CAMERON MILNER: Hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the Anthony Albanese clown show and sorry Labor Party

The Labor Government is looking more and more like a total circus. They rocked up to Parliament for just three days in a month last week and still managed to start with a Tourette’s slur and end in a bullying scandal, all while Jason Clare managed to accuse Israel of war crimes.

The PM didn’t even stay until halftime, jetting off on Toto One and leaving Richard Marles in charge of the clown show. There was Jim Chalmers doing his best juggling act on jobs, inflation and interest rates. You had Andrew Giles silenced, doing a Marcel Marceau impression.

There was Penny Wong as ringmaster in a pants suit, egging on the lions of Lebanon in Tony Burke and Clare as they jumped through electoral hoops of fire in one act and Marles fired himself out of a cannon into a brick wall in the next. Is it little wonder this clown show with Albanese at the helm has managed in the space of 12 short months to have gone from losing his Voice to now losing the vote?

Many of his closest supporters thought fondly of the shortening of his name from Albanese to Albo which they hoped would add an edge of youthful appeal to someone in his sixties. We’ve all suffered through the “heartthrob” T-shirts, the DJ Albo and Albo Ale.

But with this three-ring circus of a Labor Government, the PM is increasingly seen as simply Albo the Clown.

There’s Happy Albo when he’s flying high on Toto One, hanging out with Chief Bogan Kyle Sandilands, or taking freebie tickets Keir Starmer-style to Tay Tay.

There’s Sad Albo in screaming-at-his-press-secs mode when 60 per cent of all voting-age Australians told him exactly where to stick his Voice to Parliament. His funk post-No vote was epic.

Then there’s Part-Time Albo the rest of the time. It’s when he treats the role and responsibility of being Prime Minister of our great nation as all a bit of a joke and you don’t know whether to laugh or just cry that this is what Labor leadership looks like these days.

We’ve been treated to all the classic clown looks from Albo over the last year. For those keen observers, there are four recognised clown looks: whiteface, Auguste, tramp and character.

Albanese pulled a classic whiteface routine when on election night in 2022 he told voters that it wasn’t about cost-of-living relief, it was all about implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. Whiteface went to one Garma Festival where he launched the Albanese Voice and fronted its failed campaign. At the next, he told hurting First Nations leaders they were no longer even on his radar.

The next type is Auguste clowns. They’re known for not being able to figure out how to get anything right. Sound familiar?

The classic tramp clown type — the most well-known of whom was a guy by the name of Freddie the Freeloader — was all about being homeless and living on the street. As much as Albo has used his “Houso Kid” act to pump up his struggle street credentials, the fact he now has two taxpayer-funded homes at his disposal and has recently sold an investment property and taken advantage of huge tax subsidies has shown he was just pulling our legs.

The last type of clown is the Character Clown. These people can be any character they want — cops, baseball players, doctors. Well, Albo the Clown decided to play being PM. He clearly thought he was a natural. After all, he knows how to wear a silly grin and laugh and giggle along with the best celebs and world leaders. He even gets compliments of “handsome boy” while clowning around overseas.

It would actually be funny if weren’t facing such serious challenges both domestically and abroad.

The cost of living is sucking the enjoyment out of life for everyday Australians while our closest ally in the Middle East, Israel, is under attack from Iran on the ground and from spineless, self-serving Labor MPs and the Greens back here.

I have no doubt Labor would be so much better with a different leader. With Albanese there’s been plenty of contributory negligence and wilful acts of self-harm delivered by the epic communicator, self-taught campaign strategist and chief excuse maker, the one and only Albo.

He can’t be expected to be taken seriously because he doesn’t take his role as PM seriously.

For him, it’s clear it is all a bit of a laugh. The joke is firmly on the Australians who voted Morrison out and got Albo in.

So, without the Labor caucus actually cancelling the show and sacking the chief clown, Australians are destined to endure even more stupid acts from the Labor circus.

Paul Keating had a great saying that sometimes in politics you had to “throw the switch to Vaudeville”. It was advice to change things up for the audience, it wasn’t meant to be a guide as to how to govern full-time.

So as Labor draws to the end of a full term in office that has achieved diddly squat other than proving “small target” is a disastrous recipe for governing, and we are led through another election campaign with Albo leading a clown show firmly in his own image, you wonder: what did Labor voters do to deserve this?

My great fear is that long-suffering voters will do what Labor caucus members have yet to show the chutzpah to do and end this sorry gag of a government with that famous comedic epithet. “That’s all Folks!”

Cameron Milner is director of GXO Strategies and a former ALP State secretary with three decades’ experience in Labor campaigns.