Anthony Albanese's government is in its fifth year, and the people who run it have a problem. They're not worried about the cost of fuel or the interest rates squeezing households. They're worried about how they look. According to a column by Jacob Greber, political editor of ABC's 7.30 program, "politics is an image game" and the government "needs to find better visuals." Earnest speeches, Greber wrote, aren't helping.
Who Has the Power
Many ministers have been in their portfolios since 2019, seven years in the same seats. "As this columnist noted in February, some of Labor's frontbench is starting to look tired," Greber wrote. "Nearly eight months on and that hasn't changed. Too many are carrying baggage. Punters have tired of them. Their lines resonate a little less each day." He listed "the notion that cabinet stability is an unquestionable virtue" among the "slightly whiffy items of the government's thus-far successful operating model."
The column opens with a 2015 photograph of then-prime minister Tony Abbott and treasurer Joe Hockey, taken on the eve of that year's budget. Abbott puts a "pastoral hand" on Hockey's bare forearm. Greber described Hockey as looking "miserable. Forlorn. Like a man beaten." The picture was meant to show unity. It produced snickering. That came 12 months after the 2014 budget, one of the least popular in history, built on broken-promise spending cuts. Hockey had declared an end to the "age of entitlement," then shelved his ambitions for big reform. Four months after the photo, both men were gone, rolled by Malcolm Turnbull, who cited Abbott's 30 straight NewsPolls lost to Labor.
What They're Calling Scrutiny
On Wednesday, a day of bleak economic news with rising inflation and interest rate worries, the opposition used Question Time to ask when Albanese plans to replace Jim Chalmers with cabinet secretary Andrew Charlton. Greber called it "a political shit stir, designed to highlight the bad blood between the prime minister and treasurer."
Albanese answered with praise. "This treasurer produced back-to-back surpluses," he said. "This treasurer returned 75 per cent of revenue upgrades to the bottom line. He's one of only nine treasurers of finance ministers around the world to have a AAA credit rating from all of the agencies." Chalmers sat listening with the air of a man "who wasn't entirely over the moon about the praise," Greber wrote. One Labor observer put it more bluntly: "If Jim could have flipped Albanese the bird in the middle of it, he would have."
The knives are out behind the scenes too. On Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald cited "government sources" casting Chalmers as victim rather than villain. They said his push for spending discipline was obstructed by the prime minister's razor gang before the May budget, and undermined by an inner cabal of "spendy left-faction ministers" led by Katie Gallagher, Mark Butler, Penny Wong and Tim Ayres. Anonymous sources, unnamed motives, one more leak in a factional blame game.
Who Gets Crushed
Next week, a fifth Reserve Bank rate hike this year looks likely on Tuesday. Albanese will be in the Caribbean for a Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting, leaving Chalmers "to face the music." Households facing the repayments don't get a flight out.
On the war against Iran, Greber wrote it isn't clear voters are as forgiving as they were in March, April and May, when the government scrambled to secure fuel supplies and voters blamed Donald Trump. The mood in polls and social media now has voters blaming the government for rising transport costs. Meanwhile, Greber noted, the backbench is full of talent, some of whom are "reduced to nodding for the Question Time camera."
People are paying more to get to work and keep the lights on. Their rulers are asking whether their photographs are flattering enough. Greber's own conclusion carries the whole story: "It might be time for some better visuals."
- anthony albanese
- jim chalmers
- albanese government
- cabinet stability
- question time
- australian politics
- reserve bank
- tony abbott