THE FRONT DORE: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s increasing fragility exposed by political cartoon

Anthony Albanese wants respect. He doesn’t want cartoonists to mock him, question his status, or draw him in his undies, on a leash being held by the Chinese leader. He is livid about that. Betoota Advocate endlessly ridiculing Peter Dutton, that’s funny. Cartoonist Johannes Leak drawing Albanese in his short pants is just not on. I’m the Prime Minister, remember. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Albanese’s not a commanding figure, he doesn’t have that elusive presence, he can’t fill a room with character, he’s not eloquent, he’s not overly inspiring, he’s not really even leadership material, and that’s by his own admission.

But it is certainly the case Anthony Albanese is the Prime Minister of Australia, and that office traditionally has been treated with a certain elevated status, in official quarters, if not by the general public.

Australians tend to take you how you are and don’t go for any special graces being afforded anyone. Australians don’t really warm to those who get ahead of themselves, hence the invention, in the Aussie vernacular, of the term wanker.

“Don’t be a wanker” is a fundamental rule of thumb for anyone getting about the streets of Australia, understood instinctively from Kings Cross to Cootamundra, from boardrooms to bedrooms and everywhere in between. If your goal is to stay out of trouble, don’t be a wanker. And if you are acting like a wanker, chances are you’re a dickhead.

Anthony Albanese is not a dickhead, but he’s acting like a wanker.

There are several signs.

He’s become arrogant. And it’s showing. He’s gotten ahead of himself. He’s lost the warmth that made him such a likeable bloke for so long. Arrogance coupled with incompetence is a killer combination.

Listening to Albanese decline to answer questions in a simple and honest fashion, refusing to take responsibility for any misstep or even acknowledge the odd error, is excruciating and unnecessary.

The arrogance manifests in many ways, but on Sunday the Prime Minister, in all his petulant glory, stood before Australians to announce a reshuffle of his ministry and decided it was appropriate to continue a months-long charade.

Even as he was literally shuffling sideways two bumbling ministers, who had distracted and derailed the Government for months, Albanese wanted us to believe their change of status was not a reflection of their poor performance, an assessment we can all make, and one many in Labor agree with.

Not for Albanese.

Albanese takes a different view. He succumbs to self-congratulatory mode for not sacking them. Encouraging incompetence by ignoring it, and then claiming the subsequent stability in the ranks as a win, is quite a flex.

Why did you move Andrew Giles, the failed immigration minister, from the portfolio?

“Because there is a reshuffle.”

Listening to Albanese decline to answer questions in a simple and honest fashion, refusing to take responsibility for any misstep or even acknowledge the odd error, is excruciating and unnecessary.

These ministers, Albanese would have us believe in his best Comical Ali impersonation, are doing a great job. “What Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles have had to do is repair the damage which has been done” … by Peter Dutton. Seriously.

The only reason they are changing portfolios is because “what we had to do, what you have to do when there is a reshuffle is there is a change that then has a knock-on effect”.

Often true. In this case two ministers have retired and have been replaced. Clean and simple.

Why not just own up, the whole belated reshuffle shebang is a direct correlation to the incompetence of O’Neil and Giles, and the very real likelihood that it’s hurting Labor with voters. Albanese chose to celebrate this measure of “stability” as a benchmark for the success of his ministers over competence. The twisted logic is torturous. We are the most stable Government in history, he says, because I chose not to sack the shithouse ministers, he forgets to add. But never mind, here we are now. Albanese has chosen his steel-capped, elbows-out parliamentary brawler Tony Burke to tidy up a mess he won’t even concede exists.

“My Government is a good Government, it’s orderly, we have proper Cabinet processes, we have now an opportunity as well for some refresh going forward with some entry of some new talent and I’ve got to say we are blessed there is a range of people who could have been promoted,” he said on Sunday.

“We could produce a second or third cabinet that would be stronger than the shadow cabinet that we face.”

Dude.

So there is that denial of reality.

And then there is the contempt for Australian voters in not revealing the significant structural change in how national security is handled, stripping our domestic spy and counter-terrorism agency ASIO out of Home Affairs, and for ideological reasons and purely, unstated, political reasons, handing them back to the Attorney-General. Most Australians wouldn’t know or care. So why all the game playing?

The major restructure didn’t even warrant a statement from the PM, or a release. He even declined to answer questions about the rationale behind it, rudely brushing it away as if it was none of our business.

“We are not distracted by the day to day issues that will be raised and we are considered, things are orderly, policy processes are right.”

Processes? Like how Albanese also forgot to mention that he had quietly dumped the minister for the republic. None of our business? In fact he even blamed his predecessor Bill Shorten for it. “I inherited it.”

What’s happened to this bloke?

Albanese also did this other thing. He appointed three backbenchers to new “envoy” roles on social cohesion, defence, and cyber security. Those orderly processes extend to inventing a whole new category of the executive, or whatever it is, and not tell us what it’s all about.

Well he did, this is the full transcript as he explains it, under questioning.

“What I have done with the envoy positions is put in place people who can give thought to things that mightn’t lead to an immediate policy decision, they are certainly not funding any programs.

“So in areas like social cohesion, in areas like how we deal with digital resilience, in these challenging areas as well as implications for what happens with the defence force being having some focus on Australia’s north and what the implications are for northern Australia there.

“They’re things that I think require some taking advantage of the fact that I have a range of people with extraordinary capacity which is there.

“Previously of course Patrick Dodson was someone who fulfilled that role in the reconciliation area, again an area that is not about, here is the answer these areas require a great deal of thought and long term change.”

Makes sense. How about some “thought” to fixing the economy, and getting inflation and rates down?

Albanese, bitter and fragile, is increasingly living in la la land.

Don’t know why, it’s all going to plan. It’s so good being Albo.

In Albo’s world everything is just so damn good. Well, aside from Peter Dutton.

“Peter Dutton will be negative, I will give you that big tip, he will be destructive he will attack people. He will engage in the sort of vilification that is his specialty. His team keep telling him to smile more but I have seen no evidence that is working. What I see is his relentless negativity. The fact is that Peter Dutton left a mess in the portfolios in which he held. Peter Dutton was one of the people in the former govt who presided over the dysfunction … “ Kettle. Black.

Otherwise, so good. In Albo’s world, everything is sweet. It’s cool. We are all happy. Everything is stable. And good. Orderly. And happy. How good. In Albo’s beautiful world, Andrew Giles is good.

Being prime minister is great.

Except for that cartoon. At least Leak put him in Y-fronts, and not a nappy.