The Midwit Shallowness of Anthony Albanese

Last year, a few days before the federal election which would make Anthony Albanese Prime Minister, there was a brief moment most people have almost certainly forgotten, if they even noticed it at the time. Albo was attending a business lunch in Perth and was asked by journalist Lanai Scarr if he could describe in three or fewer words what he wanted his legacy to be, win or lose. Albo paused a moment, and then, with that characteristic emotional frog in his throat, said: “Acting on climate”.

At first glance this is pretty anodyne stuff for the leader of a centre-left party in a Western democratic country. It is an essential requirement for someone in Albo’s position to ‘speak the words’ on climate change at every opportunity. But I remember finding it deeply strange. So much so that it’s been knocking around in my head for the year since he said it.

Here’s why: Anthony Albanese had, at the time, been in Parliament for 26 years. He had been a cabinet minister in the…