A new biography has renewed speculation about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s surprise decision to give Tanya Plibersek the environment and water portfolios, considered to be some of Parliament’s most complex — not to mention reputationally risky for the minister heading them.
Was Albo making the most of Plibersek’s razor-sharp mind and problem-solving skills, or was it a political manoeuvre to charge his biggest leadership competition with tough, unpopular decisions during an era dominated by environmental outrage?
Journalist Margaret Simons’ new biography, Tanya Plibersek: On Her Own Terms, delves into the campaign that led to Labor finally toppling the Coalition’s decade-long reign in 2022.
It also touched on Albanese’s supposed insecurity about left-faction darling Plibersek — a rumour that went into overdrive when she was among the few cabinet ministers who didn’t get to take their shadow portfolios into the 47th Parliament.
Simons writes that Plibersek was “fully expecting” to be made minister for education and minister for women — instead, Albanese appointed Jason Clare in the former, a promotion by anyone’s standards for the up-and-comer, while Katy Gallagher was given the women’s portfolio along with finance.
“Predictably, the media said she had been demoted. It was true,” Simons writes.
“In public, she pointed out how important the environment portfolio was to voters, and how excited she was to get to grips with it. But she was now junior to Chris Bowen, who had been given the climate change and energy portfolio.”
Plibersek’s big challenge
Simons probed Plibersek about whether Albanese had ever pulled her aside to explain the demotion. Her unusually clipped response was: “Well, you have to ask the leader that. I’m not going to talk about conversations we had.” Simons, in response, said she had. Plibersek shrugged.
It was clear she had no interest in quashing speculation as to Albanese’s reasoning for the surprise move, if indeed it was given at all, beyond acknowledging in the aftermath of the appointment that it “wasn’t what I expected”.
The environment and water portfolios she was thrust into weren’t going to be easy — and she knew it. Blue ribbon seats turning teal, Plibersek said at the time, “shows that we’ve got a lot of work to do in this area and I’m up for it, I’m up for that challenge”.
A welcome “challenge” was a euphemism, according to Labor sources who spoke to Simons, describing environment and water as “very difficult and complex portfolios” that are known in political circles to “both involve making hard decisions that will often please nobody”.
Suddenly under Plibersek’s remit were gatekeeping fossil fuel projects, fixing woeful environment laws, thwarting the extinction of our native species, tackling the Murray-Darling Basin water crisis, and doing something about our ailing Great Barrier Reef.
Parachuted into the tough environment gig, Simons writes that it was clear Plibersek “would find it hard to maintain her high popularity and her profile”.
Hard decisions bite
It didn’t take long for the first headache to appear: the dismal 2021 State of the Environment Report, something predecessor Sussan Ley held back from tabling during the dying weeks of her government, probably to avoid bad press.
Plibersek did her best to put the gutwrenching contents — including that Australia had lost more mammals than any other continent — on the shoulders of the previous Morrison ministry. Even so, the report set a difficult agenda for the months ahead.
She’s faced a slew of agonising decisions since, including Defence Housing Australia’s wish to build on critically endangered ACT grasslands, whether Burrup Indigenous rock art was more important than two giant Woodside gas export plants, and whether to allow 140 projects that could relegate koalas to history.
Bad press came to a head last month, however, when power-tripping Greens Leader Adam Bandt — whose party is lavishly enjoying a commanding number of seats in the Senate — named and shamed Plibersek personally for her quiet approval of a fossil fuel project.
It was late on a Friday — a tactic familiar to many political journalists anticipating the weekend rather than the devilish moves of the elected officials they cover — that Plibersek greenlit oil and gas titan Santos’ fracking request to open no fewer than 116 new coal seam gas wells in Queensland’s Surat Basin.
“Not only that,” Bandt tweeted incredulously, “Tanya Plibersek has given them the green light to operate until 2077 … No media release. No statement. No regard for the climate.”
Crossbenchers joined in the mudslinging. Climate 200-backed independent Monique Ryan posted a link to The Australian’s coverage, which led with a photo of Plibersek, scoffing that Santos had “received an excellent return on their investment” — namely the $83,000 they’d donated to Labor in 2021-22.
It added insult to injury for Plibersek when a gleeful Santos said the decision meant it had spent more than a billion dollars this year on drilling new wells to supply energy not to the domestic market, which is strangled by a looming shortage and surging bills, but to Korea and Malaysia. Australia wasn’t even going to see the benefit.
A long history
Despite Albanese and Plibersek assuring the public they’re on cordial terms, the cracks have long shown in their relationship. Eyebrows were raised when she was absent from Labor’s official campaign launch at Optus Stadium in Perth last year, although she attended a Labor fundraising event the next day.
Was she making a point or just exhausted? The media had a field day declaring that Plibersek had been sidelined by Albo. Not so, she said firmly. She told Simons she made more than 70 media appearances and 39 electorate visits during that time, according to her office’s own numbers.
Yet a scorned woman was a compelling narrative too good to resist. Plibersek’s pathway to the top job had seemed an inevitability after Bill Shorten’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the so-called “quiet Australians” in 2019. Like Julie Bishop across the floor, Plibersek had spent years as deputy leader, but like Bishop, that’s as far as she’d go.
In firming up a leadership bid, Plibersek attracted strong support from Shorten himself, as well as former prime minister Julia Gillard, but ultimately ruled herself out — we now know it was to support her daughter who was emerging from an abusive relationship.
Still, Plibersek told Simons, she’s “pretty confident” she would’ve won the leadership contest against Albanese — a fairly brazen broadside against him, unwittingly or not. Plibersek framed it as a retort to the naysayers that accused her of not having the numbers in the party room.
Albanese waved away her comments, saying Plibersek had been his friend for “a very long period of time” though adding firmly that it was he who was “elected unopposed after the 2019 election, and I won [the election] in 2022”.
Albanese’s motives a mystery
None of this says anything about Albanese’s motives, however, which may never become known to those outside his tightest circle. And Plibersek’s unpopular decisions about fossil fuel projects, environmental protection and so on may just reflect the difficult nature of the portfolios she’s been saddled with.
After all, times are tough for several portfolios plagued by controversy in the eight months of Albanese’s government. Bowen is copping it from nearly every angle (except the big polluters) for the safeguard mechanism. Treasurer Jim Chalmers is being accused of raiding our retirement and breaking an election promise. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has been slammed for accepting party favours from the gamblers she legislates (she disclosed them all).
One Labor MP tells Crikey any whispers about Albanese warding off a leadership challenge down the line are fairly Machiavellian. But they added it was clear that Plibersek did not want the environment portfolio she was given. Now she’s just got to make the best of it.
Interesting article. I assumed she was put in there because she was intelligent and bold. In regards to bold, I was very wrong because everything remains “business as usual” regarding the fossil fuel industry. I’m interested in your phrasing of Adam Bandt – “when power-tripping Greens Leader Adam Bandt”….. why can’t the media just admit that he’s right and is coming out and talking about it. Unlike the two old parties…
Spot on Miree. “power-tripping” certainly grated with me, especially as the Greens are so non-radical in their climate policy and negotiations. There is such a thing as reality.
I honestly read it as power-tipping, and thought it clumsy but read on.
What a toxic way to describe him.
This whole article to me is just another example of click-baiting, lazy, out-of-touch churnalism.
Nothing of substance to it, just gossip interspersed with biased assertions and not worthy of what Crikey should be about.
I’m not so supportive of the Greens, so tended to be more accepting of the ‘power-tripping’ comment. The Greens are still displaying themselves as a single-policy party. It’s no use to contemplate them as an alternative government option when they have no broad policy platform for us to compare them with… and when they come up with unsophisticated ideas like paying us an EV grant to help purchase one (what happened for would-be homeowners as a result of the various Home Buyers Grants?). The Greens are on a high just now, and I do think that Bandt is probably ‘tripping’ a bit, and dreaming of a future position of political power.
Oh noes, how dare the leader of the Greens take her to task for trying to pull a fast one on being Minister Against the Environment in the Coalition tradition.
You want “power-tripping”, just listen to Chris Bowen arrogantly refuse to be moved from his Coalition-lite stance.
Ok, 1. The shadow minister for the Environment – Terri Butler – lost her seat in the 2022 election to the Greens so it was a real vacancy not a conspiracy ; 2. If Albo gave the environment portfolio to a lesser Star he’d be accused of not taking the portfolio seriously; & 3. Tania was not the presumed leader after the 2019 defeat except in circles that support her. I’m an admirer of Tania’s but some of the assumptions her supporters rely on are fantasyland.
There is of course a pragmatic reason as to why Tanya Plibersek should not be the Education minister under a Labor government with the difficult task of unraveling the damage to education funding (school & tertiary) that began under Howard. She is a product of public education, but her children go/went to Catholic schools. It’s far safer for Albanese to give that brief to Jason Clare, a product of public education in western Sydney, and able to produce his infants school teacher just after the election. The task is made easier without any baggage.
Environment & water are incredibly difficult areas, which means they require someone with superb negotiating skills who can deal with parochial states and deliver in the national interest. She should be up to it, but if there are many more compromises with mining, she could lose her seat to the Greens. I strongly suspect Albanese would not like that outcome.
He may not like the outcome but he will be responsible for it as the Minister can only make decisions in line with the Labor Party’s policies and post-election shenanigans related to donations, political plays, etc – and he’s in charge of them.
Where’s your evidence that her children don’t go to public schools? I know that one certainly did and assume the others are the same.
What a pity this article plays the political intrigue line instead of saying that Albanese has appointed one of the government’s most able women to handle such a complex ministry. Pliberseks skill, intelligence, passion and communication skills are precisely what’s needed. Unfortunately this has the effect of talking down women in leadership, as victims to political intrigue and not to be trusted. For a better assessment, read Judith Brett’s article about this bio on this site.
Thank you for your comment Stuart. This is exactly as I was thinking when Albanese appointed Tanya Plibersek to the environment port folio. Her intelligence, empathy and communication skills are very well known and I remember thinking that Tanya was exactly the right person to have in this difficult port folio and mark my words – Tanya will do an excellent job.
“power-tripping Greens Leader Adam Bandt” is a very immature sounding way to reveal your bias. That or you are ignorant to the connotations carried by that term and just mean “has some power now”?