Since the Bondi massacre, Anthony Albanese has confessed to confidants that he has been shocked, wounded even, by the harsh criticism he has received from his political opponents. John Howard castigated the prime minister for lacking moral leadership two days after the attack; Josh Frydenberg told him to give the job to someone else if he didn’t want to do it; Sussan Ley demanded he recall parliament early.
Albanese’s frustration, kept mostly private until now, bubbled over during the first question time of the year as the opposition repeatedly pressed him to apologise to the Jewish community and accept personal responsibility for the attack. After a month in a defensive crouch, denied the bipartisanship he felt he deserved, Albanese decided now was the time to fight back.
“When Port Arthur happened, the parliament came together – no one saw that as a political opportunity,” Albanese said on Tuesday.
“When the Bali bombings occurred, people did not see that as an opportunity for politics; people saw that as the need for the national interest to be put first.
“I am devastated, as all Australians are, at what has occurred. I am sad that every government has not done better on antisemitism, including mine. What I won’t say though, is that antisemitism began when my government was elected.”
The circumstances leading up to Bondi, of course, are different to past atrocities (Port Arthur, for example, was a mass shooting but not a terror attack). And it is not only the Coalition that has been critical of Albanese. Victims’ relatives and survivors have expressed anger at his government, and polls show the Australian public at large has been underwhelmed by his response to the attack.
Pointing out that Coalition politicians warned about rising antisemitism in 2018, as Albanese did on Tuesday, is unlikely to persuade them otherwise. He would also have been well advised to avoid attacking the Morrison government for failing to appoint a special envoy for antisemitism before the October 7 attacks, a charge that felt like an unconvincing attempt to deflect criticism of his own government.
Asked repeatedly to say sorry, the prime minister accepted Ley’s challenge – albeit not in the fulsome way the opposition leader was demanding. Apologising for taking 25 days to call a royal commission was a step too far.
“I repeat that I am sorry that this occurred, and occurred on my watch. As prime minister, something I’ve said consistently, privately, publicly,” Albanese said.
In response to another question, he replied: “As I have said, I am sorry that this occurred, sorry for the grief and pain the Jewish community in our entire nation have experienced. Our responsibility is to turn that grief, pain and anger into meaningful action.”
On this score – meaningful action – Albanese ended the two-day emergency sitting of parliament satisfied he had achieved most of what the government wanted. And pleased he had opened up new lines of attack against his opponents on the right and left.
Albanese bowed to reality over the weekend by conceding he would need to split his sweeping omnibus bill into two and drop a controversial new racial vilification hate speech offence from the legislation. The past two days of parliament have vindicated that approach, even though demands from the Labor caucus and crossbench for new anti-vilification laws will continue beyond this week.
The government’s gun control measures passed with the support of the Greens, meaning non-citizens will no longer be able to legally own firearms. Albanese will be able to berate the opposition for voting against these measures, which are overwhelmingly popular with the public.
As for the new hate speech laws, designed to crack down on extremist groups and radical preachers, the Liberal Party backed them after securing some tweaks to the legislation. The Coalition’s failure to reach a unified position on the bill, with the Nationals abstaining from voting in the House, highlighted the divisions plaguing the opposition, which feels spooked by the surging popularity of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
As for the excision of the racial vilification clause, Albanese can blame his conservative opponents and (accurately) accuse them of hypocrisy for opposing a key recommendation of Jillian Segal’s report on antisemitism after insisting it be implemented in full. And he can accuse the Greens of failing to take national security seriously.
The aftermath of Bondi has been a searing experience for Albanese, who appeared rattled by the tragedy, took too long to call a royal commission and overplayed his hand by trying to rush an overstuffed omnibus bill through parliament.
By contrast, this week has showcased his pragmatism, negotiating skills and command of parliamentary process. He practised the art of the possible and stabilised his footing, opening an opportunity to move onto more favourable political ground in the weeks ahead.
Source: IrreverentSunny
7 Comments
It’s amazing to me that journalists still refer to the bundling of the bills as a stumble, or overplaying his hand. I think by now it’s pretty clear that it was a calculated move where he knew he had a strong chance of having to split them (chances of Libs voting through gun laws or Greens voting through hate speech laws was fairly low) but it would wedge the Libs and cause chaos for them in a timeline where they had no time to work around conflicts. Obviously once he saw that the hate speech laws were wedging the Coalition too (don’t know if anyone predicted that, given Sussan called for it for a month) he couldn’t WAIT to split those bills and throw two separate bombs at the Coalition.
Literally nobody is going to remember the ‘backflip’ of splitting the bills, everyone is going to remember the division that the Coalition displayed
*Even* if you ignore the ugly morality of politicising a national tragedy, and *even* if it didn’t end up blowing up in the Liberal’s face in spectacular fashion, it was *still* a terrible idea for them to act they way they did.
THE number 1 issue the Liberals face is that nobody really takes them seriously or trusts them on their word. Every opportunity they get to act sensibly, they embrace reactionary stupidity. It’s why moderates abandoned them; not just because they became more conservative, moderates stayed around under Howard, but because they barely pretended to be a serious political project anymore. It’s never ending reactionary brain farts pandering to the Sky News audience.
This tragedy was a good opportunity for them to try to break, or at least reduce, that well earned reputation of idiocy. If they’d stayed calm, clearly demonstrated bipartisanship, and had measured but coherent criticism of the government, they could’ve rebuilt some lost goodwill, NOT have it blow up in their face, all whilst still getting in some political wins.
But no. The only strategy they know is the Abbott method; oppose literally anything and everything, and hope the reputational damage done is worse for your opponents than for yourselves. Quick easy wins to boost polling, never building a real alternative vision to sell.
It was a great strategy against a chaotic government filled with people paranoid about bad polling and unstable leadership. It’s a horrific strategy against a highly stable government, led by a man with uncontested control over it, who based his leadership style off of mostly ignoring polling and the screeching of the opposition, and just holding your nerve and just getting on with the job. The last election was proof of it, hence the obliteration.
Following Australian politics lately is like watching a cartoon. You know Albo is going to come out on top and the LNP is going to crash out, and the interesting thing to watch is how
There is no place for extremism or violence in this country, and it was truly shocking to see just how exploitative many of our political parties and media have been with this national tragedy.
Conversely, Albanese should be commended for his gracious response and most of his actionable policies. It is crazy just how effective he is at politicking. He doesn’t nearly get the credit he deserves.
The issue for Albanese is that they have very obviously and deliberately turned a blind eye to the Palestine gate marches that were being conducted every week in pretty much every cbd.
These rallies were exceptionally anti semitic and it gave Carte Blanche to the worst elements of Islamist extremism.
Labor were warned repeatedly this was happening.
That fucking bridge walk where they flying Isis flags and pictures of Khamenei whilst clover Moore, labor MPs and every other shit lib celebrity marched with them.
They ignored every one of the warning signs.
Did Howard enable the events that led to Port Arthur? How the fuck could an event in Bali be blamed on whoever was in charge in Australia at the time.
Labor for political reasons have ignored the Islamist threat and downplayed it at every turn.
That’s why he’s being blamed and it’s perfectly valid reason to blame him for it.
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This will probably be the closest we get to the media acknowledging how well Albo maneuvered through the last few weeks. It’s a shame, because I’ve been really impressed by it; it was a masterclass in using political strategy & parliamentary procedure to crack the Coalition with one blow, sideline the Greens & One Nation, and defuse much of the external criticism over his response to the Bondi shootings. The fact that it also leveraged an old political divide over hate speech legislation from the Morrison days was another element that not many seem to have picked up. I think Albo is going to be a really fascinating PM to view in retrospect, precisely for moments like this where his ability to control the tempo of a political issue while appearing to be on the back foot is on display.