As many Australians use their Boxing Day holiday to variously enjoy the post-Christmas sales, the Test cricket or the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, a new Resolve poll tells a profound story about the mood of the country in the wake of the terror attack at Bondi on December 14.
Just as significantly, it speaks volumes about how out of touch the Prime Minister now is with the voters who delivered him a landslide victory earlier this year. How quickly politics can change.
A majority of us support banning pro-Palestine rallies, including the sort that Albo’s MPs and ministers marched in not all that long ago.
Aussies also want tougher visa laws in the aftermath of the ISIS inspired attack, and just short of a majority support the calling of a Royal Commission into antisemitism, something Albo has been unwilling to do despite security experts and Jewish community leaders lining up to demand one.
Albo’s political training was as a left-wing activist. From there he became a paid-up Labor Party official working as the factional left’s leader in NSW, before entering parliament in 1996, where he’s been ever since.
He lived in the inner western suburbs of Sydney for most of his life representing his local electorate, before moving into the Lodge in Canberra when he became PM. The inner west is where support for causes such as Palestine is at its strongest. It’s the same community Albo grew up in, cementing his values and world view.
I don’t have the geographical breakdown of the Resolve research, but it’s a fair bet outlier responses to the broader majority would have come from the electors Albo represents as a local MP. The same was true of the Voice referendum which was heavily defeated despite being popular in Albo’s local community.
However, as PM he’s supposed to represent the views and values of the rest of us, which is why he’s now in a conundrum – as he pushes back against the idea of a Royal Commission, using weasel words to argue it’s unnecessary because the NSW Premier is holding a state-based one.
Anthony Albanese and his wife Jodie are seen at a National Day of Reflection memorial
Beachgoers and emergency service scrambe to held the wounded after the December 14 terror attack at Bondi
A federal Royal Commission is the only way to comprehensively examine what occurred on December 14. While 48 per cent of Australians want one, only 17 per cent are opposed, with the remainder undecided either way. In polling terms that’s a landslide in favour.
Albo says a Royal Commission would take too long, which is ironic given how slow-moving his government has been on so many other pressing policy positions. Unfortunately that includes responding to his hand-picked antisemitism envoy, who had been calling for stronger action for months in a report delivered to Albo’s government, but sat on ahead of December 14. He’s now belatedly taking action.
Of course Royal Commissions take time to report back, that’s the whole point of holding them. To do in-depth work for the future. The PM has instead tasked his department with doing a quicker review, one that he can control in every respect.
That tells us everything about where Albo’s priorities are at. While he says that speed is better than depth and detail, the truth is that he can do both: holding a shorter-term review that’s tightly controlled alongside enacting a detailed independent examination of what went down.
Unfortunately, for now at least, Albo can’t seem to manage to walk and chew gum at the same time. It’s just too hard, or too politically risky perhaps?
The more Australians are asked what should happen next, the clearer the mismatch becomes between the country’s instincts and those of the PM.
Of the seven policy responses tested by Resolve, the most popular wasn’t another round of the ‘social cohesion’ rhetoric Albo turns to as a default rebuff to serious action.
Australians want tougher immigration screening to weed out antisemitic or extremist views, backed by 76 per cent of respondents, with just seven per cent opposed.
A majority of Australians now support banning pro-Palestine rallies, including the sort that Albo’s MPs and ministers marched in not all that long ago
Next came banning extremist organisations, supported by 72 per cent of us compared to just six per cent against.
Stronger hate speech laws and harsher penalties for incitement against Jewish Australians also drew sizeable majorities.
NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns has been far better at answering these community concerns than Albo has, which is why he was given a standing ovation at the Bondi vigil. The contrast to the booing Albo received was stark.
In plain terms, voters want the state to act: at the borders, in the courts and against organised movements that use legal grey zones as cover. Wouldn’t you love to know how much of all of this Albo REALLY backs in his heart of hearts?
Labor’s immigration minister Tony Burke says he’ll tighten visas and create a new extremist listing regime. But not a Royal Commission that they can’t control in the same way more executive powers can be tightly controlled and managed.
A Royal Commission compels evidence. It exposes institutional failure. It produces findings that can’t be controlled by departmental processes or media management. That is the real reason why it’s being resisted by team Albo.
The public mood has shifted sharply since Bondi. Albo is trying to keep up, if only for the sake of his political survival, but his wants are a mismatch with the expectations of the rest of us, and it shows.
