SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Eager-to-please Prime Minister Anthony Albanese diminishes us all

We’re in trouble when a middle-ranking public servant shows better judgment and does a better job upholding Australian values than the Prime Minister.

Yet that’s exactly the takeout from the most publicised and debated moment in Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Australia this week.

The carefully managed visit went off script when Chinese officials tried to block and obstruct the visibility of Australian journalist Cheng Lei at a ceremony in Parliament House this week.

To the rescue came officials from Australia’s Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, who firmly yet politely sought to protect the freedom of the media.

They acted to uphold the values of our liberal democracy, without causing a major diplomatic incident.

They acted, in the heat of the moment, with clarity of thinking, application of the principle, and a calm intent to resolve not to inflame the situation.

It was the best of our public service in action.

And it stands in marked contrast to our Prime Minister.

Armed with two hours of warning before he was eventually asked to comment on the incident, Mr Albanese showed none of the skills or principles of those officials.

Instead, Mr Albanese applied Sergeant Schulz’s defence. He didn’t see the incident. He wasn’t aware of the issues.

It was truly Anthony “I know nothing!” Albanese in action.

Are we really to believe that not one of the Prime Minister’s many advisers had forewarned him that officials of a foreign government had impeded the work of an Australian journalist at an event Mr Albanese attended?

With television footage of this incident running across bulletins for the preceding couple of hours, are we to accept that nobody mentioned it before he fronted those same journalists?

Sure thing. And pandas might fly!

The fact is that Mr Albanese made the wrong call.

When he was required to apply strength, with a deft hand, he instead displayed both ignorance and incompetence.

Having made much of his many promises of truth and transparency as leader of the opposition, both were once again cast aside.

It was the same when Mr Albanese refused to use an opportunity available to him to directly address with President Xi Jinping the issue of Australian navy divers being placed in danger by Chinese military actions.

It’s the same when Mr Albanese decided that rather than directly confronting the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia as a leader should, he would instead initiate a Human Rights Commission inquiry into racism.

No different when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for the Prime Minister to attend a peace summit, only to receive the disability minister instead.

It’s the same Prime Minister who, when our defence forces require decisive decision-making, mires them in reviews for two years.

The same again when Australians who are feeling the pressure of inflation need difficult decisions to reign it in, instead, they see a Government leaving all of the hard yards to the Reserve Bank.

Like so many things that you confront in government, the actions of the Chinese authorities towards Ms Cheng were not of Mr Albanese’s making. But his decisions on how to respond were entirely in his control.

By squibbing it, Mr Albanese not only let himself, his party and his Government down, but he failed to stand up for the values our nation should hold dear.

Not only should our PM have cause to reflect on this incident, but so too should Chinese officials who in their eagerness to only project positive images of this visit, shot a very big own goal.