A prime minister, of course, doesn’t naively share personal plans or goals in a public forum. But if there were a moment when such a thing might be possible, it would be a re-elected Labor prime minister giving the John Curtin Memorial Oration on the 80th anniversary of Curtin’s death, after being introduced as a man who “fought Tories” his entire life.
What does the electorally astute Anthony Albanese actually believe? And what plans does he have now that his federal government has been returned with a much increased majority?
Albanese’s speech on 5 July understandably began with Curtin himself, describing how Curtin overruled Churchill’s wishes by ordering Australian troops returning from the Middle East to defend Australia rather than British possessions in Myanmar.
His pitch that Australia today must stand for its own interests was read by some as too pro-China. In my view, it was a balanced push-back against Trump’s America-first negotiating brinkmanship; it was followed by assurances that Australia will not sell out the PBS to US pharmaceutical interests and will defend agricultural interests and the Media Bargaining Code (which requires platforms like Google to pay Australian news media for the content they use).
Much of the rest of the speech was beating the social-democratic drum: Medicare, industrial relations, superannuation. On the Curtin Institute’s podcast recorded afterwards, we were even treated to another rendition of Albanese’s youth in public housing.
But what can we expect from the current federal government moving forward? Does the increased majority mean the ALP should push harder, implement a more fundamental agenda?
“There is a disconnect in saying that look, you’re really successful, you’ve got 94 seats, so now you shouldn’t do what people voted for, you should go and do something else,” said Albanese. As a minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, he said, “We got a lot done, but it was undone pretty quickly too.”
In Albanese’s view, the success of Medicare and superannuation is due to the fact that Hawke and then Keating were elected time after time after time. Albanese sees his government as “entrenching” and advocating for the changes they have already made, especially further Medicare investment and raising superannuation to 12%.
So far, so Albanese. There was one surprise, however.
Encouraging us to take the 2028 election result for granted (while assuring us that of course it can’t be taken for granted), Albanese insisted that steady, predictable government is essential for business investment.
This is a response to the fact that a very large chunk of new employment from 2022-2025 was in the public sector. “We are not trying to replace private sector investment but to encourage it,” said Albanese.
This is a notable change in tone from this government. But whether it will actually happen, though, is of course out of the government’s hands.
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