Can Anthony Albanese credibly claim to be a successor of Whitlam?

From AUKUS to government secrecy, politics to policy, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues he is closer to Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison than Gough Whitlam Paul Begley.

For reasons best known to him, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave a keynote speech last month. speech At the launch of the new biography of Gough Whitlam by Troy Bramston. The author has also written biographies of Paul Keating, Robert Menzies and Bob Hawke, and worked as a speechwriter and advisor to Kevin Rudd when he was prime minister.

So, from one perspective, at least Bramston’s working life can be said to embody the catholicity of political perspectives. It could even be described as bipartisan, and there are few things in the Albanian political canon more admirable than being seen as bipartisan.

However, Bramston has worked as a columnist and editor at Murdoch’s News Corporation newspaper, The Australian, for the last 15 years.

For decades News Corp has been a fierce opponent of successive Australian Labor Governments and particularly the Whitlam Government; So much so that journalists working there in 1975 went on strike In response to Whitlam’s crooked newsroom campaign that brought him down at the election.

“Made in his image”?

Much of Albanese’s book launch speech seemed counterintuitive, with his reference to Whitlam’s visionary qualities as well as “the personal forces that shaped his character”. Most intriguingly, Albanese referred to “accounts of Cabinet and Caucus (which) make it clear that the Whitlam Government, more than any other Government in Australian history, was made in the image of its leader.”

The surprise here was not Albanese’s observation that the Whitlam Government was created in his image; It was this idea that Albanese praised in conjunction with Whitlam’s personal character as a far-sighted leader, and who, as Whitlam’s successor, now dared to bask in the reflected glory of his position, which marked his own character in the Caucus and Cabinet.

This raises the question of whether the Albanian is content to see himself serving as first among equals in the Cabinet and Caucus, or whether he is in the process of forming the current government in his own image.

Although Whitlam’s entire vision failed in his bold nation-building attempt with Rex Connor to nationalize Australia’s resource sector, he did succeed, among other things, in creating a universal healthcare system that has survived for half a century since its founding.

His government also introduced free higher education and no-fault divorce, withdrew Australian troops from America’s Vietnam War, and took the initiative in establishing closer diplomatic relations with China.

Whitlam saw himself painting on a large canvas. Every brushstroke was bold, and no stroke seemed too big a risk to take.

Contrast with Whitlam’s dazzling appearance

Although the Albanian Government has become increasingly obsessed with the image of its leader, the difference between it and the Whitlam Government of 50 years ago could not be more glaring.

Albanese came to power in 2022 with a risk-free small-target strategy marked by timidity and hesitation on all fronts. The risks during this election were borne by the Greens and Teal Independents. They single-handedly discredited the then Morrison Government’s record on energy policy, gender equality and corruption in government, and their voter preferences were crucial in boosting Labour’s lackluster primary vote and ensuring Albanians won the government.

In a public demonstration of the forces shaping Albanese’s character by 2022, as soon as he took office he personally reduced the independents’ staff allocation from four to one, greatly reducing their capacity to be effective.

Under pressure, he consciously created a toothless anti-corruption structure; He sidelined Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and adopted a relentless and open base of attack at the expense of the Greens, ensuring that Labor’s decisions on fossil fuel approvals conformed as much as possible to the ideological perspectives of the Coalition and News Corp.

About refugees

When the Supreme Court ruled in November 2023 that the detention of refugees was unlawful, rather than welcoming the decision on humanitarian and legal grounds, Albanese overturned the decision of Solicitor General Mark Dreyfus, who had defended the Supreme Court.

and instead joined forces with the Coalition and News Corp

By passing draconian little laws that confirm the view that refugees are a special breed of criminal who will never serve enough time for the crime of being a refugee.

At a time when a modicum of political leadership is needed to support Australia’s most respected legal institution, Albanese has shown himself to be a follower of the likes of Scott Morrison and Pauline Hanson rather than a leader representing Labor values.

On Palestine

In June 2024, Labor senator Fatima Payman called on the government to implement Labor policy by recognizing the state of Palestine. His issue triggered a hissy fit in Albania and he was quickly expelled from the Caucus. By then the Cabinet had adopted a cowardly approach to Israel’s response to the atrocities of October 2023; It was a response that John Howard correctly described as ‘cowardice’.

Albanese Foreign Minister Penny Wong has routinely made platitudes for Israel to exercise “restraint” over Gaza being reduced to rubble and thousands of Palestinian civilians burned in bombing raids or deprived of food during so-called “wars” in which only one side dies and suffers significant casualties.

The Albanese government continued to allow F-35 aircraft parts to be sold to Israel’s bloodbath machine, the foreign secretary allowed the Israeli Ambassador to remain unchallenged in his post and suddenly appointed Jillian Segal as a special ‘antisemitism’ envoy on a salary of $400,000.

Segal’s misstep

It was soon revealed that the envoy’s immediate family was funding Advance, the far-right opponent of Albanese’s Labor government. It also emerged that Segal’s initial allegiance was to Netanyahu’s state of Israel, and that he equated antisemitism with any criticism of Israel, which was later condemned by the International Criminal Court as a state led by war criminals.

To further prove the absurdity of this appointment, in February 2025 the prime minister once again overruled his attorney general by hastily passing legislation that included a mandatory minimum sentence clause against hate speech.

all to appease the insatiable pro-Israel lobby.

Recently the Albanian Government has been trying to: enact legislation The move, which makes freedom of information requests more expensive and difficult, adds another degree of difficulty to anyone seeking evidence that his government is delivering the transparency it promised after the trademark secrecy of the Morrison years.

Channeling Scomo in AUKUS

This was further highlighted by Albanese’s determination to firmly establish himself in Donald Trump’s mind as another sycophant by handing the schoolyard bully an $800 million cash gift and a first-in-America ‘deal’ on critical minerals during his visit to Washington in October.

These were just sweeteners on top of Scott Morrison’s $368 billion AUKUS gift to Australia, which vastly increased the coffers of the US military machine, which has no guarantees.

At a time when Trump, like his predecessors, was keen to ensure that US wars were not fought on the North American mainland, Albanese rejected such a move and joined the Coalition. Investigation into AUKUS.

Such a review could look at policy from perspectives such as the loss of Australian sovereignty, the possibility of a reasonable return on investment, and the risk of making Australia a nuclear target for America’s growing number of enemies.

Apart from snubs on important political issues such as Australia’s sovereignty and government transparency, other “forces” that “shaped the character” of the Albanian were curious personal decisions that publicly showcased where he came from, or more likely, where he wished he had come from. Two examples may be sufficient.

Qantas and Copacabana

It was reported that Albanese sought independent membership in the Qantas Presidential Hall as soon as he took office in 2022 and was granted this membership. for his young son Nathan and his fiancée Jodie Haydon. An award usually given to captains of industry at the discretion of the then Qantas CEO, it was a revealing wish come true for the newly inaugurated Labor Prime Minister who would rather be the poor son of a single mother.

Prime Minister and his fiancee in October 2024 Bought a clifftop house in Copacabana for $4.3 million It overlooks the Pacific Ocean on the central coast of NSW. While there is nothing wrong with a couple buying a home to live in after their planned marriage, the timing of the purchase by a Labor Prime Minister coincided with his government trying to deal with a national crisis over housing availability and affordability six months before the election, and raised controversial and unanswered questions about the policy of negative guidance depending on how the sale was financially arranged.

Unattributed statements from Labor colleagues It has been suggested that many in the media were astonished and appalled by his untimely “extravagance”.

“The images are diabolical,” said former Liberal Party strategist Tony Barry, who likened it to Prime Minister Morrison’s secret Hawaiian holiday during the national bushfires. Barry added: “One of the golden rules of leadership is that you can’t do everything you want to do. Like holidays abroad, like selling investment property, like buying gorgeous seaside real estate.”

liberal optics

If these were rules specific to Labor leaders, Albanese no longer seems to care whether voters see him as a Labor leader who promises to “leave no one behind”. As the ABC’s Annabel Crabb observed, around the time he bought Copacabana, Liberal Party rival Peter Dutton was allowed to vacate his multi-million dollar penthouse in Brisbane without facing negative media commentary.

If Albanese was demanding to be judged by the standard by which Liberal Party politicians are judged, was it because he saw his new office as prime minister as allowing him to be pardoned for his personal excesses, as the Liberals often appear to be?

It is with good reason that Labor leaders have long been held to higher standards in matters of personal enrichment. Albanese may have opted to be among the “left behind” in his younger days to take office, but his ongoing actions in the present increasingly seem to display a satisfaction with catch-up.

Culture of tolerance. To expose wrongdoings or to protect wrongdoers?

Margaret Thatcher was once asked what her greatest legacy as a Conservative Prime Minister was. His answer was Tony Blair. Scott Morrison may never be asked that question, but if he were, after a corporate career tainted by an unrelenting appetite for secrecy, as the political architect of AUKUS, Robodebt and many ministries, Morrison might well nominate Anthony Albanese as his greatest legacy.