The contradictory excuses given by the Albo team to explain why their electoral post has been vacant since January highlight what no politician wants to be accused of.
This Prime Minister is developing an unhealthy tendency to speak with two faces at once, saying contradictory things at different times in order to mislead the public.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have set up camp outside the Prime Minister’s office in his central Sydney district, putting up all manner of posters and banners on the walls to make their point.
They camp there day and night, even when no one is home. The taxpayer-funded office is simply abandoned and, oddly, has been since January.
The excuse used to justify why the Federal Police cannot simply evict the protesters so that the office can reopen is that “citizens in a democracy have the right to protest peacefully.”
That’s what Katharine Murphy, a former political editor at Guardian Australia and now Albo’s PR adviser, told me this week. You can hear the pious tone just by reading her words.
But how does the notion of peaceful, law-abiding protest square with the excuses being used to explain why the office has been closed for so long and cannot coexist with the protesters?
To justify this situation, we are told that “security concerns” and “security threats” are the reason why the office cannot reopen.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appears with his supporters this week. This prime minister is developing an unhealthy tendency to talk to two faces at once, writes PETER VAN ONSELEN
Pro-Palestine protesters have put up posters at the prime minister’s electoral office in Marrickville, in Sydney’s inner west. The office has been closed, but the prime minister has not urged protesters to reopen it.
If the protest is peaceful, what is the security threat? If there really is a security threat, why issue statements justifying the ongoing protests on the grounds that they are peaceful?
It’s a classic example of how to talk out of both sides of your mouth.
In reality, Albo does not want to end the protests that take place outside his electoral office and invade the property in the same way that protests that invade the House of Parliament are regularly ended.
Why? Because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself at a local level. Because the Greens will point out what he is doing to an electorate that largely agrees with the protesters’ cause.
But he also doesn’t want the constant spectacle of his constituents and staff walking past pro-Palestine protesters every day because of the distraction that might cause.
We all saw how frustrated he got when former Labor senator Fatima Payman distracted him from his tax cut sales pitch.
The Prime Minister said this out loud and specifically noted in a radio interview that his decision to cross the floor bothered him for this reason.
Albo has made the decision that when it comes to his constituent office, the lesser of two evils is to let impromptu protests spread outside, even if it means that the elderly and disabled who go there seeking help can’t get it because the office is closed.
You will be the judge as to what this says about our Prime Minister’s values and priorities.
Speaking out of both sides of the mouth is not a new concept for this Prime Minister or this Government.
Take the attacks on the Coalition’s nuclear policy. While there is much to be scrutinised when it comes to the costs and price competitiveness of Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy policy compared to other forms of energy, Albo and his team did not choose to direct their attacks towards that aspect.
Pro-Palestine protesters I met this week when I visited Albo’s closed electoral office
The Prime Minister’s election office at his downtown headquarters has been closed since January.
They began by highlighting safety concerns, albeit by using childish images of three-eyed fish and deformed koalas.
Yet the Labor Party supports the AUKUS nuclear submarines. Do they have the same fears about the safety of Australian submarines that will serve on those vessels? Or do they claim that nuclear reactors deep in the ocean are somehow safer than those on land?
What about the way the Prime Minister and his party try to portray the Australian Greens as a radical left party that should be ostracised, but Labor continues to make preferential deals that allow both to be elected?
Just look at how Labor will drop its attacks on the Greens if it needs their support after the next election to form a minority government, just as it did when Julia Gillard needed their support in 2010.
No doubt all politicians try to make their way out of trouble by improvised means. Prime ministers tend to do so more than most because they get the most attention and have the biggest media team in town, funded by taxpayers.
But problems start to arise when they become too blatant or rely too much on rhetoric rather than substance, and that is what we are witnessing as Anthony Albanese progresses through his tenure.
And with an election possibly around the corner, that tendency to rely on false narratives and doublespeak is not going away.
Will Australians take notice and punish Labor at the ballot box, or do what voters have done for nearly 100 years and give a first-term government a second chance?
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