While Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong have hit the ground running, with Albanese looking increasingly comfortable on the international stage, domestically it’s a different story. They’re still moving the furniture around in Canberra, with new ministers getting their feet under the desk and welcoming new secretaries who were appointed or shifted only last week.
Meanwhile, the clock ticks on some urgent problems. The aged care crisis continues in nursing homes across the country, with a workforce crisis that worsens by the week and is set to worsen still in a high-inflation environment. The energy crisis of recent weeks has shone a light on just how urgent it is that we ramp up investment in renewable generation capacity and transmission infrastructure. Poor access to healthcare — both primary and acute — is costing lives and affecting the well-being of many. The submarine debacle won’t start being resolved until next year at the earliest.
So we sit and wait for a new government to start making actual decisions.
To be fair, there are a number of good reasons why patience will be required. Our energy network is a mess because of nine years of Commonwealth neglect and climate denialism. It will take years to repair. The aged care crisis has an even longer-term origin — and there is a pile of reports and inquiries to show it. The AUKUS debacle comes with a $100 billion price tag. If the economy is not quite the “shit sandwich” Jim Chalmers says he’s been bequeathed, there are plenty of policy droppings waiting for ministers in the executive wing.
Worse, the capacity of the public service to hit the ground running with a new government is lacking. The Australian Public Service (APS) has been materially degraded and politicised over the past nine years, with the exception of Malcolm Turnbull’s period as leader. Scott Morrison presided over a historic period of disempowerment of the APS, shifting policy advice to external consultants, installing partisan hacks to senior APS positions and blocking bureaucrats from contributing to policy development. It will take some time for the APS to be match-fit for an active government.
But the time is rapidly approaching when it will no longer be tolerable for ministers to say they’re obtaining briefings from their departments. Australia voted for change, Anthony Albanese said repeatedly after the election. There has been substantial change on issues like climate policy and our relations with key allies, but there’s been little so far on the home front. Time to get cracking.
Hello! What do you think they have been doing the past month? The Albanese government has done more in a month than the (thankfully) ex-PM did in three years. It is going to take years for Albanese/Labor to turn around the mess the ex-PM and his inept government left behind.
The has-been may have believed in miracles but anyone in touch with reality knows you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time. Patience grasshopper.
Yes indeed. I would rather well-considered policy movements than the do-nothing previous government’s thought bubbles and unmanaged rorts.
Yes, the article points to a likely lack of the authors personal experience in running large initiatives. As a nation we might benefit more by journalists understanding and explaining to their readers that having an idea (policy) is very different to its successful delivery – and it’s usually very damaging to go off half cocked (submarine procurement?).
Gabrielle, they’re starting from a low and pillaged base, but they still didn’t have to make Madeleine King the Minister for Resources. It took them, via Ms King, about two days to indicate they are right on board with the Woodside Scarborough and Santos Narrabri gas projects. According to Ms King, gas is much better then coal and oil, and people who disagree – like me – simply don’t understand gas.
This is unfair and misleading. Anthony Albanese scheduled none of the meetings he has had to attend and Penny Wong is on the job at a cracking pace. Chris Bowen has been hands on as we have seen in the appalling energy crisis that blew up in the first couple of days of their term and I daresay has not had a moments rest and Jim Chalmers has been reporting to the public regularly but clearly needed to see what the Reserve Bank was going to do. What specifically do you want done yesterday and why do you think nothing is happening Bernard?
Slow down there Tex. They’ve been bestowed nine years of economic, social and political vandalism. Or are you expecting miracles like our previous PM? Remember Bernard, anyone can make announcements. Its delivering on those commitments and seeing through on your promises that counts.
Too true. How long did it take Hercules to clean the Augean Stables – and Albanese’s no Hercules.
Indeed, Bernard appears to want nine years of malfeasance, maladministration, and maleficence overcome and swept away in 5 weeks. Not going to happen. Just scoping the magnitude of the task will take longer than that. Putting it to rights properly, not just in some whirlwind of seat of the pants announcements and piecemeal plans (indeed just the sort of thing Bernard and others have been quite rightly decrying for the past decade) will take considerable time. More than happy to see measured, considered, sesnsible adult solutions delivered with careful deliberation, not just a hasty fix for this 24 hour news cycle’s talking points without thought for the likely medium to long term consequences. I have had my fill of short termism thank you very much.
I find this article remarkably frustrating and shallow. Yes the new government has spent considerable amount of time overseas but the work that they are doing is targeted at improving our lot domestically. For example, improving our credentials internationally is required to get negotiations such as with a trade deal with the EU back on track so that people can sell more product. This directly benefits people domestically. I really hope that journalists are going to be a more investigative and a bit less knee jerk.
Well said. This article’s really just a list of problems bequeathed to the current Government, that they need urgent addressing is obvious. And that’s about it.
Yes,
the overseas trips have had enormous value, and so much was damage repair after Morrison, who was clearly loathed or laughed at by most of the western world leaders.
Or more likely both loathed and laughed at.
Well Bernard you are right about the scale of crises and the running down of the PS. But it will be the case that as usual the PS will have prepared red books and blue books capturing intended policies by both parties and plans for (at least beginning) to carry them out. The Blue book would be very thin, a list of known mates and preferred rorts one supposes. The Red book will also have been starved due to the small target strategy of Albanese but there will be something there.
Meanwhile the challenge for the government is not to let the urgent crowd out the big and important and to seize the scale of the crises as reasons to double down on big and lasting structural reform.
What I am hearing is that midnight oil is burning long all over Canberra as the place goes from district league pace to elite league on the eve of finals levels. A bit of a shock but for many public servants a welcome chance to apply their skills for the public good. And a change from hanging around feeling like extras on the cast of Utopia under the previous mediocrities.