Is Anthony Albanese’s honeymoon over yet? Have we collectively moved into the passionless, just-staying-together-for-the-sake-of-the-kids state of marital monotony? Or are we still in the early haze of love in which even Albo’s most annoying habits are kinda cute?
Let’s ask the media.
Opinion, as they say, is divided. Some thought the honeymoon was over, really, before it began. Any thoughts of a honeymoon were rapidly diminishing, Nick Feik opined in early June, barely a fortnight after the election. A subeditor at Nine agreed, declaring Albanese’s honeymoon ended in a headline on a Sean Kelly piece on June 13.
Some waited a bit longer. On July 12, Guardian Australia declared the honeymoon was “fading”, just a few days after Chris Wallace wrote for Nine that “the Albanese government’s honeymoon has been one of the sweetest in political memory but could also be one of the shortest”.
But Newspoll showed the honeymoon was still continuing in early August — indeed, according to Jacqui Lambie, Albanese was still waltzing at the wedding. A couple of weeks later, the ABC’s Karen Tong reckoned that, by expert calculations, Albanese’s honeymoon would end on August 23.
Still, Eliza Edwards for Nine thought Albanese was going well at the end of August — but the next 100 days would be crucial (predicting “the next XXX period of time will be crucial” is a whole other form of political commentary). On September 5, Peta Credlin estimated the honeymoon was still going. But three weeks ago, Albanese’s honeymoon was “quickly coming to an end”, according to another Sky News commentator. A subeditor at The Australian waited until last week to declare the honeymoon over, even though Geoff Chambers only ventured “the prime minister’s post-election honeymoon and polling support will be put to the test”.
You can’t really blame political journalists for wanting to get back to real politics. It’s boring to write about popular prime ministers and steady-as-she-goes management as ministers get their feet under the desk. We became accustomed to the Morrison government, which rolled out a bungle, a lie or a major scandal every other day, in an extended high-tempo period of incompetence unmatched since, well, the Abbott years. A government that wants to take its time and try to get things right, or which is stolidly committed to carrying out its election commitments, is no fun at all.
That’s why the debate over the stage three tax cuts is so exciting, with headlines about Labor being divided and plans being prepared for abandoning the handouts to the wealthiest. At last — we’re back to governments breaking promises and misleading voters!
At News Corp, it’s manna from heaven. For months, journalists and editors at News Corp have had to endure a popular new Labor government. For a company where the commitment to ousting Labor would have been made in blood at about 10pm on election night, it’s undoubtedly been deeply frustrating. But here is an issue that could help damage Albanese and get the Coalition back in the game — the regime change project can finally commence.
Too bad the government has yet to decide anything, and appears to be floating the tax cut idea because it wants — as Jim Chalmers said recently — to have a conversation about how to pay for the dramatically larger government Labor inherited from the Coalition. But it’s been a particularly joyless honeymoon for News Corp, and the end can’t come soon enough.
The honeymoon will last longer than predicted because News Corp & others badly underestimated how much the electorate disliked/loathed Morrison. One suspects News Corp was reading its own publications & had lost its grip on the real world.
Until we forget that insufferable smirk – foisted on us in what felt like daily press conferences announcing nothing – the Albanese honeymoon will continue.
…. because News Corp & others badly underestimated how much the electorate disliked/loathed Morrison.
And, as Guy noted above, how much they disliked Abbott and still do.
The stage 3 tax cut furore, while infuriating, is great for the government and long may it last. The government can stick to its promise and keep the high moral ground.
In the meantime the public can be exposed to a debate about what tax reform means, what it entails (not just lowering tax rates) and why it matters. That’s the debate our journalists were too lazy to engage in in 2018.
Yes you will have to suffer PK’s vanity project on the ABC each weekday morning as she asks in 27 different ways ‘when are you going to abandon stage 3’. It’s as if she is personally delivering a great public service. Personally, I hope she keeps it up. It will become that tedious even the opposition will beg the government to abandon stage 3.
Why would a half savvy government abandon the stage 3 tax cuts now? They don’t take effect until July 2024. If the government attempts to repeal the stage 3 tax cuts now our media will have only one story ‘broken promises’ and they will keep it as their main story for the next nine years – it will be bigger than ‘debt and deficits’.
Yeah because overpaid journalists won’t get their precious cuts – even if they’ll play the moral high ground at first
Clear to see they may not actually serve the public…
Yes and in fact the good news is likely to be that when Labor does axe stage three, probably mitigated with some bracket creep relief, it will be a vote winner. Already, as the issue is framed now, flattening the tax system to reduce fairness and provide those in the top 10% with some business class fares for their next trip to Europe, discussion of it just erodes the Coalition vote. Give us a year or so of recession and Labor will be using axing it as part of their election platform and the Coalition will be tempted to match them.
You need to handle with care when you mention tax reform. It is code for increasing the GST (so that personal income tax can be reduced for the rich).
Not repealing the tax cuts so as not to break an election promise means Labor will not be able to fix a lot of the things it said that need fixing resulting in a plethora of broken promises.
Or, going ahead with them leaves the door open for a serious debate about taxing wealth, rather than earned income, which in an ever increasingly technological future, is less and less where it’s at . . . But keeping a profoundly stupid promise isn’t where it’s at either.
The honeymoon has continued despite some in Labor and most in the Greens having panic attacks over the Albanese government insisting they are going to keep the 2024 Stage 3 tax cuts as an election promise made and to be honoured. Would have thought it better to see what Jim Chalmers presents in the October budget before prejudging however being exercised in the media is the Greens seeking to set themselves up to claim credit if Labor do decide to ditch them. There are some very serious pressures in the economy and housing is just one to mention. The Greens promise of 100’s of 1000’s of social housing homes is great but that will require a lot of timber and other resources including land. Does anyone ask them about the likely economic impacts of their policies? They seem to be unexamined because of the “feelgood” factor. Look forward to the Greens presenting a “green” housing scheme providing affordable, sustainable housing in this hostile economic climate.
Suffering PK’s vanity project! I could not have put it better myself. I thought Fran Kelly was irkesome, but geez, PK is <<autre chose>>. She’s released me from a habit of a lifetime. Least I get up earlier now . . .
Until I gave up (after 40+yrs) listening to 2FC/RN breakfast due to PK’s self obsession.
I began to count the number of times each morning that she said “I, Me or My” but ceased due to overload early this year when the show became the Qwertioup+ Propaganda Program – no matter the topic she seemed able to turn it to validate her personal proclivities.
Fran Kelly was once a good foreign correspondent and I wondered why she’d lowered herself to being a host for the new breed of under qualified interns & barrow pushers.
She eventually became too complacent in her dotage, after 15yrs presenting, and increasingly seemed irritated by some of the know-nothings she interviewed and stopped pretending to listen to their rote answers, just reading a crib sheet.
Spot on. Reckon Jim will drag it out to the last day two years away. By then people will be sick of it and probably celebrate when the policy is withdrawn because they will be absolutely sick of it and just want the media to shut up.
I often wonder Bernard, how many of your political commentariat colleagues have deep convictions, or any convictions at all, about their commentary? Is it just a search for click bait in the 24h news cycle, filling column cm or achievement dot points in their résumés? Does someone like Bolt actually believe his bile, if he does was from the start or did he start cynically exploiting it and became corrupted, like the Gollum?
I think you can stop wondering! I’ve actually come to believe it’s mostly written by simple AI, trained on previous columns and a couple of topical key words.
Seriously though, I’m disgusted by our media. Their disintegration is sometimes fun to watch, until I remember the true cost of kleptocracy, climate catastrophe and psychopathy.
Agree, and this hollowing and turning inwards to the point where media are integrated with Canberra &/or state politics, and has also become captured due to proximity, some shared values or interests, and ignorance?
What has really happened is that the media’s honeymoon with Albo’s honeymoon is over; it was over before it started, and could be discerned from the early concerns expressed about Albo being overseas, the undeserved prominence given to Dutton’s utterances, and the generally willing way the media embraced that man’s efforts to embrace a softer new image of himself. As an example, Dutton’s predictable, missing-the-point ‘religious freedom’ comments about the Essendon Football Club’s one-day wonder, CEO Thorburn, have been high or at the top of The Age’s web site this week, including this morning. No Labor opposition leader gets a run like Dutton’s getting. The effect of all this rumination about whether Albo’s honeymoon is over is that of a self-fulfilling prophecy; they won’t let go of the ‘stories’ – in fact they’ll keep making them up – until the public do the right thing and announce the post-honeymoon divorce through Newspoll.
I dunno, Bill Shorten got a lot of attention during the Kill Bill campaign, enthusiastically prosecuted by all the MSM including the ABC.
If the media put Dutton at the top of the page it’s a cue to scroll down.
Stop buying and advertising in their newspapers cancel your subscription to FOX! They will soon get the message
Broken promises, misleading the public, so what? I expect the government to make rational decisions based on the situation current at the time for the benefit of the country – us. This will inevitably reflect changing times and involve changes of policy. The ‘media’ can’t be bothered with reality, rationality or reason and are usually content to vomit crap intended to make people unhappy. Exceptions are Crikey and the ABC, usually. Both underfunded. The honeymoon phenomena attributed to a new government is repetitive crap forced out of the ‘media’ and has no useful function other than to fill the news vacuum on the journo’s blank screen. Or, rather, the gossip vacuum. Perhaps I’m too old and heard it too many times, but I can’t believe it still floats anyone’s boat.