Election campaign stumbles and “gaffes” are beloved of journalists. For a start, engineering one is far easier than actually being across policy substance and understanding the contrast between a party’s policy position and the public interest. And rather than the complexities of actual policy, they enable journalists to present the much simpler and clearer narrative that a politician is “out of touch”.
That’s what Scott Morrison copped back in January when he was unable to say what basic groceries cost — a facile question that even regular shoppers might not be able to answer, let alone the prime minister. That’s what Anthony Albanese got yesterday when quizzed about the current interest level and the unemployment level.
Albanese’s team had no excuse. They’d seen what happened to Morrison, and Albanese should have known everything from the price of a litre of petrol to the average variable mortgage rate from the major banks and everything in between.
Most gaffes don’t have much impact, and certainly not as much as journalists think. Voters sense the gotcha nature of such questions, to the extent that they’re paying any attention. But journalists seem to think there’s some magical cadre of undecided voters stroking their chins and checking the transcripts of every campaign media conference in order to assess who has gaffed the most before deciding whom to support.
But the nature of Albanese’s stumble is genuinely weird. Who does not know that the Reserve Bank of Australia has interest rates set at 0.1%? Apart from anything else, it’s an almost comically absurd level to anyone old enough to remember the late 1980s, as Albanese is. And who doesn’t know that unemployment is verging on record lows?
Both figures are central to two Labor campaign themes around wages growth and cost-of-living pressures, since low unemployment is yet to translate into higher wages and the likely imminent rise in interest rates from near-zero is going to inflict damage on the household budgets of mortgage holders.
For someone engaged in serious debate wages, household incomes and cost-of-living pressures, not knowing such basics is inexplicable.
The Coalition has been trying to pin the label of economic inexperience on Albanese, claiming he’s never delivered a budget before. It’s an asinine argument — how many budgets had Bob Hawke delivered before 1983? For that matter, how many had Tony Abbott delivered in 2013? And yet there was Albanese seeming to give the line substance.
One of the lessons of 2019 for Labor should have been that any complacency will be fatal. There’ll be no cruising to victory. The three biggest media companies in Australia — News Corp, Nine, Seven — are all owned or controlled by Liberal-aligned figures. ABC News is too cowed and craven to be balanced. Labor spokespeople every day walk out into a hostile media environment. And Scott Morrison will say anything he needs to make Labor the subject of the campaign, not himself. He was brilliant at it in 2019 and he’ll do the same all the way to May 21.
Albanese at least owned up to the mistake and didn’t try to avoid blame. That’s better than we’re used to from Morrison, who will never admit to even egregious mistakes or stumbles. But he shouldn’t expect that will win any plaudits for that either. Better that the Labor team does its homework properly in the first place.
Arrant nonsense. The Reserve Bank Rate bears no resemblance to the rates most mortgage holders are paying – which would range currently from around 3% to over 6% depending on how aggressively you pursue the elusive “best rate” and how long it’s fixed for. And the unemployment rate bears no reality to the difficulty in finding worthwhile employment if you are evry young, or over fifty, or a relatively unqualified person, or a woman returning to the workforce. Fact is, as soon as you classify someone working more than an hour a fortnight as employed, you’re making a mockery of the statistic.
You might as well have asked him to quote football results, or yesterday’s capital city temperatures.
Unlike these journalists asking shallow doorstop questions, I’m interested in the next government’s principles, their morals, ethics and honesty, receptiveness to new ideas, and whether they know where to find and critically analyse relevant data.
Claiming a scalp on day one for tripping up a bloke on the hustings with some silly gotcha is nothing more than puerile. If this is what we have to look forward to, I expect I shall learn nothing from the media over the next six weeks.
Meanwhile, Andrew Clennell will get a bonus from Rupert for asking the question.
It isn’t a gotcha question. It’s journalism 101. Albo should have these figures drummed into his brain if not written down. What world do you inhabit? You can be all high and might as you like or as hoighty, toighty as you allow yourself, generating more carbon in the process but if you are representing so-called working people, I know I am one as I am employed, and want a better government, then you need to have someone to be competent in that role. Albanese is not and is sounding not so much like Shorten but like that poor old Simon Crean who, even after he relinquished the Labor leadership in 2003 and became opposition spokesperson for regional development, spent weeks away from Question Time in Parliament during 2005 in his south-eastern Melbourne electorate of Hotham shoring up his personal support and faction base as it was under threat from Cambodian branch stackers who wanted to oust him.
Albanese has failed us and it will take a lot to come back now. I believe in miracles too, not of the divine kind, but it will be a miracle if Albanese doesn’t stumble and fall again during the campaign from here on in.
Appalling beat up over nothing.
if Albo had some politic animal, he would say “ it doesn’t matter what’s reported the real rate is more like 8 to 10% (any number would do) and not answer the question. Do any LNP MPs ever answer questions?
Why does it matter, Bernard?
Are you saying Albanese’s failure in this circumstances indicates economic incompetence?
Or are you saying the shallow media obsession with such things will affect the ALP’s vote?
If you develop a substantial argument along either of these lines, or another line, I’ll be reassured that my subscription to Crikey is getting me something different to watching channel 7 for free.
I agree with Bernard, in the sense that Albo should have been prepared better – not necessarily to remember every number that flea-brained and aggressive journos will ask, but to have an aggressive response ready to bat back at them with a warning to do their own homework before wasting everybody’s time.
In this case it would have been enough just to say the interest rate is virtually zero, but not likely to stay there…and the employment picture is a hell of a lot worse than the near record low number would suggest. This would open the way for him control the questions in a genuine direction.
Hawke or Keating would not have fallen into this simple trap, and the reporter would have been sorry he tried it on. Part of Albo’s problem is that he is just too respectful to people that just don’t deserve it.
Damn right sir. Albanese is s**t-scared of the Daily Terror he wants to covet their hopeful favourable coverage he is never going to get.
Well said, Frank.
Or are you saying the shallow media obsession with such things will affect the ALP’s vote?
It matters because all the “shallow” media around this sort of gaffe adds to a perception that slowly but surely gets absorbed by swathes of “low-information” voters out there – that Albanese is not entirely “on the ball’ or not very bright or not very competent economically. Hate this media obsession all you like, but its very effective for the other side. I am a lifelong Labor voter but am deeply shocked and dismayed that no-one seems to have checked that Albanese has got these basic economic facts ready at his fingertips. I think people need to stop making excuses for this completely avoidable gaffe and squarely face the cold hard fact that Labor will have to fight very much smarter if it wants to beat the master of marketing and his allies in the MSM and the ABC.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. But I will try later on.
The shallow media also included the local Tasmanian ABC radio news this morning. I would have thought that the story re Alan tudge costing taxpayers $500,000 for whatever we are not allowed to know is far more
newsworthy.
It matters because, Albanese is letting Morrison claim, the 4% UE is Coalition economic genius, not the COVID immigration freeze.
It matters because, both sides are committed to mass immigration, which will hike UE back to 6-7%.
It matters because Morrison & Co. plus the media will milk it for all it’s worth. We won’t hear the end of it, just watch. I’m surprised they’re not running adds with that sound bite yet. Visit for example the oh, so progressive and unbiased Guardian – they still have a video of Albanese’s ‘gaffe’ on their front page while Morrison’s response to questions about Tudge and that $50,000 payout to Miller is nowhere to be seen. Further revelations about Morrison’s preselection which make the whole affair look like a long con rather than an opportunistic action have so far been reported only in The Saturday Paper.
This is what we can expect happening throughout the entire campaign: Labor will be scrutinised with a microscope while the Coalition will mostly get a free pass.
Labor supporters might think there are more important issues to focus on like all of Morrison’s mistakes which are much more serious and consequential for Australia. But look at the political discourse in this country – weight loss, new and old suits and glasses, ukuleles, 3 word slogans, juvenile name calling… and much of the electorate couldn’t care less. They only notice those who screech the loudest. They also don’t seem to have any deeper understanding of economy, don’t care about the bigger picture, seem incapable of critical thinking and fall for all those stunts and lies, untroubled by questions of ethics, morals, legality…
So yes, I think it matters.
Correct. If I want to witness a race to the bottom, oh, wait. And as for the ‘out of touch’ argument, Who can tell me the minimum wage? What’s the current boat people policy? What’s the PRRT policy? What is a quarterly power bill going to be, sans coal? How about covid vax and infection rates in remote communities? Minutiae is for lackeys. Generals are just that.
What evidence is there that the Labor team has not done “its homework”. Slips, lapses and memory blocks are part of the human condition. None of us is immune to them.
At worst, Albanese’s slip was unfortunate and regrettable. What is more regrettable is the obsession with the media – including Crikey it seems, on focussing on trivia and gotcha moments such as these.
What would be more useful is to explain why it’s not important whether he momentarily forgot a number or not, or what is inherently wrong with the rest of the media obsessing about it.
I wish Albanese would be more aggressive with these gotcha questions – how about a diversion such as asking the journalist does he know the underemployment rate and why some people need two or three jobs to make a livable wage. Of course he won’t know, but the point about stupid questions will have been made.
YES!!
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
That is a skoolyard response – “No, you stink and your mother wears army boots.”
Look how well it worked for Scummo when he tried it on the SKY hack during the ‘woman abuse’ frenzy.
It was a total live brain fade – blank out – brain fog whatever you want to call it. I hope it’s a one off.