CAMERON MILNER: South Aus Premier Peter Malinauskas is the only curve ball in the race for our next PM

This time of the parliamentary year is known as the killing season.

It’s been the case at the State level, with both NSW and Victorian Liberal leaders replaced.

Federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley might well limp through until Christmas, if only because Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor can’t agree who should roll her.

Succession planning is difficult for political parties. It is nearly always a decision taken when the polls are down and comes in the form of a coup.

That’s why the Labor Party should show a gently, kinder way when it comes to replacing Anthony Albanese.

A voluntary assisted departure from office, as it were. A modest, sensible and gracious request from a long suffering electorate that hoped they’d actually elected a Labor government, rather than a pale imitation.

There won’t be any mourning for a Labor great when the time comes. Albanese will be remembered only for his feet of clay approach to government that delivered little of anything. A stifling conservatism that crushed policy ambition and rewarded mediocrity.

Let’s hope the next ALP PM is actually a Labor PM.

Squandering a huge majority by being so cautious and timid in office is a great Labor shame.

This Government hasn’t had the courage to be Labor, to go to an election with a reformist agenda, or at least more than a plan to put slippers under the bed at the Lodge and call that an achievement.

Labor used to mean turning up to be counted. To take great political risk and bring the people of Australia with you. Think Medibank (later Medicare) from Whitlam, floating the dollar and the Wages Accord under Hawke, saying Sorry under Rudd.

When the Copacabana clifftop retirement home scandal broke, Graham Richardson predicted that Albanese would probably win the next election and look to step down mid-term.

Richo was always up for a leadership challenge, so his prediction is worth taking note of.

It’s also why Albanese’s recent kneecapping of Treasurer Jim Chalmers on superannuation changes and now Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen mid-Belem COP is so telling.

Bowen was briefing that Australia was still firmly in the running to host COP31, even as Albanese’s office briefed out a story that he was up for a compromise deal with Turkey as long as the Pacific nations had a role.

It was a public humiliation for Bowen, who is now in the precarious situation of being the president of a COP being held half a world away.

Already the rumour mill is running, with Andrew Charlton being briefed out as Bowen’s likely replacement.

By diminishing the standings of Chalmers and Bowen, two of the very brightest from the Right, Albanese is seeking to promote Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke as his preferred candidate from that faction.

Burke has always been ambitious and has promised to keep the Albanese legacy alive. That’s not the blazing torch of Olympic proportions but a sputtering candle found on a cupcake.

Burke cosied up to the unions in the first term on IR changes and has crassly positioned on Palestine to win favour among left-leaning rank and file members of the ALP branches.

Albanese will be challenged by his own faction who have the numbers, even more so after the last election.

The Left won’t necessarily hand over the position of PM. The clearest choice of that faction would be Mark Butler.

Butler has done an incredible, if largely publicly unrewarded job with Medicare and now has the added responsibility of NDIS.

He is overseeing two of the largest areas of government expenditure in a largely scandal-free way, all while driving a reformist agenda.

NDIS was Bill Shorten’s brainchild and will go down as a true Labor policy achievement started under Rudd and Gillard.

Butler would have the numbers and the record in government to once again lead a Labor government.

While Tanya Plibersek would make a great prime minister, the enmity for her from Albo is palpable. Albanese will do whatever it takes to block the most talented woman from the Left on his frontbench.

Richard Marles is deputy for a reason — he never threatens for PM. His sole role is as a support act to make Albo look like a hard worker.

The only curve ball to the ascension of Burke or Butler would be drafting South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.

Malinauskas is said to be reluctant, but after no doubt crushing the Liberals again next March at the State election, a Federal move could be the greatest of South Australian Senator and right faction powerbroker Don Farrell’s many achievements in politics.

Farrell is the genuine power behind the throne and someone who has delivered for his SDA group in spades by playing internal politics at its best.

Farrell brought Malinauskas through first the SDA in South Australia and then into Parliament.

A Butler versus Malinauskas run-off would be fascinating to watch.

The sun is setting on the Albanese era in office. He’s not gone yet but his time in office to date has already been so forgettable.

He has the wedding at the Lodge to do, but after that not much more.

Time simply served isn’t time served well. Labor only gets so many cracks at being in government. They must use the time of the next leader to actually deliver a Labor agenda.