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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 previous Labor government, he was first made a shadow parliamentary secretary in 1998 and was made a shadow minister in 2001. In the latter role he held the Environment and Heritage title from 2004 to 2006 but, importantly, this was an era when the environment portfolio was mostly about conservation, biodiversity and water resources. Albanese did oversee the release of Labor’s first Climate Change Blueprint in 2006, but climate change wouldn’t get its own specific shadow portfolio until the Rudd opposition and it went, famously, to Peter Garrett.
Albo, for his part, moved into Infrastructure and Transport under Kevin Rudd, and after Labor won Government in 2007 he spent his entire time there, notwithstanding a couple of months in the dying days of the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd era as Broadband Minister and deputy prime minister.
So in 26 years, 24 which included formal ministerial and shadow ministerial roles, Albanese’s influence on climate change policy was, at best, a footnote. There was some minor policy work in opposition when climate change wasn’t the dominant issue it would come to become, but when in government, and when leading the opposition, there’s not much to point to in terms of a climate legacy. Which makes you wonder what those first 26 years were all about.
But it’s not just Albo’s past career that makes it strange.
“Acting on climate” as a legacy statement was also strange in the context of the 2022 election campaign. While, as you’d expect from a centre-left party, Labor made a lot of noise about their climate policies, it was not a centrepiece of their election campaign. They weren’t doing an Obama and talking about slowing the ocean’s rise and healing the planet. It wasn’t the “great moral challenge” of Kevin-07.
They went to the election with largely the same climate policies as the Coalition, just a little less embarrassed about it. Their long-term emissions target was the same – Net Zero by 2050 – but they had a larger target in the shorter term. In government they’ve since done the big symbolic act of legislating their targets, but otherwise have only tinkered around the edges of the already existing complex regime of climate policies. Most interesting, even now, climate is not listed as one of Labor’s headline “plans”; it’s not listed in Albanese’s biography to be found at pm.gov.au. On anthonyalbanese.com.au there are some passing references to climate, but it’s not on the front page, nor is it on his “what drives me” statement, and it’s listed sixth in his “our work” section. When you read profiles of him from over the years, there’s barely a mention of climate at all. This Guardian profile from the day after the election is illustrative: the only reference to climate is in passing and it’s about how he’s moved towards the centre on it.
So, days before he was about to win an election and ascend to the highest political office in the land, Anthony Albanese looked back at his career, considered the policy platform he was about to take into government, and said his legacy would be something which had played no real role in his entire political life.
THE Albanese origin story is simple and well known — almost no speech goes by when he doesn’t talk about growing up in council housing, raised by a single mum on a pension. No doubt this was important and formative, but notice how the biography never continues past that point. One line, two objects: single mother, council housing. That’s because, when you scan your eye over Albo’s career, there’s not much else there. Perhaps he leans so heavily on the one-line origin story because it’s the only story he has.
When undertaking his transformation from Labor left factional warlord to centrist sensible Leader of the Opposition and then Prime Minister, it went by mostly unremarked that Albo has the least non-political professional experience of any previous prime minister. His website biography mentions working “multiple jobs” while at university but his official Parliament House biography lists only one job that isn’t staffer, party official, or MP: bank officer for one year in 1980-81. Otherwise his CV reads: staffer to Labor Minister Tom Uren, NSW Labor Party official; staffer to NSW Premier Bob Carr, and then in 1996, the day before his 33rd birthday, he was elected to the seat of Grayndler, and that’s been his job ever since. Only Paul Keating has a resume as thin, but he also left school at 15 and did interesting things like manage a rock band before entering Parliament at age 25. Albo has been wheeling and dealing in the unreal world of politics his entire adult life.
One of the first times Albo appeared in the public he did not actually appear at all – he was literally a faceless man in the famous TV documentary Rats in the Ranks about the infighting around the 1994 Leichhardt City Council elections. As the animosity between the Labor aldermen reaches its peak, a call is put into NSW Labor head office and Albanese is sent in as the fixer. It is noted in the documentary that Albo refuses to appear on camera, so his intervention happens entirely off-screen but it’s clear his influence is significant. Two years later his face was revealed on corflutes in Marrickville and across Sydney’s inner west as he marched into the House of Representatives.
The other biographical refrain Albo returns to is his “three great faiths”: the Catholic Church, the Labor Party, and the South Sydney Rabbitohs. What these three have in common is that they’re all institutions which are part of or pointing to a bigger thing. It’s not rugby league he loves, it’s the Rabbitohs. It’s not Australia, it’s the Labor Party. It’s not God, it’s the Church. Institution first. The actual thing second.
When Albo tearfully fronted the press after Kevin Rudd tried to enact revenge on Julia Gillard and retake the prime ministership he expressed how upset he was about what this was doing to Labor and how it was distracting him from his true mission: “Fighting Tories, “that’s what I do”. That was another refrain for a while, but the media have been very accommodating in letting Albo retire that one as he moved into becoming Prime Minister material. Fighting nearly half the country doesn’t jive so well with being a unifying national leader. In any case, while he was upset about the state of his party back then, what all the Rudd/Gillard tumult was doing to the actual country his party was ostensibly meant to be governing did not warrant a mention.
FAST forward to March 2023 and Albo’s got the frog in his throat again at the historic importance of yet another political project he’s undertaking. This time it’s the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. He was only announcing the wording of the proposed constitutional change and kicking off the legislative process for a referendum to take place, but he got himself a rousing guard of honour from ministerial staff when he exited the press conference.
During that March 23 press conference Albo said “this is a modest request” and then moments later, “I’m here to change the country”. It’s not clear how those two ideas can coexist. It would seem to me that something is definitionally not modest if it’s going to change the country and profoundly change the way the problems facing Indigenous Australians can be addressed.
The entire Voice referendum debate has been defined by its opaque incoherence. The basics are pretty clear: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people faced historical injustices and continue to experience far worse health and wellbeing outcomes compared to other Australians. Reconciliation for the past and a way forward to closing the gap are worthy goals. Even constitutional recognition is not an inherently stupid idea. There is an understandable level of support in the wider Australian community for dealing with these issues, but quite how that translates to a novel unelected “representative” body with no precedent in the Westminster system enshrined in the Constitution with a say over executive government and the parliament is unclear.
There was the Uluru Statement from the Heart which kicked off this idea, and that came from a series of Uluru Dialogues with Indigenous representatives. Supporters of the Voice like to use that history to claim this was a community-led “organic” idea. But look a little deeper and the Uluru Statement was the fruit of an institutionally driven process initiated by politicians and which included many of the same people who have been mainstays in the Indigenous not-for-profit and academic worlds and who would have been directly consulted many times over the years by governments on the policies that affect them. That they landed on a bureaucratic proposal focused on words and representation that gives them more power and not something practical for particularly vulnerable remote communities is telling. (Fun fact: perennial election loser Kristina Keneally — the whitest rich white lady who ever rich-white-ladied — was part of the Referendum Council that authored the Uluru Statement. I invite you to draw your own conclusions.)
However you want to characterise the process, the key point is that no one really knows what the Voice is and how it will work, and no one really knows what the implications are for our system of government. There’s not even been a robust defence of the conceptual soundness of the premise that “having a say” is the key that unlocks the solutions to the problems. It’s the vibe all the way down. Most defences of the thornier objections to the Voice amount to semantic word games or rest entirely on the assumed perpetual goodwill and innate sensibility of whoever ends up being on the Voice. A laudable aspiration but there is such a thing as human nature so, you know, good luck.
It’s very clear from the moments when he’s been pushed on it that Albo doesn’t really understand it either. For example, on March 27 he proclaimed the Voice to be not about “foreign affairs policy”; rather, it will just be about matters that affect Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. But less than a month before his Voice press conference, his very own government appointed an “Ambassador for First Nations” because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders do have perspectives on foreign policy that need to be heard. Which is to say, foreign policy absolutely affects Aboriginal people, so why wouldn’t the Voice advise on it? It’s possible he doesn’t know what his own government has done but, more likely, he has well-founded confidence that no one in the media or on the opposition benches is ever going to notice the flagrant inconsistency. Possibly it’s both.
THAT a politician has shapeshifted over a career as long as Albo’s is not unusual. And these days it is par for the course for leaders to express whatever the issue of the day is in historic-changing-the-world terms. What ties together all of the threads we’ve covered is that every step of the way, Albo is apparently entirely sincere about everything. There is no sense from anyone who knows him or has worked with him that he’s anything other than a genuinely good guy who means well.
I don’t think he’s a liar or corrupt. I don’t think he’s especially wishy-washy and unprincipled. I really do think he’s sincere. He was sincere about “acting on climate”, he was sincere about “fighting Tories”, he’s sincere about the Voice. I just don’t think he has ever thought any of these or other issues through in any meaningful way. There’s no overarching narrative, no great project. Just the fashionable cause of the moment, the cause the generally trendy upper-middle-class inner city punters want him to care about. There’s no depth, just shibboleths.
But there’s still this thing that nags at you when you look across Albo’s career and when you hear him speak. You sense the shallowness, the presentism, the empty conviction meshed with sincerity. It nags at you when you see the famous election campaign footage of him forgetting the RBA cash rate; it’s not that he didn’t know the particular number, it’s the way he looks like a deer in headlights, short circuiting behind the eyes; the way you can almost see the talking points running through his head like a Star Wars opening crawl as he’s hoping and ultimately failing to locate the number.
You sense it when he’s asked an unexpected or difficult question in a press conference and across his face flashes not the blustering of a Morrison or aggressiveness of a Rudd but a sort of bewilderment that someone might think about an issue differently to him. Sky News’s Paul Murray calls him Each-Way Albo because he always keeps his options open and has a bob each way on every issue. But I don’t think that’s quite right. It implies a purposeful slipperiness that’s not really there.
No, what brings Albo’s Albo-ness into focus is one simple observation. It’s the Albo thesis that, as I tossed all these disparate Albo stories and biographical details together in a stew, really brought the dish together. It’s what allows Albo to be ever-changing but always sincere, never troubled by the contradictions and pushing ever forward with the progressive concern of the moment. I hope it’s the key to unlock Albo for you too.
It’s this: Albo is a midwit.
The pejorative descriptor ‘midwit’ emerged online in the past few years to refer to someone who is of above average intelligence but not too far above average. They’re often well credentialed, often successful; but they’re always a step or two behind the truly exceptional. They’re in the middle. Mid. As Urban Dictionary puts it:
Midwits are truly cursed to be neither blissfully dumb nor reap the benefit of being of superior intelligence or a genius. They can grasp general concepts, but are less capable of digging deeper, understanding nuance, or adapting quickly to complex problems, leading to an entire middle class of perpetually unhappy, often vaguely angry people.
American writer Auron Macintyre describes how midwits are good at latching on to the headline versions of ideas, but don’t tend to be able to think these ideas through with any rigour. They are, however, faintly aware that they’re not as smart as half the population, so take any and every opportunity to display their savviness and smartness. Because their intelligence alone isn’t ever going to catapult them into the highest levels of power and success, status is the currency of the midwit.
This makes them extremely adept at absorbing the ever-updating forms of language and talking points of progressive ideology. They are the types of people who can seamlessly integrate an idea like the Voice to Parliament into their worldview as The Vital Act of Racial Reconciliation of Our Time without understanding it or having ever really heard of it until five minutes ago, but are less able or willing to consider the serious hard decisions that need to be made to actually address chronic underemployment, undereducation, and violence in Aboriginal communities.
Again, to be clear, midwits are not stupid, they’re often successful and productive members of society. Macintyre says, in a more balanced economy with different social incentives, midwits would be the small business owners running restaurants or shops or building companies or something (like, I dunno, a NSW Labor Party official). But in our society, with an oversupply of university educated upper middle class strivers who end up in education, the media, NGOs, and the public sector, they end up swarming middle management positions in big institutions and having an outsized influence on the polity.
Midwits love big institutions. Oh, man, how they love them. Bureaucratic institutions are the perfect vehicles to legitimise their half-thought ideas. Bureaucratic institutions are extremely responsive to fashionable social and political trends, and the leaders of bureaucracies jump at any chance to send the right social signals without having to do anything practical that affects the bottom line. This is both flattering to midwits whose smart savviness is affirmed when big corporations agree with them and helps boost their influence and power within institutions. When the symbol is what matters, not the thing itself, the midwit can reign supreme.
THE elevation of the symbolic over the practical is possibly the defining feature of 21st century politics, especially in Australia. The feeling of perpetual economic growth and prosperity, underpinned by China’s appetite for our natural resources, along with relative peace and security in our region has created this sense of unreality around so much of our government and politics. Did you hear we have a budget surplus? Best not to look too hard at the why and wherefore.
The COVID-19 pandemic, the closest thing to a real crisis many of us have experienced, was the exception that proved the rule. It is clear — and hindsight is making it increasingly so — that our political leaders and institutions, having grown fat off the land, were fundamentally incapable of rising to the moment. Faced with something real and not symbolic, they opened the toolkit to find rusty hammers and wooden clubs in the form of lockdowns and school closures and supposedly world class health systems that couldn’t handle even the most modest increase in demand. And then they beat us with the blunt objects while using the strangest kindergarten-teacher-like rhetoric about safety and being “all in it together”. They kept hoping they could find One Weird Trick to fix everything but turned up empty while their constituents developed drinking problems alone at home.
Remember when Scott Morrison was excoriated for being in Hawaii during the 2019-20 bushfires? Of course you do, it was the beginning of the end for him. What’s striking about that incident is how empty of content it was. When you dig into the timeline and decision making in relation to the actual bushfires, there was very little Scott Morrison could do differently. The federal government really does not hold a hose. But the symbol of him on the beach while we choked on smoke, that’s a tough one to overcome. That’s how politics works, of course. There are no referees making you play fair.
And so into the breach steps Albo. The Institutional Man. Affable and sincere. A pro at Saying the Words. The uber-midwit with an innate sense of when the symbolic matters over the practical. He ruthlessly exploited Morrison’s Hawaii blunder and rode those ember-fueled Pacific waves all the way to The Lodge. The man with one story knew that in the politics of the symbolic, the politics of the midwit, that story would be enough to cover up the unreality of most of his life as an institutional creature of politics.
When you think about any of this for ten seconds your brain starts to revolt. Acting on climate? That doesn’t mean anything! Fighting Tories? Tories are in the UK, mate. The Voice? It’s incoherent and, frankly, kind of nuts.
But Albo believes. For him it’s true. All of it. Because for the midwit, none of this is real. It’s all status, all being on the winning side. It’s words, not action. It’s portraying yourself as a fighter for the underdog as you hold precisely the same political positions as, say, Optus. It’s loving the Labor Party and not the country. Loving the symbol and not the thing itself. And there’s an army of midwits entrenched in our institutions and corporations who love that Albo is Prime Minister because as they tweet from their iPads they are assured they’re Making a Difference because that’s – figuratively speaking – the same thing Albo’s been doing his whole career. And look at him up there. Just look at him!
In a time of plenty, this is all mostly fine. Annoying, but fine. Political unreality is a privilege of the prosperous. But if Australians start losing their homes due to mortgage stress, can’t turn on their heaters during winter because of power prices, can’t feed their families because of grocery prices then the symbols won’t be enough. The Voice won’t put food on the table. Acting on climate is what’s making electricity so expensive. The interest rates were lower under the ‘Tories’.
The coming crisis isn’t a storm on the horizon, it’s the alien ship from Independence Day, hovering over Capital Hill, ready to strike. No one really knows where the blast radius is going to end and if the Albanese government can handle the fallout.
Albo remains ascendant. But reality is about to enter the stage. And the frog in the throat won’t stop what’s coming.
Samuel Mullins is a Melbourne-based communications consultant and former staffer and ministerial advisor in the previous Coalition Government.
Well said, though Albo is surely on the lower rungs of midwittery.
For someone, as this article alleges, who has little real relevant experience and is full of “midwit shallowness” – Anthony Albanese is doing a pretty good job as PM.
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The polls certainly show the people think that. The Coalition’s vote is now much lower than the 70-year low it experienced at the last election.
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To be fair Anthony Albanese has had a lot of help from Peter Dutton. The Coalition vote under Peter Dutton as leader is consistently lower than under Scott Morrison. And Peter Dutton personally polls way below what Scott Morrison was polling as leader. Albanese is about twice as popular as Dutton as preferred PM. That was never the case with Morrison.
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Whether we like it or not, invariably our PM, whoever it is, is a politician. And politicians who are successfully elected usually want to be associated with popular issues at the centre. So it’s no surprise Anthony Albanese sees climate change as a big issue.
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If hard-nosed CEOs and Chairmen of our leading companies like to seek the the centre political ground as they eagerly espouse political views favouring climate change and diversity etc you shouldn’t be surprised when successful politicians do too.
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Although disparaged in this article all those years in politics and government have added to the Albanese political skill set.
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In his uncharacteristically, quiet, patient sort of approach for a PM, Anthony Albanese might just turn out to be one of the most skilled politicians we’ve ever had. And whether we like it or not it’s vital PMs are highly skilled politicians.
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Of course we need a lot more from them too. But just as he did in the lead up to the last election, Anthony Albanese at the moment isn’t sticking his neck out on policy. I’d expect a lot more once he consolidates his position as PM. He’s well on the way to doing that.
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I might add this small target approach on policy is not healthy for our democracy. It’s very unhealthy. But it’s been proven to be politically successful. It’s an inevitable outcome of the GOTCHA politics of the Coalition and Labor. The Coalition are the real masters at it but Labor are no slouches either – and Albanese has effectively neutralized the Coalition’s GOTCHA politics. But I’d argue it’s been at a cost to our democracy.
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Juggling the left in Labor to accommodate significant defence improvements is an early testament to the Albanese skills as a politician. He’s successfully moved to start improving our defence profile in a very short time in office. That’s quite an achievement for a Labor government.
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Although our defence capability is to my mind dangerously short of what we need it’s starting to look better now than under the Coalition. I say that notwithstanding that AUKUS was originated under the Morrison government … but really only in the dying days of nearly a decade of the Coalition in office, which included the Turnbull French submarine fiasco.
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My real worry with the Albanese government is with managing the biggest short term economic threat we face: inflation. It’s policies are hopelessly inadequate.
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Although Albanese is overall responsible, Jim Chalmers as treasurer is the big weakness in the Albanese government. As treasurer he’s left all the heavy lifting on inflation to the RBA and interest rates. He’s thrown words ( albeit elequantly) at the inflation problem rather than taking effective fiscal action to assist the RBA. It represents a big risk for our economy. He’s actually expanded spending as we face a significant inflation threat.
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Jim Charmer’s recent 6000 word self-indulgent, messy, waffle piece on economic policy is a real warning for potential problems ahead in the economic portfolio. The RBA review commissioned by him is also a concern.
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But I have even less confidence in the Dutton opposition’s solutions on economic policy, as the Coalition continues to play its GOTCHA game on the economy. But less successfully – the Coalition is now in danger of losing the mantle as the better economic managers. The same could happen with defence policy too.
“Eloquently” not “elequantly” in third last para above.
I don’t agree that Albanese is running small target approach. The Voice is turning into a war as it should – met zero and Chris Bowen will collapse energy.
They are 2 of the biggest targets in political history.
There’s also nothing “small target” about Albanese’s Big Australia mass immigration program. Labor plans to bring in 750,000 immigrants over the next two years alone.
Unsurprisingly, Albanese’s immigration free-for-all is fuelling the worst housing crisis in living memory:
http://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/the-people-vs-big-australia-albos-housing-crisis/
http://www.skynews.com.au/insights-and-analysis/nicolle-flint-loose-migration-policy-leading-australia-towards-disaster-on-an-epic-scale-despite-albaneses-housing-billions/news-story/1a199a6a33ad9c0913d844f8481901ff
This massive influx will also have dramatic – and irreversible – cultural and societal consequences.
Farnswort
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Thanks for your comment.
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It’s undeniable population targets have been huge going back for many many years and were only interrupted by Covid.
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Also the figures hide backdoor entries to permanent entry through university education for example.
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However that does not make it a large target issue politically when both major parties have subscribed to essentially the same big Australia for many years.
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It’s also had a huge impact on our university sector – bigger than most Australians realise, probably even worse than in housing which you mention.
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Pre Covid 40% of students attending our leading Melbourne University were from one country: the country AUKUS is essentially designed to protect us from. Such a huge share in the customer base of any organisation is likely to have a big effect on that organisation. It probably helps explain issues concerning free speech.
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But both major parties have supported out of all proportion increases in university student populations from overseas. And both major parties have supported a big Australia generally for many many years. Given that it’s not what is called a large target political issue in the common use of the term.
A thoughtful response – greatly appreciated.
Farnswort
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Thank you. I appreciate it.
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Coincidentally I just read another article by Nicole Flint at Sky News on housing. I suspect it’s the same as the one you refer to. She writes so clearly and convincingly.
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All governments have mismanaged housing atrociously in the last decade or so. The net effect of government intervention in the housing market has made the plight of the homeless and all renters worse. With friends and advocacy groups like renters have pushing government interventions they don’t need enemies.
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If renters think it’s bad now they should prepare themselves for far worse to come – ironically in no small part thanks to those supposedly helping them.
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There was a time when rentals were very reasonable, supply good and when homelessness was not a major problem in this country. The same applies to energy costs. But governments have completely stuffed both markets.
RobyH
Thanks for your comment.
Both Coalition and Labor policies are aimed at reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Their policies have actually got closer. It’s hardly a large target issue anymore. Maybe it should be, but it isn’t.
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It’s taken forever for the Coalition to oppose The Voice. It sat on the fence for a long time. It’s own indigenous affairs shadow minister resigned so he could support The Voice. The head of the only Coalition government in Australia supports The Voice.
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Both major parties agree Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be recognised in the Constitution.
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The Coalition would legislate to establish local and regional Voices, but not a national Voice. Labor is proposing that The Voice will be embodied in the constitution – the Coalition isn’t.
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The differences aren’t as great as each major party is making out. They’re both using the debate in their own ways to virtue signal. It could hardly be described as a “war” of any real substance.
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The potential negatives which could flow from The Voice being adopted have been exaggerated and oversold. So have the benefits.
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There’s something very familiar about the claims. We’ve heard similar claims of improvements and claims of disasters which would follow proposed changes in aboriginal affairs in the past and but there have not been major changes on the ground. That’s, of course, nevertheless a very poor outcome.
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The Voice is really based on the concept of self determination but if history tells us anything we should know that self determination of itself is not enough. It may be a vital element but experience tells us it’s not enough on its own to meet the expectations being built up around The Voice.
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However the way the debate has gone if The Voice referendum were rejected ( as is certainly possible) it would be a significant blow to our aboriginal communities because their expectations of improvements flowing from implementing The Voice have been lifted far too high. It’s also been argued by a number on the left as almost a last chance and a test of our compassion for the aboriginal community.
Absolutely @RobyH.
[ The Voice is turning into a war as it should – net zero and Chris Bowen will collapse energy.
They are 2 of the biggest targets in political history.]
@BalancedObservation – why don’t you go write you own paper for Quadrant?
NarelleG
Why should helping a disadvantaged section of our community necessarily involve a “war”?
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And energy policy was already totally compromised before Labor were even elected. To be more accurate, in nearly a decade of Coalition rule we haven’t had a coherent energy policy. We still don’t have one under Labor.
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Look at your energy bill. And consider we are one of the most energy rich countries in the world. Both major parties share responsibility for the energy mess.
Sorry, BO, but if you think the point of The Voice is “helping a disadvantaged section of our community”, you’ve missed most of the important reasons against it, as well as the resources that have been, and continue to be, pumped into helping those people. The Voice is about power and job-security for the Aboriginal nomenklatura.
pmprociv
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Thanks for your comment.
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I do think it’s the point of the voice to help a disadvantaged section of our community.
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I also think on its own it will to be nowhere near as effective in doing that as it’s being built up to be. And certainly nowhere as damaging as some of its opponents argue. It certainly isn’t “turning into a war”.
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I think history with government changes to help the aboriginal community show that. They haven’t helped significantly enough and they haven’t caused the extreme damage some had predicted – like some are predicting these latest proposals are “turning into a war”.
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I don’t think it’s about a power grab for what you call the “Aboriginal nomenklatura.” That is not going to be a problem.
>”Jim Chalmers as treasurer is the big weakness in the Albanese government” [quote from your comment]
No. The vindinctive and definitely low-wit Bowen is a bigger danger to both the Albanese Govt and the country. Chalmers has both the RBA and the Treasury to throw spoilers at him.
I do agree that Elbow is a mid-wit, though.
I like this analysis, it says what I think. When will people wake up to the facts so cogently expressed?
Brilliant. One question I have found unanswerable – who signed the Uluṟu. I have written to Burneys office, the NIAA, yes 23 and Uluṟustatement.org. NIAA said it was private citizens. Yes 23 said ask Uluṟustatement.org. Asked them 3 times with no response.
If there are 250 signatures – who are they and more importantly who do they represent. Were half public servants?? Did the cooks, bus drivers and gardeners who were around sign it.
The Uluṟu is taught in schools – surely who signed it is important – but more important is who wrote it and convinced the ignorant mass of signatories to sign it.
Anyone know?
Your definition of midwit is a good one although many of us consider a ..wit with an f word before it, to be a better description of Albo and the left.
They’re tarred with the same back of the envelope, you beaut feelgood schemes with little thought of the consequences.
A comment Keating once made sums P. M. Albenese up nicely, all hat and no cattle!
One of the few articles where I have read every word. It describes completely our current middle of the road leader. Midwit is so appropriate. It is so depressing for Australia that he is running things for another couple of years. Hopefully the young people will realise they need to take the reins as has happened in Thailand and form a government that takes the necessary measures to enable the country to prosper in the future.
“The head of the only Coalition government in Australia supports The Voice.”
There is no Coalition government in Tasmania. It is a Liberal party government.
“…it would be a significant blow to our aboriginal communities because their expectations of improvements flowing from implementing The Voice have been lifted far too high?”
And who has been doing the lifting? The PM.
Blair
Thanks for your comments.
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You’re of course right. It’s a Liberal government in Tasmania. However it doesn’t detract from what I was saying at all.
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Most of those supporting The Voice that I’ve read have lifted expectations too high. Anthony Albanese has too. To my mind that doesn’t make Anthony Albanese a “midwit”. And obviously looking at the polling the electorate doesn’t think he’s a “midwit” either.
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(One supporter of the voice I’ve read who hasn’t raised expectations too high is respected journalist Michelle Grattan. But she’s the exception).
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The changes are likely to be neither disastrous nor a great help to our aboriginal community. It’s my view that unfortunately we’ve seen it all before.
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As with zero emissions by 2050 there’s not a huge difference in substance between the major parties on The Voice and I’d argue that the lack of really substantive difference means it’s hardly a large target issue. Although it certainly seems to be a large target issue at Quadrant judging by the percentage of column space devoted to the issue here compared with most media on the left and the right.
” Anthony Albanese at the moment isn’t sticking his neck out on policy. I’d expect a lot more once he consolidates his position as PM. ”
“Most of those supporting The Voice that I’ve read have lifted expectations too high. Anthony Albanese has too. To my mind that doesn’t make Anthony Albanese a “midwit”
“(Midwits)… are the types of people who can seamlessly integrate an idea like the Voice to Parliament into their worldview as The Vital Act of Racial Reconciliation of Our Time without understanding it or having ever really heard of it until five minutes ago, but are less able or willing to consider the serious hard decisions that need to be made.”
Blair
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Thanks again for your comments.
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Half the Australian population supports the voice. They’re not midwits.
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The Coalition supports legislating for a voice at regional and local level and they’re not midwits either.
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The non Labor side of politics in Australia would be foolish to regard Anthony Albanese as a midwit. He’s already shown considerable political skill during his short time in office. It would be a big mistake to underestimate him.
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And the electorate agrees with me.
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He’s lifted the Labor vote considerably since the election and the opposition vote has been consistently below the 70 year low at the last election. As well Anthony Albanese is twice as popular as Peter Dutton as preferred PM. Scott Morrison never polled that badly in all his time as leader. Put together these should be very alarming polls for the Coalition.
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Labor is being allowed to consolidate its position by a very poor opposition. If things keep going as they are Labor won’t only lock in the next election but the one after it. Surely the Coalition has better talent. Peter Dutton has clearly shown he’s not up to the job.
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The Coalition don’t have much time to act to improve their game. The polls show Labor has started to establish itself as the natural party of government even on issues like the economy and defence – previously heartland issues for the Coalition. Valuable time is being lost persevering with an inept opposition leadership.
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Name calling is not going to help.
“The Coalition supports legislating for a voice at regional and local level and they’re not midwits either”
The Coalition is not supporting the inclusion of a Voice in the Constitution, which is proposed by the government… a massive policy difference.
Blair
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Thanks again for your comments.
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I’m particularly thankful for these comments of yours which repeat my point that the Liberals support the concept of a voice in legislation. I think there’d be many conservatives who would have missed that given the claims of both sides in the debate.
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It’s not the concept of the voice the Liberals disagree with only that it shouldn’t be in the constitution but legislated to take effect at the local and regional levels but not the national level.
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On the question of your support for calling Anthony Albanese a midwit … Albanese is running rings around Peter Dutton, who’s well out of his depth as leader.
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I’m sure even Peter Dutton doesn’t think Anthony Albanese is a midwit as he reads the absolutely disastrous polls for the the Liberals which have been astoundingly and consistently worse at every poll than they were at the last losing election – while Labor has significantly increased its polling.
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Leaving Peter Dutton as leader and allowing Labor to steadily consolidate its position will have long term negative consequences for the Liberals and for our system of government which relies on an effective opposition to function at its best.
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Liberals seemingly think they have time on their side to persist with Dutton despite the clearest evidence to the contrary. But they don’t – Labor will continue to improve its position while Peter Dutton is leader. Labor would be overjoyed with Peter Dutton’s leadership.
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And at the very least it should be clear from the polls that calling Anthony Albanese a midwit seriously underestimates his political skills as PM.
Thanks Samuel for the ‘midwit’ analysis. A whole book could be written on midwittery. It might be called 7 Habits for Highly Successful Midwits.
Brilliant Samuel but perhaps, it is not “Midwit” but “Midwich” as in the alien plot to take over the world in “The Midwich Cuckoo”.
Excellent article. Much kinder than I would be! A couple of points. First, a consequence of being a midwit is a necessary disconnect from reality. This is because a midwit operates with a ‘narrative’ – for example on climate – that is crafted to suit an emotional agenda, not to fit real data or existing scenarios. Secondly, a midwit is necessarily a follower, not a leader – even if elevated by the crowd to be a Premier or PM. If you watch, for example, Daniel Andrews in action, what you see is a constant testing of the water. Is this meme going down well? Are the media amplifying this one? Midwits think they are leaders but in reality they just figureheads that happen to be stuck on the front of the ship. What the ship of Australia needs today is not that. What we need is leadership that is able to chart a course, to steer the country away from the rocks of economic destruction, moral collapse and social chaos.
Excellent article. However …
We should recognise that all of the Labor Party front bench are also midwits and the Liberal Party front bench are also all midwits – its not just poor old Albo, And then there are the bureaucratic and academic midwits who have insinuated themselves into positions of power – because insinuating themselves into positions of power in bureaucracies is what they do. Its ALL they do. While the foot-soldiers who “can do” fight on on the battlefield, the midwits are working their way up in the bureaucracy to positions of power and influence back in the office.
But do not worry about the midwits. They control nothing. They take their lead from the globalist media moguls. It is the media that are feeding Albanese his talking points.
To expand slightly …
The problem is what Quigley (The Evolution of Civilization, 1960) calls “The institutialisation of the institutions.” That is, when institutions become so large that the key performance indicators for one part of the institution become at odds with the overall objectives of the institution itself. A classic example dates back to 2012 …
” Broderick wants ADF to temper its warrior culture
By Deborah Snow – Sydney Morning Herald.
August 23, 2012 — 3.00am
The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, wants the ADF to fundamentally rethink the way it selects its leaders. She wants to temper the warrior culture that traditionally sees the most senior officers in army, navy and airforce come from backgrounds in combat or command. And she wants to open up more ”gateways” to the top Defence jobs from other areas within the military such as logistics, human services and health, where the 14 per cent of the ADF who are female tend to be clustered.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/broderick-wants-adf-to-temper-its-warrior-culture-20120822-24msk.html#ixzz24JbOMdbp
And thus – Midwit bureaucrats began the process of eating away at the Defence Forces, ensuring that more of their kind were elevated into positions of control . These days examples are a daily feature of the news.
“Acting on climate”. What did Lanai Scarr expect the PM to say, given the three word frame? Restore Australian greatness? Project better leadership? Avoid being woke? Promote cheap energy?
Build back better?
We need to get back to politicians who regard success as staying out of our way and being not noticed. Now, that would be success.
Bron
Self-appointed High Witt article with a touch of Dunning Kreuger effect.
Albo will be part of Australian political history while you are background noise-despite your IQ superiority.
Thanks for introducing me to the Dunning Kruger effect (not Kreuger, was that a typo or the result of the “effect”?). I spent some time on the internet trying to come to grips with it. I concluded that it was either incomprehensible to me or was BS.
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On further exploration I came accross a “the conversation” article entitled “Debunking the Dunning-Kruger effect” which seemed to validate my latter assumption.
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Maybe this article, all comments including your comment and mine here, are just political polemic?
I rather think you’ve given yourself away Sandjwysocki, gotta get the spelling right!
I love the definition of the DKE; people of low or average ability (not necessarily intelligence), who lack the insight to understand their limitations. The flip side, is people of high ability (for whom life is easy) who underestimate their relative abilities.
I’d have Albo as a mid-wit but Bowen and the rest of the front bench are welter-wits, even light-wits. Oh, for a heavy-wit (or even a lightheavy-wit) in the conservative ranks.
Michael Showbridge in today’s “Australian” (Monday, 22 May 2022) illustrates clearly the point of Samuel Mullins: “The contrast between Australia and Japan at the G7 summit and Quad meeting was striking. When it comes to China and Russia our PM needs to learn the difference between rhetoric and substance.”
A more appropriate wit would start with F@#^.
As Mr Mullins says, Albo blandly enunciates the correct cultural shibboleths. I don’t care whether he’s popular or not. The fact that he is our PM is a problem. Morrison had some great moments : standing up to China, the Quad, Aukus, and, initially, not caving in to climate fear. But he was stupid about cultural movements : the apology to Higgins is a case in point, which was followed by him ridiculously arguing his apology did not assume Lehrmann’s guilt. Albo, of course, was worse : he and his party used the assumed guilt of Lehrmann as a factor to win government. The ALP uses the degradation of the rule of law and undermining freedoms to dog whistle to those ninnies who call themselves “left wing” but who merely wish to do away with the presumption of innocence or insist that people believe that a man is a woman if he so asserts or that Australia’s history is something to be ashamed of. The Liberal Party is not actively nasty in that sense but has noone of the courage or intelligence of Menzies, Howard, or Abbott to deal dismissively with this nonsense. Dutton needs to grow into the job. He’s got Senator Price ( and some others ) to help him develop his instincts and improve his intelligence. All is not lost yet.
Albanese’s policy priorities have their genesis in his single-mother-public-housing narrative. Having found himself in the top job, he wants to show how well he has done against the odds by leaving some legacy policies and enduring legislation. So, this term we have the Voice and climate action; next term will be the Republic (watch for another Yes/No referendum rather than a full discussion).
It’s not that he could mount a cogent case for any of these – he couldn’t – but they are BIG initiatives, and in his mind, will assure his place in history as the council-housing kid who made good and changed the country forever.