Anthony Albanese’s promise to end class-war politics if he becomes Labor leader lacks any shred of credibility.
The Conservative Party has witnessed Labor’s lurch to the left in recent years and any pretence at a reversal of its economy-wrecking socialist policies will be very hard for the electorate to swallow.
The Australian reports, Albanese has always embraced the politics of envy and class-war rhetoric – these are the watchwords of Labor’s hard left faction which he leads.
The notion that Albanese would lead Labor to the centre ground of politics with a cooperative relationship with business is hard to fathom. It is just not who he is.
Just ask the inner-city hard left faction party members he represents who proudly wear their “I Fight Tories” T-shirts. This is Albanese’s personal motto. It has been embraced by the hard left faction.
“Tory” is a class-loaded term to describe the British Conservative Party that has no relevance when describing the Liberal or National parties. This is class warfare reduced to T-shirt slogans.
Labor has to be about more than just fighting their opponents.
The party has to actually believe in things.
At the election, Labor suffered huge swings against it in seats where there are large cohorts of blue-collar voters and aspirational middle-class voters.
These are Labor’s forgotten people and Labor must work out how to get them back.
It is not surprising that Albanese has reached for Bob Hawke’s mantle. He says he wants to lead the party in the Hawke tradition with pro-growth policies based on consensus between business and unions while bringing the country together. Well, who doesn’t?
The problem is that at Labor Party conferences through the 1980s and ’90s, Albanese and his left faction opposed many of the Hawke government’s economic reforms.
As Young Labor president, Albanese often criticised Hawke and Paul Keating.
When Labor went into opposition in 1996, many in the hard left faction called for their legacy to be junked.
Albanese says he is running for the Labor leadership without doing any factional deals or owing any favours to anyone.
Perhaps. But make no mistake: Labor’s hard left faction is marshalling the armies behind him now.
If the leadership is contested, it will be a left faction operation that gets behind Albanese.
Albanese’s supporters say his great strength is his authenticity. Well, he just lost it by pretending to be something that he never has been: an acolyte of Hawke and Keating.
