The prime minister is a political operator rather than a visionary. His inability to persuade and sustain arguments is beginning to show.

Anthony Albanese has always been a party organiser par excellence. He has never been a big picture politician.

Pushing and shoving his faction into line has long been his metier. Not articulating, as Paul Keating described the prime ministership’s essential role, “an ideal of the nation and its aspirations”.

Albanese’s prime ministership is defined predominantly by situation politics: he operates in the moment, surviving it before fleeting to the next.

The domestic political problems he now faces brings to the fore this absence of guiding beliefs about the country and what he wants to do with political power.

But if he is failing in this regard, so too did his predecessors, in varying degrees, reaching all the way back to John Howard.

Albanese’s inability to persuade and sustain his arguments with a set of values is being exposed in his handling of the Gaza crisis.

The prime minister is in a mess on this question in large part because there is no rational supportable policy in the Middle East. And he has chosen not to explain this clearly to the Australian public, or is unable to do so. So there is no coherent, effective policy: not even from the US, let alone Australia, which apart from oil prices has no realistic interest or influence in the Middle East.

Ironically, it is Albanese’s conviction on China policy that represents his government’s one genuine success.

Both  President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken continue to be ignored by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet American munitions continue to flow to Tel Aviv. This is not a policy and it does not have any vision for the future other than a pious hope that a real war between Israel and Iran does not break out. The right’s criticism that Mr Albanese represents a threat to civilisation because of his government’s nuanced diplomacy surrounding a complicated matter that does not directly affect Australia’s national interest is problematic.

And after all, there are Asian, Latin American and African countries that are deeply disparaging of Israeli policy. They tend to look at Australia as a country that is simply approving what is occurring in Gaza. Lost in much debate here is how a one-sided stance on Israel affects our relations with Indonesia and others in the global south.

The prime minister could be forgiven, then, for viewing the recent ASEAN summit in Laos as a saving grace.

With the last remaining Chinese tariff, on lobster, to soon expire,  “stabilisation” of relations with China nears completion. Ironically, it is Albanese’s conviction on China policy that represents his government’s one genuine success. Only two years ago, recall, the Australian air on China pounded with the “drums of war”. Australian foreign policy was largely being run by the intelligence agencies. It lacked guile. And some of the advisers to the Turnbull and Morrison governments imagined that Australia was the “tip of the spear” in “pushing back” against China.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been responsible for the cautious and effective articulation of this China policy, and she has done so with Albanese’s backing.

Australia has not followed Washington’s language on China, which sees the contest with Beijing primarily through the lens of a zero-sum binary, or “new Cold War”. Albanese has also taken AUKUS further than Scott Morrison, and like Julia Gillard, he has presided over a quantum leap in the American military presence in Australia. His name will forever adorn this unprecedented level of integration with the US effort to preserve its primacy in Asia, a policy which makes related debates over Australian sovereignty and policy agency virtually redundant.

Albanese has, however, struggled on domestic issues.

The handling of the Voice referendum debate was the first overt sign of his lack of political skills. It is not known whether he ever envisaged needing a co-operative opposition to generate broader support. But in declaring in his election night victory speech in May 2022 that a referendum would be held, it appears not. He lost there and then the opportunity to build a broader base of support for the proposal.

Then, Albanese campaigned on the emotive message that a “Yes” vote would make all Australians “feel better about themselves”. He ignored multiple warnings from close advisers that his framing of certain issues around the Voice was creating public confusion. But when the vote failed he declared – in an interview published on Christmas Day – that “I am not indigenous so it wasn’t a loss to me”. The statement has not received the attention it deserves. It stands as a strange, almost perverse form of self-absolution.

Privately, some officials speak sotto voce about Albanese’s patchy work ethic and his disinterest in reading briefs. Others wired closely in to the government mention his lack of authority in the cabinet, driven by a view that he is operating a Hawke-style show where ministers are allowed to carry their briefs under his wise aegis. But another theme emerges: Mr Albanese is not a leader prone to delving too deeply. His interviews and press conferences are largely the domain of padded out talking points provided by his advisers and department.

The question too is whether Albanese used his period in opposition wisely.

Bill Hayden in the late 1970s and Fraser earlier that decade used time in the political wilderness to educate themselves. Of Fraser, the former Governor General Sir Paul Hasluck once wrote “he at least is a man who believes in something and works at his beliefs”.

Mr Albanese, however, appears not to be growing into the job. But his is only the latest saga in the sorry tragedy of recent Australian politics.

Republished from FINANCIAL REVIEW, October 13, 2024 [paywall]