Katharine Murphy (Image: Mediaweek)
Katharine Murphy (Image: Mediaweek)

Departing Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy is by no means the first person to push on the revolving door between journalism and politics. But the question will inevitably follow — did the journo’s job interview necessitate any awkward explanations of unflattering work she’s produced about her new employer? Will she have to worry about someone bringing up a particularly damaging piece of work at Friday drinks?

When The Courier-Mail‘s then federal political editor Renee Viellaris headed over to the Australian Federal Police as a strategic media adviser, we had a scan through her back catalogue to see whether she’d fit in. With stories such as Viellaris’ claim that asylum seekers were “blackmailing” doctors to get them to Australia for abortions et al, we observed that Peter Dutton (then the home affairs minister, about whom Viellaris had produced a profile that insisted he wasn’t a monster in the lead-up to the 2019 election) might not have been unhappy with the appointment.

So what about Murphy? Does her work in recent years contain anything so rough on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that she’d have to disown it to get the gig?

December 22, 2023: “Albanese is prioritising governing over spectacle — but in an era of zero-sum politics, is it enough?”

Why is the public turning on you?’ [3AW host Neil] Mitchell asked. Albanese said polls came and went, but prime ministers needed to stay focused on the medium term, ‘not just day-to-day politics, because if you do that, you’ll end up not delivering the sort of government that we need’.

At first blush, Albanese’s observation sounds like a talking point that a cornered politician pulls out in response to a radio host belting them about like they are in a game of knock-down clowns — something rehearsed, something rote.

But the prime minister was trying to share a cut-through insight. What he was saying was this: I’m trying to break a pattern that has bedevilled Australian politics since about 2009.

I’m trying to govern, rather than just scheme to survive.

This ambition should win a prime minister plaudits, at least in theory. 

December 27, 2023: “This year brought Labor back down to earth. What does 2024 hold for Albanese and Dutton?”

The cause [of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament] was just, and a prime minister keeping his promise to First Nations people was the right thing to do. In this country, that doesn’t happen very often. But the timing was bad. Albanese hoped to win the referendum despite the absence of bipartisan support by building a coalition of the willing — churches, community groups, corporates. His judgment — a triumph of hope over experience — proved to be incorrect.

Then there’s travel. Albanese travelled a lot in 2023 for one reason — the relationships he is tending, and the coalitions he is building, serve Australia’s national interest.

October 14, 2023: “Albanese wanted to end two centuries of silence, but we said no — and failed our First Nations people.”

I want to be very clear about this.

We see you Peter Dutton. We know what you did.

May 1, 2022: “Anthony Albanese presents as a leader who wasn’t born thinking he was owed the prime ministership.”

Albanese presented to voters on Sunday as a political leader who wasn’t born thinking he was owed the prime ministership. He’s not a powerful orator; he lacks the velvety intonation and the X factor. He didn’t seek to dominate the room; he sought connections in it, looking for faces, reactions, cues.

He was modelling a different style of leadership — a style not that familiar to Australians after a succession of power players in Canberra. Albanese doesn’t exhibit any of the hallmarks of toxic masculinity. Rather than a set jaw, there’s an incline of the head, a gesture of listening — a physical glance at humility.

Then there’s Lone Wolf, the Quarterly Essay Murphy penned about Albanese last year. There is the voter Murphy encounters, who begs Murphy, unprompted, to confirm that Albanese will win, and looks “stricken” and then “crushed” when Murphy is noncommittal. There is the tendency to observations like that Albanese is principled yet pragmatic, decisive yet a consensus builder, or that he needs to be periodically reminded of the strength of the team around him, “not because he’s particularly arrogant, but because he’s self made”.

On the early gaffes wherein Albanese couldn’t recall various statistics:

Albanese had opened the contest in expansive spirits, believing the voters wanted a conversation, as opposed to imbibing talking points on wash rinse repeat. He was probably right about that, but the travelling press pack arrayed between a putative prime minister and the public was in a febrile flex. Albanese failed the day two pop quiz … Some voters were destabilised by the brain fade.

The baby-faced assassin of the press pack got high on the pursuit, forgetting the only cohort that people despise more than politicians are preening journalists. The inquisition from the fourth estate got worse as Albanese fluffed various iterations of trivial pursuit as the campaign dragged on.  

And there are searing assessments of Albanese’s character and judgment, like the following:

The prime minister has deep belief in his own strategic judgment, and that conviction gets reinforced because on the big political calls, Albanese is mostly right. Often, but not always, because only deities have perfect judgment.

Insisting that Albanese’s judgment is slightly below that of an actual deity? Hope no-one brings that up at the Christmas party.