‘It's nuclear meltdown': Re-elected Australian leader Albanese powers ahead as opposition tears itself apart

Irish Times

3 days ago

The old saying that you should never interrupt your enemies when they are making a mistake has morphed over the centuries. Having once referred to war, it now finds greater use in the context of politics.
But
Australia's
ruling Labor Party,
which won 94 of the parliament's 150 lower house seats in the May 3rd election
, cannot help but try to give the opposition Liberal-National coalition a helping hand in the latter's seeming quest to reach rock bottom.
'This is a nuclear meltdown, and the coalition now is nothing more than a smoking ruin,' treasurer Jim Chalmers said of the conservative alliance.
The coalition parties, following their worst result of 43 seats (they may win one more on a recount), immediately began an internecine war, with re-elected senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price at the centre of much of it.
READ MORE
First, she switched her allegiance from the Nationals to the Liberals. Then she backed the wrong horse, Angus Taylor, in his bid to become the new Liberal leader in the expectation that she would become his deputy. When Taylor lost to Sussan Ley, Price declined to stand for deputy.
This was a sideshow to the main event, which saw the coalition split for about a week, then get back together just in time for the baubles and higher pay of shadow cabinet positions to be handed out.
Price was dumped from the shadow cabinet, which she did not take well. 'There are probably some appointments that have not been predicated on experience or merit,' she said to Sky News.
Chalmers said the opposition was 'completely and entirely focused on themselves. They tried to divide the Australian community in the election campaign, and they ended up dividing themselves'.
Australian prime minister
Anthony Albanese
, who was regularly criticised for being too timid over the past three years, is showing signs of a more ambitious policy agenda after being re-elected in a landslide in which the Liberal and Greens leaders lost their seats.
Speaking after the recent devastating floods in northern New South Wales (NSW) that left five people dead and about 800 homes uninhabitable, Albanese said: 'The science told us that [extreme weather events] would be more frequent and they would be more intense. And that's precisely what, tragically, is playing out.'
Though acknowledging climate change's role in the tragedy seems the least any responsible politician should do, many Liberal-National coalition MPs still regularly say there is no connection, that each new disaster is a 'once-in-a-100-years' occurrence.
At the time of the last major flooding in the region in 2022, former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce went even further, saying: 'This is a one-in-3,500-year event.'
When catastrophes supposed to happen centuries or millenniums apart are happening every two or three years, it might be time to take climate change seriously.
It scarcely matters to sceptics such as Joyce though. The people most likely to be affected by weather disasters are also most likely to vote for politicians unwilling to do anything about it beyond sending help afterwards and offering 'thoughts and prayers'.
Not that Labor has a free pass on its own response to the climate emergency, having just extended the life of ​​Australia's largest mainland gas facility until 2070.
Amanda McKenzie of Australia's Climate Council said: 'Communities in NSW are starting the clean-up after record-breaking floods. It is shocking that at the same time the Albanese government has approved this massive climate bomb as the first act of this term of government. They've just opened the floodgates on over four billion tonnes of climate pollution.'
Albanese may be on safer ground, though, in unequivocally condemning the
Israeli
government over its war on
Gaza
. 'Israel's actions are completely unacceptable,' he said. 'It is outrageous that there be a blockade of food and supplies to people who are in need in Gaza.'
Albanese met Israeli president
Yitzhak Herzog
in Rome when they were there for
Pope Leo XIV's
inauguration mass. 'I made it very clear that Australia finds these actions completely unacceptable and we find Israel's excuses and explanations completely untenable and without credibility,' he said.
His forceful language is a marked change given the regular claims from Australia's conservative press and broadcasters that any criticism of Israel's actions is anti-Semitic.
Not that the
Rupert Murdoch
-owned newspapers, websites and Sky News have lessened their attacks on Labor.
Their latest target is the proposed changes to how compulsory pension savings (which sees 11.5 per cent of a person's salary going to a superannuation fund most people cannot access until they are at least 60) are taxed.
The change will see those with more than $3 million Australian dollars (€1.7 million) in their superannuation savings pay 30 per cent tax on earnings above that figure, rather than 15 per cent as is stands.
It will affect just the richest 0.5 per cent of people with such accounts. That hasn't stopped a scare campaign claiming that eventually everyone will have to pay this tax.
Albanese's government just has to convince people that if they had $3 million Australian dollars in savings then they probably could afford to pay more tax.