ANDREW CARSWELL: It's time for angry Albanese to get a new schtick

For a Prime Minister at the height of his political ascendancy, having reduced his rivals to a punch line of a joke, it may seem a strange suggestion.

But Anthony Albanese may need to get a new schtick.

Millions of Australians collectively eye-rolled and gave the Prime Minister a reluctant “better-the-devil-you-know” vote in May, driven primarily by their pathological distrust of Peter Dutton and a rejection of a Coalition that had lost a few wheels on their merry wagon.

In Dutton, fairly or unfairly, the nation gained a reason to gloss over Albanese’s inadequacies.

The game has changed. So must the Prime Minister.

The Coalition may be confined to a narrow slice of the Parliament, and the road back to power may look impossibly long and arduous but Australians won’t tolerate perpetual drift, spin, or small politics forever. This time, there’s no Peter Dutton to give the Prime Minister cover.

The grace once extended on the basis of being the least worst option evaporated in the firestorm of May 3.

For the first time as leader, Albanese finds himself on the wrong side of a telling political juxtaposition, facing a new Liberal leader who in her first series of outings has struck a noticeable tone of contrast with a Prime Minister increasingly agitated and evasive.

A welcome change from the same-same monotony of two stern old men trading barbs for three tiresome years.

Somewhere along the line, the affable, approachable, likeable Albo just got jack of the whole show and pissed off back to Marrickville where he could enjoy a few hazies in peace, away from scrutiny. Even meandering Albo has exited stage left, barely to be seen.

We are left with a hollowed out statue, standing at the microphone grimacing through media inquisitions, bristling at scrutiny, and barely concealing the fact he’d rather be anywhere else.

Angry Albo. Arrogant Albo. Pokemon figures the majority of Australians had never quite anticipated having to collect. Why do media performances matter? Because it’s the one glimpse of a prime minister the public sees. A tiny window into an enormous job. What they are seeing at present, is not the best of Albanese.

The contrast is smiles. The contrast is passion. The contrast is humanity.

Not that politics is that shallow. But also, it is.

The challenge facing Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is beyond comprehension; the unenviable task of not only stitching together the frayed threads of a tattered Coalition, but charting a path back to relevance, exorcising the ghosts that keep the party from modernity, keeping the far-right gronks tethered in their cages, convincing Australians that they stand for something of substance, all while holding the Government to account.

It’s a 12 out of 10 on the degree of difficulty.

We are yet to see how the rump of a Coalition will approach Parliament this term — how it will play its hand, pick its battles, or find purpose in a chamber where its voice is diminished.

But already we have a distinct contrast in styles and approaches between the two leaders that will make things interesting in a period of dominant, one-sided politics that promised no such thing.

Passionate. Irritable. Personable. Dismissive. Relatable. Arrogant. Candid. Evasive. Smile. Frown.

This early contrast, on display in Ley’s opening salvo at the National Press Club last week, will no doubt force a rethink to Albanese’s increasingly aggressive, masculine approach to politics and media, if he can indeed recognise the regression in his public persona. If he can’t, others in his team surely must, before this contrast gets all mainstream on him.

They stopped him meandering. Now they must re-inject some warmth.

It wasn’t only Labor that perhaps misjudged this emerging contrast in leadership.

On the floor of the National Press Club last week was the world’s worst school reunion; a gathering of bleary-eyed Coalitionists, staffers, aligned lobbyists and supporters within business, all to hear Sussan Ley’s first speech as Opposition Leader.

There’s been cheerier wakes.

Ley’s speech acknowledged the faults and misdirected priorities, the failures of not speaking to young people, women, ethnic groups. It shone a light on the person behind the politics and a story that will resonate with any Australian who has had to push through walls, stare down adversity, or battle coercion. Or worse. And it promised a return to the economic and social values that should be the hallmarks of a modern Liberal Party.

It was passionate. It wasn’t perfect. There are some sticky points. The road remains treacherous.

But in 30 minutes, Sussan Ley gave them reason for optimism, in spite of their party’s predicament. A reason to lift their sights higher. A reason to ditch the sackcloth and put the shoulder to the wheel again.

Even those few who bucked and squirmed at her elevation at the expense of conservative opponents. Even those who had quietly hoped she would falter. Or merely those who simply couldn’t see a future that didn’t include six years in the wilderness.

Eyes opened. Green shoots of hope.

A bit of contrast can go a long way.