The Last Reshuffle

Rowan Dean I 3 August 2024 I The Spectator Australia

A common element in democratic government cabinet reshuffles is the idea that the dead wood is chopped out allowing new talent to emerge from the backbenches, creating a sense of excitement and renewal within a government that may be floundering or simply appears stale and uninspiring. Alas, no such newcomers emerged in Anthony Albanese’s heavily promoted reshuffle last weekend. Au contraire, as our friends hosting the Olympics would say, this reshuffle was all about recycling unimpressive and unpopular ministers in a cynical exercise designed, it would appear, to reward failure and to bury ministerial accountability for past sins.

Thus, the abysmal twin failures Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles rather than being turfed out of cabinet altogether, pop up in shiny new roles, where they will almost certainly prove to be as ineffectual and incompetent as they were in Home Affairs and Immigration. The ironies abound. Mr Giles, arguably one the least skilled ministers in recent decades, has been given the ministry of Skills and Training. Some training for himself, perhaps? Ms O’Neil has been handed the job of finding housing for the record numbers of immigrants she has let into the country in her previous job. Most preposterous of all, especially following the outcry about former prime minister Scott Morrison overburdening himself with portfolios, Tony Burke has been handed a veritable swag of them –Home Affairs and Immigration, Multicultural Affairs, Cyber Security and Arts – as well as retaining his position as Leader of the House. As former prime minister Tony Abbott points out (and he should know!), Tony Burke’s performance in curbing illegal immigration during the disastrous second Rudd government should automatically disqualify him from ever going anywhere near that portfolio again. Meanwhile, Malarndirri McCarthy has taken over from Linda Burney in Indigenous affairs, although if truth be told, her own performance during the Voice campaign was on a par with that of her old boss, i.e. woeful. Who can forget her ridiculous summing up in a national TV debate about the Voice being all about kangaroos and emus? Clearly, the Labor caucus can.

Murray Watt, a dreary and unimpressive Labor hack whose sole noteworthy achievement to date was to mightily antagonise the farmers of Western Australia with his rudeness and ineptness surrounding the banning of the live sheep trade has now been elevated from Agriculture to the CFMEU portfolio, sorry, we mean Employment and Workplace Relations. For more on the lamentable affair of that benighted union, read Barney Zwartz and Judith Sloan in this week’s magazine.

Mr Albanese seems pleased with himself for managing an orderly reshuffle, without any evident rancour, and for what he maintains is a ‘stable’ government. Perhaps. But stability is no substitute for success, and looking across the ridiculously large 23-member cabinet, it is hard to pinpoint any areas where the national interest has improved thanks to the performance of a government minister. Especially in the key portfolios.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers presides over an ever-worsening economy and cost-of-living crisis which, by rights, should see Labor turfed out at the next election. The inflation rate has risen yet again, making the protestations that this is all the fault of the previous government wear thin; and there is the chance that interest rates will rise again. Far from having re-invented capitalism, as he foolishly boasted he would, Mr Chalmers has found himself a floundering victim of its immutable laws. Yet no reshuffle for the Treasurer.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has disgraced Australia with her repeated snubbing of one of our closest allies, Israel, at a time of unbelievable peril for that nation. No reshuffle for her either, showing that Mr Albanese is in lockstep with her anti-Israel agenda. It is worth pointing out, as Peter Dutton returns from a trip to Israel, that Prime Minister Albanese has not yet bothered to make that same trip.

But the ultimate failed minister has to be, among a pack of below-par ministers, the hopeless and hapless Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy. As power prices surge, this obsessed climate zealot is out of step with climate policies and net zero realities all around the world. The physical and environmental damage this man is inflicting on our farmland, rural communities, pristine oceans and rainforests is only matched by the economic damage he is inflicting upon everyday households and small businesses.

Is this the last reshuffle of the Albanese government? With any luck, yes, and the next reshuffle will be a comprehensive one courtesy of mainstream Australians at the next federal poll.

Author: Rowan Dean