The cage fight that passes for political debate in the Australian parliament is drawing to an unedifying close for the year. The Dutton-led opposition has rushed to exploit every fear and panic, and heads to the summer break convinced it has the Albanese government ready to yield.
The opposition leader does not baulk at using the sort of post-truth politics employed by Donald Trump in the United States, where reality is not the touchstone but political advantage is. Any distortion to stir fears and resentments is utilised.
Anthony Albanese could end up being a one-term prime minister if he can’t keep the faith with the young people who helped him to last year’s decisive election victory. Recent surveys suggest a cocktail of pandemic-related stresses is forging a generation of financially aware, politically engaged and resilient young people.
Albanese has never been prone to theory or regarded as particularly bookish, which isn’t to say he is not clever or canny. His dogged, prosaic government perhaps reflects the desire of Australians to draw a line under a long era of hyper-partisan Canberra conflict.
Several developments recently have made it obvious that politics has become a most unedifying race to the bottom. Facts and evidence are usually ignored in favour of emotive, baseless assertions, and truth and morality are clear casualties.
As this term of government rapidly nears its halfway mark, the Coalition is convinced it has a greater chance of victory at the next election than it dared imagine over the past 18 months.
Why does so much feel like it’s going wrong, all at the same time? Why do so many of us feel this sense of impending doom? According to experts, we are living through a ‘polycrisis’, a tangled mess of multiple crises, all happening at once.
Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong got the fruits for Australia from 18 months of serious, grown-up diplomatic work together on the critically important Australia–China relationship. This is a credit to Albanese and Wong personally and a reassuring reflection on the capabilities of DFAT.
Australia is in the enviable position of not having to choose between the US and China. We can and should have effective relationships with each, both to our benefit and to the global benefit.
Peter Dutton’s weaponisation of this human disaster is a cynical caricature of the government’s response. From day one Albanese and his foreign minister, Penny Wong, have not resiled from condemning the barbarity of the Hamas slaughter of 1400 Israelis.