Samuel Mullins has a very interesting and insightful Quadrant piece on the shallowness of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The Midwit Shallowness of Anthony Albanese
Last year, a few days before the federal election which would make Anthony Albanese Prime Minister, there was a brief moment most people have almost certainly forgotten, if they even noticed it at the time. Albo was attending a business lunch in Perth and was asked by journalist Lanai Scarr if he could describe in three or fewer words what he wanted his legacy to be, win or lose. Albo paused a moment, and then, with that characteristic emotional frog in his throat, said: “Acting on climate”.
At first glance this is pretty anodyne stuff for the leader of a centre-left party in a Western democratic country. It is an essential requirement for someone in Albo’s position to ‘speak the words’ on climate change at every opportunity. But I remember finding it deeply strange. So much so that it’s been knocking around in my head for the year since he said it...
...in 26 years, 24 which included formal ministerial and shadow ministerial roles, Albanese’s influence on climate change policy was, at best, a footnote. There was some minor policy work in opposition when climate change wasn’t the dominant issue it would come to become, but when in government, and when leading the opposition, there’s not much to point to in terms of a climate legacy. Which makes you wonder what those first 26 years were all about.
The whole piece is well worth reading as the problem Mullins outlines seems to be a common one. Certainly common here in the UK. This insight for example.
The other biographical refrain Albo returns to is his “three great faiths”: the Catholic Church, the Labor Party, and the South Sydney Rabbitohs. What these three have in common is that they’re all institutions which are part of or pointing to a bigger thing. It’s not rugby league he loves, it’s the Rabbitohs. It’s not Australia, it’s the Labor Party. It’s not God, it’s the Church. Institution first. The actual thing second.
Institution first. The actual thing second. Yes that's familiar here in the UK and we could probably take it further. We could suggest that UK political midwits see Net Zero as political institution first and its complexities, uncertainties and risks a distant second - or even nowhere at all.
...in 26 years, 24 which included formal ministerial and shadow ministerial roles, Albanese’s influence on climate change policy was, at best, a footnote. There was some minor policy work in opposition when climate change wasn’t the dominant issue it would come to become, but when in government, and when leading the opposition, there’s not much to point to in terms of a climate legacy. Which makes you wonder what those first 26 years were all about.
The whole piece is well worth reading as the problem Mullins outlines seems to be a common one. Certainly common here in the UK. This insight for example.
The other biographical refrain Albo returns to is his “three great faiths”: the Catholic Church, the Labor Party, and the South Sydney Rabbitohs. What these three have in common is that they’re all institutions which are part of or pointing to a bigger thing. It’s not rugby league he loves, it’s the Rabbitohs. It’s not Australia, it’s the Labor Party. It’s not God, it’s the Church. Institution first. The actual thing second.
Institution first. The actual thing second. Yes that's familiar here in the UK and we could probably take it further. We could suggest that UK political midwits see Net Zero as political institution first and its complexities, uncertainties and risks a distant second - or even nowhere at all.
3 comments:
I'm not a believer but I believe a misquote of Psalm 146:3 - (NIV) might be appropriate:
Do not put your trust in Institutions,
in bureaucrats, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their interferences come to nothing.
But they are a source of lifetime employment, with little blame attaching for mis-steps.
Politics seems to be a career tailored for midwits. The ability to latch on to current ideas, and the unwillingness or inability to dig deep and become real experts. There are some noble exceptions, but they never really seem to progress very far in the UK.
DJ - lifetime employment counts for a great deal, but in my experience things were better when bureaucracies were smaller and much more local. There was a sense of working for people outside the organisation rather than working for a giant bureaucracy.
Sam - it's something I've come across too, people who latch onto an idea and make it their own within a few seconds of coming across it. They go no further though, the surface vocabulary is enough and away they go.
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