of those which were put up — including bans on social media for adolescents, limited reforms to gambling advertising and efforts to mobilise housing resources for young Australians, and to contain the size of the National Disability Insurance Scheme — failed to show a professional concern for outcomes, or coordination with other government objectives.
Perhaps they were serving to keep the clock ticking and give the illusion of action and achievement, even where, as with the social media scheme, the evidence has pointed to a complete failure to meet the objectives. But most of these little projects have lacked substance and shown more signs of being public relations stunts than serious attempts to deal with substantial problems. I was initially impressed by the care and patience with which ministers attempted to deal with chronic NDIS problems, but the work has since been much undermined by impersonality, a fatal attraction to algorithm solutions that will produce only injustice, probably on a Robodebt scale, leading to a very pissed off and disappointed disability community.
Hanson is Taylor’s problem, not Albanese’s
If Albanese has had it all over the opposition, then and now, his job has not been that much complicated by the re-emergence of Hansonism and her agenda. While One Nation has recently been making some inroads on Labor’s polling estimates, it is quite clear that the threat from Hanson, a right-wing ideologue and populist, is primarily to the coalition. More so since Hanson deals in prejudices and feelings, and hardly ever in facts. Opposition leaders can attempt to respond to the “vibe” of Hanson’s complaints about immigration numbers, for example, but any promises the coalition makes can be quickly undercut by Hanson. She is not interested in practicalities or good administration but in impressions and complaints, and, as any number of her critics on both sides have complained, she is not interested in solutions or actual policies. It is also plain that any attempt to campaign alongside her, to exchange preferences or to plan a role for her in government can only help her and hurt the opposition. It very much suits Labor’s purposes if the opposition cannot make up its mind about this.
Likewise, one can expect that Labor will hold in reserve, if for state elections as much as federal ones, its criticisms of Hanson’s actual character, philosophy, and relationships with big donors such as Gina Rinehart. If Labor has any common sense, it will be less focused on the threat that Hanson poses to ordinary working Australians as such. After all, a good deal of Hanson’s appeal has been to tradesmen and contractors – a group whose support for Labor has been flagging for decades. Even an ACTU campaign, given the feminisation of the ACTU, would be better focused on her statements about women’s rights, including abortion, childcare and working from home, the quality of young workers, her disdain for education, and her complete lack of accountability in managing a party of which she is, in effect, president for life.
And, in a nation where a majority of Australians are migrants or have at least one parent from abroad, a Labor campaign celebrating rather than apologising for our multicultural society would not go amiss. Whether or not some Australians think there should be tighter limits on migration numbers, many fewer want a reversion to a monochrome society and culture. Albanese and his home affairs minister, Tony Burke, are being far too cautious in winding back numbers as a way of pre-empting Hanson’s criticisms of migration numbers and their alleged association with housing shortages; they would be far better setting numbers on their own merits and making a virtue of their policy response to evidence and need rather than ill-disguised racial prejudice.
Discussing his recent book, Three Shocks, who we are becoming in the 21st century (Penguin $36.99) George Megalogenis pointed to three significant and very Australian institutions that voters would always associate with Labor. Medicare, the national superannuation scheme and the NDIS have enjoyed general popular support, even among coalition voters, and even if, at times, conservative politicians have had their fingers burnt trying to reduce their scope. A party aspiring to be the natural party of government should do more than claim credit for such innovations but should nurture and develop them. It should also be looking to make other coordinated federal and federal-state activities great institutions of Australian service. Whether in aged care, disability care and childcare, Australians deserve coordinated well-managed programs better known for the services they provide than for their cost.
A party of long-term government should also be a provider of good government, even when it is marking time. Personally, I am inclined to believe that virtually any government should be hurled out after two or three terms, if only because it has by then run out of ideas and pure motives. The only caveat on that involves continuing doubts about whether non-government forces could form a reasonably competent government by then. But no one would write about Labor’s record for management, efficiency, accountability, and open and transparent government. If Albanese, one of the worst offenders in this administration, means to hang around for a while, or means his party to stay long on the Treasury benches, he ought to be improving their game. He could start with his 2022 election promises about an effective ICAC-style body. The present one was deliberately neutered. He could show an example with government secrecy, and public consultation. He could extend and improve, and make more independent, some of the traditional watchdogs, particularly with audit and freedom-of-information functions, and protection of human rights, not least from cops, spooks and the immigration militia. A future Labor party might depend on processes and procedures to retain power. An honest government is what’s needed.
Republished from The Canberra Times
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.