Let the real Albo stand up! Here comes the rallying cry for a robust, left-wing Albo, the one who “fights Tories” and appeared with Jeremy Corbyn at a UK “Politics in the Pub” event.
Stirring words indeed, in the op-ed pages of The Australian, from, erm, Cameron Milner — former Queensland ALP state secretary and firmly ensconced in the Labor Right. How courageous and helpful of Milner to suggest, in the public prints, that we don’t know the “real” Albo, days out from an election start.
Doubtless Milner’s intent is nothing other than a desire to maximise Labor’s chances, and it’s only a coincidence that it conforms to the right-wing narrative that Albo is a Che in a wolverine’s clothing, using a small target strategy to conceal his alleged radical leftism. Some would say that tying Albo to Corbyn, a man publicly trashed, has more costs than benefits, but Milner is urging us to let it all rip! Inspiring!
Indeed, it’s all the more so because Milner has for decades been associated with Bill Shorten, doomed to be mostly dudded by a PM Albo. He returned to Shorten’s office as chief-of-staff (which he notes) having been a lobbyist for Adani (which he leaves out). Before that, and before he moved to Queensland, he was a students politics hack, a consigliere to Kimberley Kitching’s widower Andrew Landeryou, effectively his junior (if you can imagine that).
Milner left Melbourne sometime after Landeryou was sacked as University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) president by a recall referendum. After a stint in Queensland ALP, he jumped out and sold them back his expertise through his company Next Level Strategic Services, which also has a roster of corporate clients. It’s fair to say that Next Level’s access to a PM Albo office will be low level, possibly zero.
How generous of him then to raise the question of Albo’s electability, when he might well be advantaged by another Labor loss, and a third tilt by Bill Shorten at the leadership for the 2025 election!
I think we can all agree that what Albo really needs to win is to be more closely tied to Jeremy Corbyn. Truly we’re all pulling together in this contest, though what’s being pulled varies. Solidarity forever!
Dear GR. Thank you for reading the Murdoch press for me – it all helps to keep my blood pressure within reasonable limits. And thanks for your series of Crikey columns over the last six or so weeks. They have made me angry, smile, nod my head, sometimes snort coffee on my keyboard and always informed me.
Reading The Australian’s op-eds is deleterious to one’s health. Thanks to Rundle for his sacrifice.
You would hope that with a Labor government, GR will have little need to further risk his health.
But the inevitable shaking and vomiting at the Oz that will follow a Labor win may transpire to boost GR’s health.
If he perseveres I will continue to take his word for it, rather than ever read it myself.
I think we all agree that a Labor victory is essential to ending the reign of the current criminals. But I fear that will then just be the beginning of more stress for GR and the rest of us, as we watch modern hollowed out Labor pretending to be a party of the left.
Don’t think that they will bother to pretend.
They haven’t bothered for the last 20yr, why start now?
They haven’t bothered for the last 48 years either.
I would suggest that the class traitor brigade of HawKeating et al pretended to be left wing – as alluded to by Barnino above.
Some of the more honest ones – a long bow to draw, admittedly – may even have actually believed that at first.
Like many a seducer – “only put it in a little bit” – perhaps they thought that once in office and the nasty, corrective actions necessitated to repairthe depredations of Fraser the Razor and his toady Treasurer li’l Honest John (wotever happened to him?, nothing good, one hopes) were over, they’d be able to set out, once again, for the Shining Light on the Hill.
As the early 20thC agitprop poster put it – “and still you vote for them!”.
Labor would still be a party of the left had they not made the misstep of allowing the SDA and the other DLP splitters back into the party. Between them and the AWU, they’ve held us back as a country and Labor back as a party for decades.
Kick em out, I say. The SDA is a vehicle for skimming money out of the pockets of poorly-paid shop and fast-food workers, using their cash and numbers to gain clout within the ALP, and use that clout to pull it to the right – all while masquerading as a trade union. They give the rest of the union movement an undeserved bad name.
Never underestimate the Left’s ability to shoot itself in the foot. The left foot, mind you. Not the right.
Only because the right one is always stuck in its mouth.
To shoot oneself in the foot once used meant making a tough decision in difficult circumstances. This followed the occasional practice of WW1 soldiers wounding themselves to get away from the front.
No before that it meant shooting oneself in the foot while hunting – rifle pointed downwards to avoid other hunters, accidentally discharged….
Theyre not the left in any form. They’re the right, who happen to be in Labor.
Not sure about “…who happen to be in Labor.” – for most it was the obvious vehicle for their cramped, malignant minds, easy pickings.
Oh so very sadly true!
You would know all about being on the right, given you make excuses for Putin.
What a classic act of pure political bastardly and what an absolutely amazing coincidence that it has a shorten/kitching association. Thank you Guy as always for opining on this stuff – no way could I bring myself to actually read The Australian.
I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a Shorten connection. If Shorten leads the Victorian right faction does this and the attacks via Kitching mean his Shorts have effectively declared war on Albanese? What lengths will they go to after the election?
Albo clearly is making unnecessary missteps, but why the hell doesn’t this party show the same sort of unbreakable solidarity that LNP does (or DID hopefully). Internal squabbles, as we have seen in the opast, can easily lose an election.
LNP and “unbreakable solidarity” in the same sentence? What are you on?
Because certain parts of Labor are fully, cleareyedly, willing to risk losing the election to maintain their hold within the party, if winning the election, without securing their internal position, would see them lose some power….
Which makes them disgusting “leadership” material, no better than the Coalition’s poor leadership, no better than… Putin, Stalin and the like who pursue power for its own sake with no integrity or positive values.
Dunno about down Mexico way, but certainly SussexSt, like Belial “…rather than not be on high, would fain not be at all.”.
As those apparatchiks & grifters demonstrated during the Rodent’s Reign of Misrule and by bringing down Krudd, then Gillard – just to have Shorten’s empty cranium as their receptacle.
Hear, hear! if the spoiling, nasty, jealous ALP right adopts that shorten-eyed strategy it will shoot itself in the foot. Its better off swing in behind, holding out olive branches and negotiating with Albo.