CAMERON MILNER: Anthony Albanese fancied himself a revolutionary. He’s just a seat-warmer

Anthony Albanese’s craven self preservation, his desperate desire to stay just one more day in the Lodge, has seen him lead a Government that is Labor in name only.

It used to mean something to vote Labor, to proudly support the party of Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating.

Labor used to be the rebel with a cause. They had a reformist zeal and operated knowing that even if they weren’t going to be in power for long, they were going to make it count.

Not with Albanese, this bloke is so far from that mould. He’s just Anthony from middle management. A pen pusher who clocks in, clocks out.

The great achievement of this re-election should it come to pass won’t be to implement Medicare, deliver the Snowy Mountains scheme, deliver the Accord or float the dollar. All of these involved vision, courage and actually being Labor.

Albanese and his merry band of Albanistas simply think being in office is an end in itself. They carry a self-conscious shame of being from the so-called Socialist Left and told themselves they were the revolutionaries as they rose through the ranks of the Labor Party.

Having finally got there, the supposed Red brigades have all turned out to be 50 shades of beige.

Being Labor used to mean something. It meant being there to do good, even if that so often meant the risk of being voted out at the next election.

The party of Bob Hawke was singular in its support of Israel. He famously said “If the bell tolls for Israel it tolls for all of mankind”.

Yet when over 1200 innocent Israelis, many women and children, were murdered, raped, burnt and taken hostage by the terrorist organisation, Hamas, Albanese failed the test of moral leadership.

His response every day since October 7, including to acts including the stabbing of a Christian Bishop or a anti-Semitic rally at the Opera House has been both repugnant and morally reprehensible.

Albanese has outsourced his leadership to Penny Wong and Tony Burke, both well known Palestine fans and has remained silent as a moral equivalence has been made between Israel’s self defence and the Holocaust. Albanese’s weakness has given strength to the very worst anti-Semitism seen in Australia.

He made the electoral calculus that it was more important not to offend Muslims teaching jihad in mosques in Western Sydney than those who came to Australia after the horrors of Nazi Germany for a better life. While a Jewish synagogue lay smouldering, Albo played another round of tennis with a lobbyist.

While China has been building military bases in the world’s busiest shipping channel, a vital artery for Australia’s economy, Albanese was grinning as he was openly insulted by Chinese officials and mocked as a “handsome boy”.

That China sent warships to do live fire exercises on the eve of our election and Albanese needed a Virgin pilot to radio it in says just how defenceless we are as a nation.

Then there’s the ambivalence he’s had to Australians living through his cost-of-living crisis over the past three years.

Working families have been crushed by inflation, their savings smashed by 12 interest rates rises on his watch. Deficits for a decade will pay for all the cash that Albanese has just pissed against the wall in a desperate attempt to buy himself love at the ballot box.

Working families — what used to be Labor’s core constituency — have simply been sold out.

Albanese acquiesces, he procrastinates and thinks by just doing so little that is actually Labor he’ll be allowed to stay in the job as PM a little longer.

His contribution to Labor history will be a footnote for the time he served, not what he actually did while in the chair.

Albanese has shredded Labor’s long relationship with the Jewish community. His weakness infects every aspect of the government.

As Chinese and Russian colonial expansion occurs on our doorstep he promises an NRL team behind barbed wire in PNG.

As Iran and its proxies wage war on the only pluralistic, pro-LGBTIQ democracy in the Middle East, Albanese wrings his hands and dribbles platitudes.

None of this used to be the Labor way. Labor used to be so, so much better than this.

Still, as Albanese is fond of saying the standard you walk past is the standard you accept, and his first term of government has been the epitome of that.

Labor has traditionally struggled to win office. But in the scarce time it gets, it has transformed and reformed Australia for the better.

That, perhaps even more than Albanese’s complete lack of moral fibre, is the true tragedy for Labor, to have done so very little that’s actually Labor when given the opportunity to be in government.