Arguably, the three most important political events of Anthony Albanese’s first term happened elsewhere. The first two, in fact, happened before he was prime minister.
First, the outbreak of COVID caused both governments and households (eventually) to spend, at a time when supply chains were in chaos. Second, Russia invaded Ukraine. Inflation then rose around the world, hurting Labor in the polls: for about two years, its vote declined. Then inflation began to ease, in time for the election.
The third occurred late in Labor’s first term: just before the election, Donald Trump imposed himself on global politics with a strange meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and the announcement of tariffs – underlining the importance of stability and the appeal of an Australian government utterly unlike Trump’s.
So it was interesting last week to watch as two of those events found echoes. There is talk – again – of an escalation of Trump’s war against Iran, with all its drastic inflationary potential. Meanwhile, Trump repeated his tariff trick, hiking costs for many countries, including Australia.
Domestically, most eyes were trained instead on Labor’s national conference.
At first glance, we learnt little. After four years in government, Labor remains united – extremely. Discipline – for better or worse – is at an all-time high. And, not unrelatedly, the prime minister is absolutely dominant: nothing happened at conference, nothing was allowed to happen, that would displease him.
His widely reported acknowledgment that the economy is not working for people, that this “goes deeper than sentiment, it’s a reality people are up against”, was only a rephrase of his recent line that this is “not just a vague feeling – it’s a reality”. And his foreshadowing of more cost of living help just confirmed what we have been told since the budget.
There’s nothing wrong with this. Repetition is the great necessity of political communication.
But there were also three new pieces of information. Because the Labor Party as a whole is now almost as quiet as caucus, it makes sense that this new information came from the only place it really could: the prime minister himself.
It’s worth comparing Albanese’s last speech to the ALP national conference in 2023 with Thursday’s speech. In 2023, there was a section devoted to the Liberals – then a section devoted to the “Greens Political Party”, which he said didn’t want to solve problems.
In 2026, the “Liberals” were barely mentioned, except when lumped in with One Nation and the Nationals. They have become part of a broad group called “our opponents”. The Greens, meanwhile, have vanished entirely. Now, it is One Nation that is not interested in solutions. And there were other sections clearly about One Nation, including an attack on the idea of a “monoculture”.
This tells you how seriously Labor is taking the threat of One Nation. And not just electorally, but as a battering ram for a particular view of Australia: one founded in racism and nostalgia. It tells you, too, that Labor has decided not to ignore that threat – often the choice that politicians make when faced with populist sentiment – but to face it directly, making arguments in the public sphere.
This recognition of One Nation’s threat is clearly driving the second interesting thing. In the past two months, Albanese’s rhetoric has sharpened on the failures of the economic system. In his speech, he rejected “the failed ideology which said it was smart and rational to cut TAFE, close our refineries and send manufacturing jobs offshore”. In his reference to “rational”, Albanese is clearly rejecting the broader economic approach of past decades – “economic rationalism”.
A similar theme can be observed in the way Albanese now wields Labor history. In his recent AI speech, he contrasted Labor’s establishment of Medicare in the ’80s with the “economic rationalism” of Thatcher and Reagan. On Thursday, he spoke of Labor’s founders facing “unfairness in the workplace, inequality in society and structural problems in the economy”. He was speaking of the past, but with clear implications for the present. That reference to “structural problems” is significant: an implicit acknowledgment that large changes are now needed.
Finally, while Albanese still refers to working for “all Australians”, he spoke of those who rely on wages as “the people our party was created to serve”, who deserve better pay, lower taxes and affordable homes. He matched this rhetoric by announcing a Fair Work court.
The third observation also lies in the contrast with 2023. Then, Albanese dwelt on the difference between opposition and government: the still novel opportunity that governing provided Labor. This year’s speech was endowed instead with a sense of being in the middle of a project. Attacks on the Liberals’ record in government were now largely absent.
The benefit of being in the middle of a project is that you have a clearer sense of what that project is. The downside is more or less the same: you have chosen your path and it is your responsibility.
As the conference concluded, Albanese declared it had been “purposeful and united”. The value of that unity is up for debate: former Labor cabinet minister, now backbencher, Ed Husic spent his time at conference making clear he thinks conformity without real debate is a weakness.
But it is the other part of Albanese’s formulation – “purposeful” – that may determine whether Husic ultimately looks prescient or merely negative.
Union luminary Bill Kelty last week spoke of Australia’s various long-run – one might say “structural” – economic problems: “It is easy to blame the governments of the past and present but ultimately we are all to blame. Something is wrong with this place and we need to do something about it.”
Whether Kelty is correct, he has captured the mood. And right now, international factors may be about to make the economic situation in Australia feel even grimmer. The challenge of a second term is that voters have lost interest in a government blaming others. Instead, they pose Kelty’s question to whoever is in government: What are you going to do about it?
The really worrying fact for Labor should be that sometimes international circumstances can mean there is no good answer.
Sean Kelly is a regular columnist and a former adviser to Labor prime ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.
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Sean Kelly is author of The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.Connect via X.From our partners
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