Airbus Albo’s Flights of Fancy

Let’s face it, all – OK, most – politicians lie. Some more than others. They do so for three main reasons: personal survival, avoidance of judgement and ‘the end justifies the means’. In this essay I’m going to concentrate on the first two.

I can envisage a situation where a politician lies to save his skin, or even to save himself embarrassment, in which a lie would be excusable. Say, for instance you are a politician who is also a closet gay and, for whatever reason, you do not wish this knowledge to become public. If your sexual preference does not adversely affect your ability to do your job then that would be justified, although it would carry the risk that you might eventually be exposed as not only gay but also a liar.

But where the lie is designed to cover, or avoid taking responsibility for, a stuff-up, that is inexcusable.

If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.

Is this one the dumbest statement Albanese has ever made?

Albo goes from strength to strength in putting together vacuous and specious pronouncements in support of his policy of allowing Crown Ministers, carte blanche, to inflict onto this nation whatever damage their fecklessness and pandering to special interest groups entails.

For example, we have him claiming that the Reserve Bank Board Governor did not say that government spending was a factor influencing inflation. We have him claiming that the process (such as it was) to issue tourist visas to people coming here from Gaza was exactly the same as when the Abbott government brought in refugees from Syria. We have numerous lies and prevarications regarding the Voice to Parliament referendum, such as that it had nothing to do with treaty, truth telling or the Uluru Statement from the Heart’s finer print.

More recently, Albo claimed that those persons employed on the maintenance of USS Hawaii while the sub is in Australia, as well as those currently training to upkeep nuclear submarines as part of the AUKUS, were examples of his Future Made in Australia policy. Admittedly, this is not strictly a lie, it’s just gilding the lily. Nonetheless, it deserves to be called out. These are people being paid by the Australian government to acquire skills necessary in the defence of this country. They are not making anything. They are not producing wealth, they are consuming it, albeit necessarily and for a good cause. By his logic, every serviceperson, indeed every public service bureaucrat, would be a part of his pie-in-the-sky dreaming.

However, one statement that has been let through to the keeper that has really got my goat relates to the Blayney gold mine fiasco. Sky News Australia reports:

Addressing reporters over the weekend, the prime minister denied responsibility for his cabinet minister’s decision and said: “The environment minister [Tanya Plibersek] is responsible.”

Mr Albanese’s comments came after The Australian revealed Regis Resources had directly warned him in June that an Indigenous heritage ruling would render the project unviable.

The prime minister has maintained intervening in Ms Plibersek’s decision would have breached legal protocols.

“The law says that the environment minister makes a decision and I don’t break the law,” Mr Albanese said.

He emphasised that responsibility for the decision lay with Ms Plibersek under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

“I don’t break the law.” Is this the dumbest statement Albanese has ever made? It’s a big call on my part, I know, but I’m voting yes. It staggers me why the journalist did not follow up, or at least attempt to, and ask, “Prime Minister, what law would that be?” Perhaps, it’s the Universal Law of Ministerial Non-Accountability. Seriously, are ministers now free to make decisions without consequence?

Albo holds us all in such contempt.

Has Albanese heard of cabinet government? Once appointed, are ministers free to exercise their delegation under law, without any cabinet oversight? Does Cabinet have any responsibility or power to reign in a minister if he or she proposes something untenable?

By this statement alone, Albanese has confirmed, beyond doubt, what most of us have known for more than a year: that he is not even a prime minister’s bootlace. He is without a shred of leadership. But what infuriates me the most about this latest lie is not the fact of it. Rather, it’s that Albo holds us all in such contempt; obviously, he cannot be bothered to construct anything better than “I don’t break the law.” Morrison was pilloried for his “I don’t hold a hose” faux pas, but Albo gets off scot-free for this most base insult to our intelligence.

And even as I write, I note that Environment Minister Plibersek has learned from Albo’s playbook. Under continuing pressure over this matter, she has now claimed precedent. From The Australian:

‘The Wiradjuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation is exactly the same group that the previous environment minister Sussan Ley listened to, whose advice she acted on, when she made exactly the same decision about another project about 50km away,’ Ms Plibersek told Sky News.

Is Plibersek saying that Ley cancelled a major project that had ticked all environmental boxes and gained the approval of the local Aboriginal Land Council based on a last-minute intervention by this nebulous “corporation” disclosing secret business? If that is so, it would make Ley just as unfit to hold ministerial office as Plibersek. It wouldn’t make the decision right, though. But, in this case, it seems it was a go-kart track – hardly apples to apples.

Nonetheless, we can all agree to give Albo credit where credit is due. He promised us transparency and he has delivered as much in spades. Is there anyone now who cannot see right through him?