BEN HARVEY: Albanese’s choice to champion cause of the Bali Nine drug dealers is proof he’s not a good leader

Political capital is far easier to dissipate than accumulate.

It takes decades to build the critical mass of trust, favours, respect and goodwill needed to effectively and efficiently influence events.

Good leaders know when it’s time to make use of the stockpile of political IOUs they have been holding in credit.

Good leaders can identify the issues that are important enough to justify running down their cache of power and influence.

Anthony Albanese’s decision to champion the cause of the last of the Bali Nine drug dealers is further proof he is not a good leader.

Of all the things the Australian Prime Minister needs to worry about on the world stage at the moment he chose to try to save five people so thick they thought it was a good idea to traffic narcotics in a country that is internationally renowned for having a death penalty for drug crimes.

Consider this snapshot of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s to-do list.

We’ve signed up to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu because the International Criminal Court reckons he’s a war criminal.

Kevin Rudd’s Twitter rant against Donald Trump has left relations with the US in the worst shape since Ben Lexcen unveiled his winged keel in 1983.

The AUKUS submarine deal — which is to say the entire national defence policy — is hanging by a thread.

We’ve got no Plan B there because the French hate us thanks to Scott Morrison’s decision to cross his fingers when he talked defence contracts with Emmanuel Macron.

The Chinese are making our Prime Minister look like some kind of Manchurian candidate by lavishing praise on him while eyeing Washington.

We’re offside with almost the entire world over a deal to make big multinationals pay minimum rates of tax.

And the world’s richest man hates us for trying to tame social media, which would ordinarily be a cause for cheer but when the world’s richest man is also a Trump whisperer, really is not.

Of all those things, we’ve chosen to waste intellectual and political effort on a handful of oxygen thieves who rolled the dice with the Indonesian constabulary and lost.

Harsh? Not really. We aren’t talking about a few pills or a wrap of cocaine here. This was 4kg of heroin, with more in the pipeline.

Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran, Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugai, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Renae Lawrence and Martin Stephens were going to sell that heroin on Australian streets.

They took a calculated risk to make several million dollars and when the cards didn’t fall the way they needed them to they paid a heavy price.

Chan and Sukumaran paid the heaviest, courtesy of a firing squad.

We don’t know whether the stomach cancer which killed Nguyen was caused by his incarceration but it certainly wouldn’t have helped.

Lawrence got parole so that leaves us with Chen, Czugai, Norman, Rush and Stephens.

Five men who made their beds and should now they have to sleep in them even though the beds in Bali’s Kerobokan jail are probably very uncomfortable.

This lot have been supported by a lot of Australian politicians over the years.

In February 2015 then-foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop swapped the death stare for uncharacteristic emotion when updating the Australian Parliament.

“When I spoke to the families who were in Jakarta they told me how it was virtually impossible to be strong for each other,” she said.

“How it was unbearable to see their sons, their brothers, not knowing if it would be their last time. How could anyone not be moved by their heart-breaking pleas for mercy?”

Four days later then-communications minister Malcolm Turnbull used the ABC’s Q&A program to guilt trip the Indonesian government.

“It is not a sign of weakness to spare the lives of these men,” he said.

“Yes, they committed terrible crimes. Yes, they knew the death penalty was there if they were caught and found guilty.

“It is the sign of the strongest love, the greatest mercy, when it is extended to those who least deserve it.”

The execution of Chan and Sukumaran brought out the soft side of Parliament’s hardest nut, with Tony Abbott visibly shaken at a press conference in April 2015.

“Australia respects Indonesia’s system,” the then-prime minister said before announcing the recalling from Jakarta of Australia’s ambassador.

“We respect Indonesia’s sovereignty. But we do deplore what’s been done and this cannot be simply business as usual.”

Heartfelt stuff but we have done enough soul-searching and hand-wringing. I’m happy to forget about the whole sorry saga and move on.

What was Albanese thinking by putting this prisoner transfer deal on the table in the first place?

Indonesia is the world’s third-largest democracy and the big favour our Prime Minister chases from its new President is the release from prison of some convicted smack sellers?

It’s Australia’s most strategically important neighbour and we’re talking about low-rent drug dealers?

Albanese will likely argue that he can walk and chew gum.

His Government’s dalliance with Nature Positive laws, the Voice and social media misinformation suggests he risks simultaneously choking and tripping.

The world is on fire, Anthony, and you do hold a hose. Please point it in the right direction.