(Image: Tom Red/Private Media)

In the early days of the new year, as Australia grappled with unprecedented COVID case numbers, widespread community anxiety and economic uncertainty, Labor faced a RAT test. 

Home COVID tests were in short supply, causing widespread anger. Scott Morrison stubbornly refused to make them free, inflaming that anger. So shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers went on 2GB to announce Labor would… means-test RATs. 

“We’ve said all along you shouldn’t miss out if you can’t afford one; that means free for a lot of people,” Chalmers said.

A day later, Chalmers joined Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese to announce that Labor had decided RATs should, in fact, be free… via Medicare.

“We have considered the options and it is clear that this is the simplest, most efficient, fairest and most responsible way to fix the mess that Scott Morrison has made of testing at this critical juncture of the pandemic,” their statement read. 

It was a sharp contrast from NSW Labor Leader Chris Minns, who’d called for RATs to be free two weeks earlier. And it’s indicative of a caution which still characterises the Albanese opposition. While it is quick to highlight the many self-inflicted screw-ups and internal divisions of the Morrison government, there’s still a real hesitance when it comes to articulating what it would do differently.

So far, this approach has been enough to stay ahead in the polls — a Resolve survey released today found Labor leads the Coalition on the primary vote, and the gap between Albanese and Morrison as preferred prime minister has shrunk. Newspoll has consistently given Labor an election-winning lead for months.

But the doubts won’t go away. One respondent to the Resolve poll asked what was Albanese’s “vision”, another what “positive impact” had he made. There’s still some grumbling frustration within Labor ranks about how the party doesn’t really stand for anything, and fears that a timid approach won’t be enough to convince undecided voters to abandon the devil they know.

Instead, so much of the Albanese opposition still reads like an attempt to exorcise the ghosts of 2019, rather than provide something new and compelling. The last week has been no exception. Albanese returned to Queensland, one of several trips he’s made to the sunshine state in recent months, a deliberate attempt to try to regain the voters who so dramatically abandoned the party at the last election.

Whatever the wisdom of his approach, Albanese hasn’t been idle, and his presence out in the regions, wooing farmers and tourism operators, was intended to draw contrast with a prime minister who at times seemed uninterested in leading Australia through the Omicron crisis, lest he bring too much politics into people’s summer holidays.

On policy, too, there’s been a deliberate, cautious attempt to not to give Morrison any ammunition and neutralise scare campaigns. In an interview with the Nine newspapers, Albanese talked about “aspiration” and “wealth creation”. It’s language clearly intended to avoid the big tax narrative that scared off self-funded retirees and mortgage belt voters. 

The tax reform-inequality stuff is deemed too risky for an election fight, so Shorten-era policies like overhauling negative gearing and capital gains tax are long gone. Climate is also too risky, so the party will head to the election with a 43% emissions reduction target less ambitious than both its last offering and what some big business groups who slammed Shorten’s target now want.

But scare campaigns don’t need policy substance to work. Morrison’s attempt to create a wedge narrative around COVID restrictions are a case in point. When Albanese accused the federal and NSW governments of “letting it rip” in response to the Omicron wave last week, Morrison quickly used it as an opportunity to cast Labor as the party of lockdowns.

“If Labor are for lockdowns, that’s for them,” he said. “My government is for keeping Australia open and pushing through.”

That Albanese said nothing about lockdowns is irrelevant. Plenty of progressive types vocally call for more COVID restrictions, just as some called for more radical climate policies in 2019. It won’t take much for Morrison to conflate the two and misrepresent Labor as the party that wants to take your freedom.

And if a timid opposition can’t provide disengaged voters with a meaningful vision for what their post-pandemic Australia looks like, amid all the white noise of an election campaign Morrison’s last scare campaign might just work.

Should Labor stay below the parapet? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.