Albo’s new politics faces old challenges, as Plibersek demotion shows

You always go looking for the proof in the pudding, and that’s what will happen in any analysis of Anthony Albanese’s promised new way of doing things.

The promise is overdue and welcome. A more respectful Parliament, with less bad behaviour. Better language. A bigger focus on ideas, rather than personalities.

It sounds just what the voters ordered. But two announcements by the new prime minister are worth considering in that context.

The chief one is the demotion of talented and experienced MP Tanya Plibersek. The new prime minister has had plenty of opportunities to explain his thinking, but has stumbled at every hurdle.

Yes, the environment is crucially important, especially as a lure for voters who lined up to support teal candidates on that platform.

But if the environment portfolio is that important to give to one of his most experienced MPs, why not put “climate change” in there too — because that’s where the power lies, and that part of the portfolio doesn’t sit in Plibersek’s new in-tray.

Why wouldn’t Albanese do that? Or why would he ignore the enormous work she has done in education, in preparation for government? Why would she be stripped of the women’s portfolio, a responsibility she held — and built — in opposition? Why ignore her popularity during the campaign, and ensure limited media coverage for one of his party’s biggest electoral assets?

The answer keeps drifting back to politics, and the old way of doing things. Plibersek and Albanese have had tense relations over two leaderships — in 2013 and 2019. One political pundit remembers being mystified, in 2013, when he saw both alight a plane at Sydney airport.

Despite having neighbouring electorates, and despite being part of the same state party for decades, they went in separate directions, without any hint of acknowledgement.

And then when Plibersek overstepped the mark by likening Peter Dutton to Harry Potter villain Voldemort, her leader was quick to step in and join the admonishment of her. Perhaps that was correct, but it also ignored the long, strained relationship between Plibersek and Dutton, where he’s been awfully unfair to her too.

“I want to change the way that politics operates,” Albanese said. “Let’s actually talk about the issues and let’s try to find some common interest going forward.”

Some of Plibersek’s supporters might suggest he practise what he preaches.

But it’s another announcement that points to Albanese’s political nous. His elevation of the Uluru Statement of the Heart, in his victory speech, was warm and welcome — and long overdue.

That is not in doubt. But as more than one conspiracist has suggested, perhaps that focus was both welcome and an immediate political shot across the bow at Peter Dutton, who was being tagged the new likely leader within minutes of an obvious Labor victory.

The new opposition leader walked out during the apology to the Stolen Generations. This is an issue that will provide him with a leadership headache, and an issue that did not receive the oxygen it deserved until election night.

Anthony Albanese has not kept his Sydney seat for 26 years without knowing how to play the political game.

And if he genuinely wants to run politics in a new and inclusive way where ideas dominate, not petty histories, we’ll see Plibersek be welcomed more into the fold — and talk of Dutton’s sorry walk-out relegated to the old way of doing things.