CAMERON MILNER: Labor’s victory was clear, but stability without delivery won’t be enough

As the polls said and so many predicted, Anthony Albanese has been returned as Prime Minister.

Voters voted for certainty in uncertain times. They voted to reject Trumpism and embrace the devil they know.

The only real surprise was just how bad the Liberals’ campaign became. Labor national secretary Paul Erickson ran the best Labor campaign in a generation, vastly superior to Kevin ’07, given the poor quality of the product Erickson was selling.

The greater unknown, though, is whether this victory will lead to a better second Albanese term than the first. Will we have a Labor Government or just more Albanese management?

Compare the pair. Both already had a majority. Both were elected on small target plans, and both have Anthony from middle management acting up on higher duties while the boss is away.

We were fortunately blessed with a more disciplined election night speech from Albo this time — no Uluru Statement from the Heart surprises — but that was largely because Penny Wong, backed in by senior right minister, Anika Wells firmly made it part of Labor’s mandate pre-election.

There’s lots of-blow hard analysis and over the top “Age of Albo” headlines, but despite the two-party preferred vote, Labor’s primary remains at historical lows. It’s only the complete collapse in the corresponding Liberal primary that delivers the statistical anomaly.

Labor won seats it never campaigned in, many Albanese never visited because Labor too was surprised by the seats that fell.

In those surprise seats in outer eastern Melbourne, Perth metro and South East Queensland, can be found one very simple phenomenon — voters who are reviled by the idea of the Greens holding the balance of power.

And so, Australians voted to deliver Albanese and Labor an effective majority in their own right rather than risk Adam Bandt and the anti-Semitic Greens party.

As the dust settles and the Liberals self-flagellate and talk about themselves rather than voters still doing it hard under an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, Albanese will get back to managing.

The election hasn’t changed our inflationary trajectory. Even a double cut of 0.5 by the politically aligned RBA in May will still see voters with unbearably high interest rates.

Labor’s Budget still sees a decade of deficits and absolutely nothing in the tank if we do actually experience another pandemic or a global trade war.

Labor’s easy answer of adding a million extra migrants during the last term of office to artificially keep the economy out of recession has caused the current housing crisis, and it simply can’t be repeated.

We are far less productive as a nation than we should be. The fact that so many, especially public servants, think that working from home is now an industrial relations right rather than a temporary pandemic response speaks to our lethargy as a nation.

Despite throwing billions and more billions at housing construction, we haven’t built enough dwellings, and so prices remain ever higher, and there’s no relief for renters either.

We are taking longer to deliver the energy transition than we’d hoped, and a lot like housing, have an approvals process that favours local landholders over the national interest.

Our brave men and women in uniform are simply out-gunned, and we need as a nation to rebuild our military capacity in the face of greater uncertainty about the US than ever before. You only have to see the courageous Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to see what being an ally to Donald Trump’s US really looks like.

None of these challenges have changed as a consequence of the election. So many of these were inadequately addressed in Albanese’s first term.

There are those who get it, like Treasurer Jim Chalmers, and ministers Mark Butler, Chris Bowen and Tanya Plibersek, who all delivered Labor agendas in each of their portfolios.

So many others like Tony Burke, Wong and Ed Husic simply sang from the Albanista hymn book of hubris and arrogance.

The election will only embolden the Albanistas.

For them, success is the sun coming up in the morning and the seasons changing. It has zilch to do with anything they’ve consciously done, but they’ll claim credit regardless.

So, what could the Albanese management team start work on immediately?

Well for starters Albo should stop letting down First Nations people and implement Voice, Truth and Treaty. It’s already been done in the South Australian and Victorian parliaments by Labor, so why is Albanese so timid?

Portable long service leave should become for unions like industry super — a massive new revenue stream that doesn’t rely on membership dues.

Lastly, the unrealised capital gains tax should be implemented on more than superannuation balances and include shares and investment properties.

There’s no need to implement negative gearing changes and capital gains if the architecture is already in place, and the practice of being taxed on money you haven’t earned becomes the new Albanese tax principle.

The Albanistas should become students of history, but they won’t.

In 1993, Labor defeated the GST, held a True Believers ballroom dance and were booted from office three years later.

In 2004, Howard got total control and proved again that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In 2015, Annastacia Palaszczuk defeated the largest majority LNP government in Queensland’s history after just one term. Labor went from seven out of 89 seats to 44 from 89 in three years.

The visceral disappointment with the Liberals and the revulsion of the Greens being the balance of power shouldn’t be mistaken for admiration for Albanese.

What voters give, voters can take away. It’s what makes our democracy still one of the best in the world and our nation the greatest country on earth.