John Menadue is absolutely right to point to regrettable omissions in Prime Minister Albanese’s 10 June speech at the National Press Club – its failure to say anything about reinvigorating a needy Australian democracy.

And that’s not all that’s missing.

While Putin and Netanyahu continue to demonstrate the existential threats they pose to other countries and the AUKUS farce further frays at its edges, Albanese’s speech contains nothing about foreign affairs and defence policy, save for a couple of words on strengthening “defence capability”.

Meanwhile, the government seems only to be able to urge restraint about Israel’s egregious attack on Iran. Such futile gestures won’t cut much ice here though as Netanyahu’s pursuit of pre-emptive wars in the Middle East lays the ground for more intense forever conflict in that region and elsewhere.

Albanese’s speech also had nothing to say about mitigating the cruel disadvantages of the “traditional owners of the land”. Perhaps the prime minister’s inept part in the failure of The Voice referendum is now steering him away from what should be a prime concern for his government.

But apart from what Albanese’s speech doesn’t say, there’s scope for bemusement and uncertainty about what it does.

If he had intended to set out a convincing, comprehensive picture about what he intends for the federal government after his electoral heroics, his Press Club speech doesn’t do that.

Unlike some of his ALP predecessors, Whitlam in particular, but also Hawke and Keating, Albanese isn’t a big picture bloke or, at least, he can’t paint one. While he talks airily about “Australian values” which the government is going to “uphold and fulfil”, their specification reduces to babble about “fairness and aspiration” and something he calls “progressive patriotism”.

And what Albanese does say is smothered in a stupefying array of platitudes – “real and positive difference”, “building for the future”, “delivers on vision”, “enriches our human potential”, a “sense of choice and agency”, “drive progress”, “rise to meet new challenges”, “build big”, “focused dialogue”, “seize the economic opportunities” and, of course, “face global challenges in the Australian way” whatever that may be. It’s hard to know whether this unhelpful waffle is all the prime minister’s work or comes from AI or is the work of the dozens of “media advisers” in his office. When Albo gets home in the evening, would he say to Jodie that he spent the day driving progress to build big through focused dialogue? For her sake, it’s to be hoped not.

After listing some good things his government has done and intends to do, Albanese’s speech turns to the question of productivity in which Australia’s recent performance has been worse than ordinary. It’s a good thing to land on for as the economist Paul Krugman has said, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.”

In his less eloquent way, Albanese says, “Our plan for economic growth and productivity is about Australians earning more and keeping more of what they earn.”

With a foundation like that, it’s as well that Albanese has asked his Treasurer to convene “a roundtable to support and shape our government’s growth and productivity agenda”. The first item on the table’s agenda might be to redefine what his “plan” should be about.

There seems to be plenty of time for that, as there’s no timetable or palpable sense of urgency about the roundtable. And why bother in any event? A gabfest is more likely to provide a venue for various interest groups to rave about what should not be done – remember the fate of Hawke’s tax summit in the 1980s? It didn’t get participants “on the cart”; they smashed it up. There’s a smorgasbord of ideas around about how to improve productivity and the government should just get on with it, and as early as possible in its present term, while the going is good. It won’t get any better than now.

Further, Albanese should be tuning up the condition of democratic government and administration. He should begin with Menadue’s big list of suggestions, beginning with the working of the Parliament. The Question Time charade should be binned by banning Dorothy Dixer questions so that a fundamental part of democratic accountability can work as it is supposed to.

The government should also make a more concerted attempt to fix up the public service by:

• addressing the systemic problems that prevented frank, comprehensive and honesty advice on Robodebt;
• depoliticising appointments to statutory positions;
• reducing confusion in the machinery of government and the bloated nature of departmental top structures;
• legislating to prevent repeat abuses of merit staffing in the use of consultants and contractors; and
• adopting a rational remuneration policy for staff.

Menadue’s suggestions for a legislated code of conduct for ministerial staff and tighter control of their numbers, as well as legislation for regulating conflicts of interest in the post-separation employment of officials (where effective procedures have long since been allowed to wither leaving only the stench of suspicion), should be irresistible.

When Dr Glyn Davis recently resigned as secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, he wrote to his “colleagues” talking about “an essential pivot for the Australian Public Service from capability and integrity to service innovation and delivery". That’s ridiculous. Ministers and officials need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, to borrow a sanitised version of a quip by US President Lyndon Johnson.

And so must the prime minister, for if he hasn’t got the Parliament and his administration in the best possible shape, citizens might find that his “progressive patriotism” is not all it’s cracked up to be.

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