3d ago

Albanese's politics of patience: Democracy needs mature leadership

johnmenadue.com Albanese's politics of patience: Democracy needs mature leadership

When the Voice referendum failed, political commentators and Opposition leaders demanded an immediate response from Anthony Albanese.

An interesting take on Albo's leadership.

I would tend to think he has been over cautious since the referendum, glacial movement on the middle east and a failure to so anything meaningful on housing.

Maybe slow and cautious is the way we get real reform. Infuriating but effective?

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23 comments

All the things people are saying he needs to be bold and aggressive on, Labor has done so in the past and it's lost them election.
The fact is we're all too immersed in the American social media ecosystem and so we expect bold action to solve American problems that would only be vote-winners in a non-compulsory voting system where elections are fought on turnout (usually as a centrist vs. nutjobs race). Albanese knows the Australian political system well, that being that nobody really cares about politics here and if Labor wants to win they need to stay out of the press because it's run by private school kids who hate him (at best).
- Putting an election before lives is pathetic.
  
  Putting lives before an elections means you lose both, if he even has sacrificed lives by being cautious.
  Cutting arms shipments to Israel would be merely symbolic and would get Albanese immediately couped like Whitlam and Rudd (if he would even be able to do it in the first place), the HAAF was meant to solve homelessness rather than housing stress and it was delayed by a few years by the Greens, and climate change requires policy maintained over multiple elections cycles to address on a domestic level.
  
  If you really don't think Albo is directly responsible for people dying, there's nothing I can say that will convince you. The shitty neoliberal system isn't a justification for inaction, it's a disgusting tumour that he's actively strengthening. You're assuming that he has to play the game, he doesn't, it's a choice. Giving him a pass on this because of a lame excuse isn't helping anyone, it's placid acceptance of objective evil.
  I'll add this one specific thing though. Albo is actively making climate change worse and ensuring that the country continues to be reliant on fossil fuels.
  
  The prime ministers that didn't play the game didn't last more than 3 years. Then we got the LNP who actually actively strengthen the neoliberal system. This whole "both sides are the same" argument needs to die, firstly because the LNP is corrupt and much more incompetent, but also because it makes the corruption and incompetence seem less bad when people say (or imply) that.
  
  Why do people think criticising Labor for entirely valid reasons is a both sides are the same argument? It isn't, it's valid and necessary. Both sides do sometimes agree on things, but it isn't me saying they're the same... I never said they are the same, I never even mentioned the LNP.
  Unwavering support for corrupt politicians needs to die because it actually does legitimise harm and makes corruption and incompetence seem less bad. You're literally trying to justify corruption because they're not the LNP.
  
  You suggest both sides are the same when you say winning is less important than acting symbolically on principle. Principles give you a coalition government. A flagrantly corrupt, shamefully incompetent government, one that will not just do nothing to stop America from owning us but actively seek that out, one that undermines the unions and willfully cheers on extinction, one that's just recently come out with the policy of scrapping net zero.
  You may suggest the Greens, but the Greens would 100% lose 9/10 elections if Labor disappeared tomorrow. And the Greens are the actual horrible people. They blocked the HAAF not to save people from homelessness, but from housing stress, because they wanted to pick up renters as a voting block. I remember Adam Bandt visibly seething in rage at having parliamentary rules explained to him, because he is a narcissist who wants everyone to know that he's a good and infallible person because he acts on his principles.
  Acting on principles is the easy thing to do, but it's also dereliction of duty as prime minister, because it gets you the job title of "former prime minister". Whitlam and Rudd acted on principle, they lasted 3 years and were proceeded by a decade of Liberals. We cannot afford another decade of Liberals.
- After all this time I'm still undecided on Rudd but I'm sympathetic to this argument. He's cautious to a fault but moves where he can and does make real progress, not always where it's most needed but where it's achievable.

23 comments