CAMERON MILNER: Time for Labor to take the nuclear option and blast Anthony Albanese out of office

It’s time for federal Labor to properly consider the nuclear option. Not only as a clean energy source but as about the only way left to retain majority government and secure a second term.

That nuclear option is to ask Anthony Albanese gracefully to step aside or blow him out of office with a Caucus vote.

It’s in fact the same option that Graham Richardson delivered to me, when I was Bill Shorten’s Chief of Staff, when he was shilling for Albanese to take over from Bill in February 2016, just four months before the federal election.

Sitting down at Richo’s local harbourside restaurant, Catalina, Richo opined that Bill has “two Newspolls left. When he fails short he can resign for Albo, or we’ll blast him out”. With the message delivered, Richo then encouraged me to order entrée and main and proceeded to tell me what a talent Scott Morrison was.

The Labor Caucus rules that allowed Albo to contemplate rolling Bill then are exactly the same as they are now.

Many in the Gallery take as gospel that the “Rudd Rules” mean that any ALP leadership change or challenge requires a turgid, long process of Caucus and rank and file party member votes over weeks and months. That’s simply not true, it’s all just window dressing.

The real power lays with the Labor Caucus that, with a simple vote of fifty plus one, can simply decide a new way to elect the next Prime Minister of Australia for Labor.

Thus the nuclear option for Labor is really at the fingertip of every Labor MP. The Albanistas all know it because they tried the very same mechanism to shoe-horn their bloke into the role in 2016, even before Shorten had the chance to take Labor to the polls just once.

Albanese more than any Labor leader has been able to shepherd a weak flock and lead with impunity. Every non-decision, compromise or, frankly, avoidance of being a Labor Government is down to Albanese and his ever-compliant Caucus.

Albanese leads a government entirely in his own likeness: timid, weak and insipid.

If Albanese was to be paper back novel it would be titled “50 Shades of Beige” and instead of stilettos there’d be a pair of grandpa slippers on the cover.

With so much licence there’s actually no excusing just how bad his government has been.

Some might say “Never Gillard, Rudd, Gillard again” to which the reply should be “So what? More Albo?!?”

Albanese has been given more licence than any Labor leader in living memory. Despite that freedom he’s dithered, obfuscated or just downright lied to the voters of Australia.

Federal Labor is in a death spiral of its own making. The ALP truly is the Albanese Lazy Party. Bereft of policy ideas to tackle the crippling cost of living or an electoral mandate thanks to its small target election campaign.

Albanese has managed to let down the Left and failed to win over middle Australia from office. He’s under-delivered even on the little he did promise. He set back the Uluru Statement by at least a generation. He single-handedly frittered away goodwill to deliver a hard No in six short months.

Under Albanese interest rates are up, electricity prices way up and real wages down. We have a per capita recession and only a flood of migrants has saved us from headlines saying we are in national recession.

Albanese has tens of billions of dollars available to build houses yet will be lucky to finish even one before this term of office is over.

He’s been “handsome boy” weak on China, with no relief in sight to our diplomatic tensions despite his subservient acquiescence.

On foreign policy he’s allowed mean girl Penny Wong and Pally Fan Boy, Tony Burke to brutalise Labor’s long term support of Israel in its absolute hour of need and give succour to Hamas.

Albanese ran on Scott Morrison’s track record in office, the train wreck for Labor that’s coming is they will have to run on Albanese’s track record in office.

Whether its tone-deaf actions like endless flying on Toto One or seeing Taylor Swift and Katy Perry in the same weekend or listing his investment property for a huge profit in the midst of a housing crisis, Albanese has shown poor or no judgement.

Then there’s all the political capital dead, buried and cremated with the Albanese vanity project: the Albanese Voice to Parliament.

Albanese on the evidence hasn’t got the natural wit to know how to lead himself out of the proverbial wet paper bag, let alone move beyond the policy depth of a placard to lead Labor to an electoral victory in its own right. As Michael Costa noted “Albanese was only ever a slogan peddler”.

Albanese has an answer for nothing and an excuse for everything.

Yet I know Labor can be so much better. I was raised in the reform years of Hawke and Keating, celebrated the policy bravery of Rudd to ask for a mandate. This isn’t some nostalgia or romanticism, it’s just the memory of a 33-year-long ALP member recalling the last truly Labor government.

Labor has given Albanese ample free air and every opportunity to shine and I actually think he’s shown the electorate his very best. That “very best” delivers a 31 per cent primary vote nationally, a position from which Labor has never won government.

Rudd was rolled when he was still ahead in the polls because the Labor Caucus was deeply concerned we’d lose after just one term. The Albanese era evidence is in and the diagnosis is the same for Federal Labor.

Albanese criticises the extreme Greens but his only viable plan to remain PM will see him govern with the extreme Greens. Labor simply can’t let him do that to our party.

Labor has also seen what Albanese can deliver with six months of campaigning - just look at the Voice.

The ALP caucus is the now the only one with the power to save Labor. The survival DNA for Australia’s oldest political party still exists and as every unionist knows no one individual is more important than the collective.

Labor is also blessed with one of the most talented and leadership-ready front benches – Bowen, Plibersek, Chalmers, Clare, Rowland for starters, the ever-ambitious Burke, and even dapper Marles.

So, to re-energise the base, lift the Labor primary and put it in a position to win a second term in office they need to take the nuclear option. Albanese has tried his best, but his best isn’t good enough.

In the words of a movie Richo no doubt also enjoys, “It’s not personal. Sonny it’s strictly business”. Labor now only has the nuclear option available in order to save the party from Albanese.

Cameron Milner is director of GXO Strategies and a former ALP State Secretary with three decades’ experience on Labor campaigns