ANDREW CARSWELL: The lacklustre Albanese Government appears incapable of avoiding a grim minority government

It appears the Albanese Government has accepted its fate.

It is adrift in a raging sea, waiting for the inevitable.

There appears to be no ability within this Labor administration, whether through political acumen or policy ambition, to stave off the impending doom of minority government.

It is coming. They know it.

And they appear incapable of mustering the strength and the fortitude, nor offer any credible vision for the future, to fend off what they now see as an unavoidable reality.

Destiny has arrived, cloaked in Green and teal.

It is a frightening abdication of leadership that will only confirm the growing suspicions of countless Australians that what truly defines the Albanese Government and its Prime Minister, and thus constrains it, is weakness.

The numbers don’t lie. As showcased across a catalogue of political polls in recent weeks, the Albanese Government has been unable to arrest what has been a monumental slide in support since those halcyon days of honeymoon bliss, before the Voice diminished its own voice.

Albanese’s personal approval numbers remain sloshing around in the toilet.

The trend is not their friend.

Which makes this clear political drift we are seeing from this Government, this meandering along without making genuine progress, even more perplexing, but perhaps instructive.

Don’t be fooled by the fact we are in the midst of a parliamentary mid-year break, where politicians of all stripes and colours reacquaint themselves with family, switch off the news, or head away on taxpayer-funded “study tours”. Don’t be tricked into thinking the Government has simply stepped back from the spotlight as the frenzied battle over democracy rages across the Pacific and dominates the headlines.

This annual parliamentary pause has not caused this political malaise. This confounding US political saga has not interrupted the Government’s plans.

The Government isn’t merely taking a mid-year breather. There appears to be no breath left in the lungs. Expiration is upon them.

It would be easy to suggest it has run out of ideas within 26 months and is now coasting along without clear focus or purpose. Minority government beckons and there is no evident urgency or strategy to prevent it.

Fancy spending a demoralising nine years in opposition, only to offer up such tepid leadership and governance, devoid of imagination, unable to connect with the daily realities of Australians, and unwilling to put forward a genuine vision that captures hearts and minds. We all expected more. Especially now, when there is so much at stake.

Who comes to power merely to administer?

At least Kevin and Julia built some things, even if they couldn’t pay for them. They showed ambition, work ethic and an avowed commitment to fight for Labor values. To find a soul that could articulate what the Albanese Government stands for and what it has achieved, outside the parliamentary circle of Canberra and its departmental drones, would be an arduous challenge.

What is left on the agenda to turn this ship around and deliver Australia from the evils of minority government?

A virulent political fight over environmental laws that threatens to further agitate and animate the business community, miners and farmers, where the Government risks being seen as partners in crime with the Greens in stifling development and suffocating investment with onerous green tape that makes regular red tape seem fun and fulfilling.

Hardly a strategy to win back the Australian people.

What else?

A heated political brawl over religious discrimination laws that risk further alienating faith groups and religious communities in the midst of an already inflamed debate over the government’s inability to tackle anti-Semitism and innate ability to stoke religious tensions.

Put that on a campaign poster!

Of course there is nothing new here. It’s last year’s agenda hanging around like a bad smell.

Nothing fresh and inspiring. Only fights, scraps and controversy. No engaging vision for the future.

It can’t even talk about the cost of living with any great authority or gravitas, given its perceived failure to deliver genuine relief or stem inflationary pressures. The most defining issue of their term has proved perilous ground for Labor.

Any attempt to thrust itself into the cost-of-living conversation has either backfired — having been adjudged as tone deaf, too little too late or ineffective — or was simply hijacked by internal politics or strife.

The minute Labor went on the front foot to sell its tax cuts on July 1, it lost a senator, the political ascendancy and the narrative, all in the space of a few hours. Senator Payman’s defection to the crossbench was not just an awkward episode for the party, it stole what was left of the Government’s oxygen.

The minute Labor began touring the country to talk up its renewable energy grand plans, and to talk down the Coalition’s nuclear ambitions, the covers were ripped off the CFMEU, revealing endemic corruption and criminality that made Labor’s links to the militant union more than questionable.

Whenever it takes a tip-toe forward, it is forced to retreat.

So sometimes it’s easy just to do nothing. And leave fate to the winds.

If only that was going to lead to a good outcome for Australia.

Andrew Carswell is a former strategist for the Morrison government.