Reshuffles are always a window into the psychologies of leaders and the parties they preside over, and Thursday’s Labor reshuffle tells us Anthony Albanese knows he has a fight on his hands, and not just against Scott Morrison.
The frontbench refresh, which was supposed to happen before Christmas, then this coming weekend, but then lobbed on Thursday after one of the key decisions leaked, is a combination of offensive and defensive actions by the leader.
Before we get to the specifics of the reshuffle, we first need to map the underlying conditions.
Labor MPs continue to ask themselves and one another whether Albanese has what it takes to beat Morrison in crisis management mode.
Just in case this isn’t clear, this is the most dangerous question a party room or a caucus ever asks about a leader. If that question is persistent, it can trigger a conflagration. But it is not yet clear whether Labor’s wafting existential dread will lead to any concrete action.
Over the summer Tanya Plibersek has put herself in contention in the event the party decides to act. Colleagues say she has Bill Shorten’s support, which means numbers from a portion of the Victorian right.
But the Labor right hasn’t moved in lockstep for years. The king-making faction of the Hawke/Keating/Rudd era is Balkanised in 2021, and it is not clear that the non-Shorten right is interested in replacing one inner-city leftwinger with another.
If opportunity ultimately presents, some rightwingers might want the opportunity of leading Labor for themselves. Chris Bowen. Jim Chalmers. Richard Marles. Tony Burke.
While it’s possible Chalmers could be drafted on a ticket with Plibersek (and I’d only rate that as possible), it’s not clear that others would be seriously interested, either because of loyalty to Albanese or because of personal ambition; and Albanese also commands significant support within Plibersek’s left faction.
So the saga chases its tail. Things either fizzle out after a time, or they escalate, because internal sentiment shifts decisively one way or another.
With those various elements in mind, with that more precise understanding of the danger Albanese might face and from whom, we can look now at the reshuffle.
Marles is being held very close. Bowen has been handed the opportunity to solve one of Labor’s most pressing political and policy problems, and institutionally, the right gets climate change, which has been left country since the onset of the climate wars.
Burke stays where he has wanted to be, which is the industrial relations portfolio. Shorten moves neither forwards nor backwards. Chalmers stays in the treasury portfolio, but an Albanese ally Stephen Jones gains some runway to prosecute one of the important political debates of the year: superannuation.
Plibersek loses the skills component of her portfolio to Marles, which is an obvious and public rebuke to a possible rival.
Albanese has also handed the shadow defence portfolio to Brendan O’Connor – a Victorian leftwinger who might be trouble if the environment shifted from dangerous to critical. O’Connor and Albanese are in the same faction, but have been on different sides of a few significant battles.
So this reshuffle is certainly about Albanese strapping in for battle. But it’s not all about intricate offence and defence to hold the party leadership.
Thursday’s rejig reflects Albanese’s desire to make the coming election a conversation about what happens after the pandemic, not about who was the best pandemic manager, which is the political conversation where Morrison and other incumbents prosper.
The hope is Mark Butler’s departure from the climate change portfolio might stop the rolling derangement of Labor punching itself repeatedly in the head about climate ambition at a time when the opposition should be landing blows on the government, given Joe Biden’s victory is a fillip for international action.
In Camp Albanese, the genuine hope is Bowen’s appointment is a circuit breaker. The ambition is Bowen brings fresh eyes to the conundrums of climate policy as well as a former treasurer’s capacity to frame the issue as a necessary structural reform to Australia’s carbon intensive economy.
If Bowen is the designated circuit breaker (good luck Chris), then the new Marles super portfolio contains the spine of Labor’s election narrative: what does Australia look like as we recover from the Covid-19 crisis?
It’s about creating a structure to deliver a persuasive story.
But structures don’t ultimately deliver stories, leaders do.
Whether or not any of this deck chair shuffling works is in large part down to Albanese’s performance. He either rises to the demands of the moment, or the moment renders him redundant.
Albanese wants to be the Biden of the Australian election season – the dogged progressive with the smarts to summon the blue wave in deeply red times.
But to be Biden, you have to have more than the right message and the right structures.
You need to lead a machine that believes victory is possible.
