An interesting take on Albo’s leadership.
I would tend to think he has been over cautious since the referendum, glacial movement on the middle east and a failure to so anything meaningful on housing.
Maybe slow and cautious is the way we get real reform. Infuriating but effective?
All the things people are saying he needs to be bold and aggressive on, Labor has done so in the past and it’s lost them election.
The fact is we’re all too immersed in the American social media ecosystem and so we expect bold action to solve American problems that would only be vote-winners in a non-compulsory voting system where elections are fought on turnout (usually as a centrist vs. nutjobs race). Albanese knows the Australian political system well, that being that nobody really cares about politics here and if Labor wants to win they need to stay out of the press because it’s run by private school kids who hate him (at best).
Putting an election before lives is pathetic.
Putting lives before an elections means you lose both, if he even has sacrificed lives by being cautious.
Cutting arms shipments to Israel would be merely symbolic and would get Albanese immediately couped like Whitlam and Rudd (if he would even be able to do it in the first place), the HAAF was meant to solve homelessness rather than housing stress and it was delayed by a few years by the Greens, and climate change requires policy maintained over multiple elections cycles to address on a domestic level.
If you really don’t think Albo is directly responsible for people dying, there’s nothing I can say that will convince you. The shitty neoliberal system isn’t a justification for inaction, it’s a disgusting tumour that he’s actively strengthening. You’re assuming that he has to play the game, he doesn’t, it’s a choice. Giving him a pass on this because of a lame excuse isn’t helping anyone, it’s placid acceptance of objective evil.
I’ll add this one specific thing though. Albo is actively making climate change worse and ensuring that the country continues to be reliant on fossil fuels.
The prime ministers that didn’t play the game didn’t last more than 3 years. Then we got the LNP who actually actively strengthen the neoliberal system. This whole “both sides are the same” argument needs to die, firstly because the LNP is corrupt and much more incompetent, but also because it makes the corruption and incompetence seem less bad when people say (or imply) that.
Why do people think criticising Labor for entirely valid reasons is a both sides are the same argument? It isn’t, it’s valid and necessary. Both sides do sometimes agree on things, but it isn’t me saying they’re the same… I never said they are the same, I never even mentioned the LNP.
Unwavering support for corrupt politicians needs to die because it actually does legitimise harm and makes corruption and incompetence seem less bad. You’re literally trying to justify corruption because they’re not the LNP.
You suggest both sides are the same when you say winning is less important than acting symbolically on principle. Principles give you a coalition government. A flagrantly corrupt, shamefully incompetent government, one that will not just do nothing to stop America from owning us but actively seek that out, one that undermines the unions and willfully cheers on extinction, one that’s just recently come out with the policy of scrapping net zero.
You may suggest the Greens, but the Greens would 100% lose 9/10 elections if Labor disappeared tomorrow. And the Greens are the actual horrible people. They blocked the HAAF not to save people from homelessness, but from housing stress, because they wanted to pick up renters as a voting block. I remember Adam Bandt visibly seething in rage at having parliamentary rules explained to him, because he is a narcissist who wants everyone to know that he’s a good and infallible person because he acts on his principles.
Acting on principles is the easy thing to do, but it’s also dereliction of duty as prime minister, because it gets you the job title of “former prime minister”. Whitlam and Rudd acted on principle, they lasted 3 years and were proceeded by a decade of Liberals. We cannot afford another decade of Liberals.
After all this time I’m still undecided on Rudd but I’m sympathetic to this argument. He’s cautious to a fault but moves where he can and does make real progress, not always where it’s most needed but where it’s achievable.
On the other hand, the U16 social media was rammed through, and looks to be expanded to include search engines, with little patience or care.
TBH I think the pattern is more that he can move quickly when Murdoch agrees work him.
When the oligarchs give an order, they can move mountains. When the people genuinely want something, it takes years of public debate.
Cannot take this argument seriously. In a world with a recent uptick in violence and perceived decline, the article is praising a person that has no values and does very little as the epitome of leadership.
Albanese is considered to be on the left-wing of the Labor party. He’s extremely cautious and with good reason. Culture wars, tax reform, and defying America are all election losers.
If you want to see someone who has no values look at Gillard. She couped Rudd by offering to drop the taxes on mining corpos, governed based on spectacle rather than long-term outcomes, and now spends her days campaigning on behalf of Israel last I checked.
He can hide behind a veil of caution all he wants, it doesn’t change the fact he’s getting people killed and ruining lives for a lot of people. He isn’t being patient anyway, he’s actively making a lot of stuff significantly worse and betrayed even the most hardcore Labor supporters I know.
What is he doing that’s getting people killed?
For a start:
https://michaelwest.com.au/billions-in-israel-defence-contracts-put-australia-at-risk/
https://michaelwest.com.au/more-gas-labor-amps-it-up-past-twenty-fossil-fuel-approvals/
He doesn’t have morals. He’s another corporate boot licker with a vague excuse.
The Israel story doesn’t allege any Labor wrongdoing other than the Elbit/Hanwha deal. There was a non-response from the Department of Defense but I wouldn’t expect them to respond. The Elbit/Hanwha deal is a bit of a misnomer, because it was a deal with Hanwha that Elbit was subcontracted in. The decision to employ Elbit was that of Hanwha, while they didn’t actively push against it they also didn’t initiate it. This is all me just skimming so take what I say with a grain of salt.
You gotta remember that America owns us, and Israel owns America. Actively (rather than passively) boycotting Israeli arms manufacturers would likely put our system at risk without materially affecting Israel’s ability to shoot fish in a barrel.
The fossil fuel approvals, I can’t find a credible source debunking those claims and can’t be bothered looking into the details. I need to know why Labor would approve new fossil fuel projects because I don’t buy the narrative that they’re evil and/or corrupt. Until I know the reason I can’t consider the story credible.
The salmon farming thing was obviously an election promise to get Tasmanian seats. It ultimately proved unnecessary because Dutton fumbled the campaign so catastrophically but if he goes back on his word that’d hurt future elections.
I see. You aren’t interested in engaging with reality.
Labor has no good reason to open fossil fuel extraction projects years after we’re meant to be beyond that. The fact that you’re just deciding the story is fake is incredibly telling…
The salmon farming thing was indeed an election promise. It was also pure fucking evil, that’s my entire point. Albo sentenced an entire species to extinction for politics. How do you not see the problem here?
America does own us! Because of spineless politicians who keep bending to their will. We don’t have to be where we are now, we don’t have to keep propping up a self justifying system of death. We should never act like any of this is even slightly okay. I don’t understand how you aren’t outraged at the fact that this is all happening for nothing more than greed.
The systems you’re using to justify this aren’t actually justifications, they’re mechanisms fullfilling their intended purpose.
Yeah, we’re much better off with…
…Sussan Ley?Yes, my entire point is obviously that we should just bend over and accept evil because someone else might be a bit worse. /s
Don’t strawman me.
You can’t go around giving people a free pass for being spineless and corrupt just because someone else is worse. That’s literally the reason the system slides further and further right. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
Would I rather have Albo? Sure. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a turd who’s actively making it worse under the guise of electoral reform and it sure doesn’t mean we should accept it. Do you want a two party system? Because this is how we get one.
So angry - I think he is doing the best he can.
Can’t find the link but friendlyjordies was not a fan of that Australia institute report, or much else they do.
