Next month marks Anthony Albanese’s second anniversary as Prime Minister. The Mocker took the liberty of writing his speech for the occasion. -
Two years ago I stood before a cheering crowd at the Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL Club in Sydney, where I claimed victory for Labor. “I’ve been underestimated my whole life,” I triumphantly proclaimed.
That was true. But reflecting on my government’s many failings during the last two years, particularly the rising cost of living and the inability to protect this country from both external and internal threats, I’ve reluctantly reached a conclusion. And that is I’ve over-estimated myself for my whole political life.
I promised on election night that I would seek “common purpose and promote unity” and “not fear and division”. For good measure I also added: “It is what I have sought to do throughout my political life”. But the truth is I have long revelled in conflict, division, and petty sniping. That is my nature.
I have presented many faces to the public, a practice otherwise known as telling the audience what they want to hear. Two months before the 2022 election, I gave an interview to The Daily Telegraph, claiming Labor was “the party of mainstream Australia”. I made a big show of distancing myself from the Greens, saying I was pro-business and would implement economically “realistic” policies.
That was a façade. I knew it was a façade. You knew it was a façade. Only ten years before I had, as a cabinet minister in the Gillard government, tearfully lamented that the upheaval in Labor’s leadership was distracting me from my core business of class warfare.
“I like fighting Tories,” I said. “It’s what I do.”
That was one of the rare occasions the public got to see an upfront Anthony Albanese. I was a teenager when I embraced far-left politics, and I’ve never relinquished the ideology of envy and antagonism. I define myself not by what I’m for but what I’m against.
As for my love of fighting, that needs qualifying. I’m big on shrill denunciations while pointing the finger at the other side. I’ll posture for the camera and yell exhortations like “smash her”, when a member of the Opposition speaks. It’s all theatre, though. In short, I’m a piss and wind warrior. “I won’t run and hide from responsibility,” I said in a pre-election speech. “I won’t go missing when the going gets tough.” It’s just my ticker that will go missing, I should have added. They were just a couple of the many promises and assurances I have given over the last few years, all of which were about as believable as a bedtime fairy tale. I told the Australian public on the eve of the election: “Labor will be every bit as strong in defending Australian values against any push by China or any nation trying to undermine them”. So what did I do when a Chinese warship deliberately used its sonar to injure our naval divers? I kept that under wraps until I finished my pre-departure press conference at San Francisco, so the media couldn’t ask me if I’d raised this incident with President Xi Jinping during our APEC summit meeting .
I’m forever telling everyone that my government is “keeping Australians safe,” yet I refuse to call out the growing number of Islamic extremists in this country. I’m paralysed by the thought of losing safe Labor seats in Western Sydney. Every aspect of our foreign policy concerning the Middle East is assessed according to that narrow consideration.
My government even refused a modest request by the US to send a warship into the Red Sea as part of a global effort to protect shipping lanes from Houthi rebel attacks. Do you know who praised us for that decision? China’s state-owned media, that’s who. “It is sensible for Australia to continue distancing itself from the US”, said the Global Times. That says it all.
I know that Jews throughout the Western world, including those in Australia, increasingly fear for their safety. One reason for that here is my government offers only token support for them, because we are more worried about offending Muslim voters.
Take for example my reaction to the disgraceful protests outside the Sydney Opera House just days after the horrific atrocities of October 7. Asked at a press conference about that ugly demonstration, I resorted to false equivalence. “I’m concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism,” I said. “I’m concerned as well about Islamophobia, which has impacted in this country as well,” I added. To put that in context, many of Western Sydney’s Middle Eastern residents had only hours before taken to the streets to celebrate the biggest mass murder of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust, and there I was waving the anti-Islamophobia finger.
Just before the election I promised the business community that my party was no threat to their members. “Labor will be a friend of business,” I cooed. “You can only be a friend of the worker if you’re also a friend of business.” That was yet another case of Al-bunkum. As Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black observed in February, our industrial relations ‘reforms’ would “[take] workplaces back to the 1970s where unions brought Australia to a grinding halt” and drive up the cost of living.
As for my commitment to protecting Australia’s borders, that’s also a farce. As of April, three boatloads of illegal maritime arrivals had reached the mainland. Fear not, I said, our commitment to maintaining Operation Sovereign Borders has not changed. Just like I insisted repeatedly that we would honour our promise to implement the Morrison government’s Stage 3 tax cuts. “My word is my bond,” I would say. “Our position has not changed.” And I continued these reassurances and denials right up until the moment I announced we had reneged on our commitment.
So much for my election campaign launch declaration when I said: “I can promise you I’ll always tell it straight.”
I wasn’t being straight with you when I said that day that the average household power bill would fall by $275 under a Labor government. I wasn’t being straight with you when I said there would be no changes to taxes on superannuation. I wasn’t being straight with you when I told you I would commission a full inquiry into the nation’s response to the pandemic. And I wasn’t being straight with you when I insisted that the proposed Indigenous voice to parliament – which would have meant entrenching a racially based activist group in our constitution – would function merely as an “advisory body”.
As I mentioned, I said I wanted to emulate Hawke and Keating. Like them or loathe them, you knew who was running the country when they held the top job. Now commentators mention those two in conjunction with my name only to demonstrate the jarring contrast between their cabinets and mine. I’m Prime Minister in name only. ‘I’m way out of my depth’ doesn’t begin to describe it. I’m a political midget trying to straddle the Mariana Trench.
If I remain in this position, I have three prospects. First, I could be the first Prime Minister in nearly 100 years to lead a first-term government to defeat. Second, I could be rolled by my own party before the next election. Third, I could end up with a hung parliament next year. I’d have to share a podium with Greens leader Adam Bandt, and everyone would know who was wearing the trousers.
I cannot face any of those possibilities. Accordingly, I have formally advised the Governor-General that I will step down as Prime Minister today.
On a brighter note, this just happens to be the date I qualify for an indexed prime ministerial pension of around $400K a year. Not a bad little earner to supplement an already lucrative property portfolio. You didn’t expect me to fight the Tories for free, surely? THE MOCKER
