So it begins. Yesterday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was forced to defend the apparent hypocrisy of his absence from the nation during the flood crisis in New South Wales. Honestly, the nerve of the man — he criticises Scott Morrison for having a Hawaiian vacation during the bushfire crisis in 2019/2020, and the moment he’s in power, he swans off to kick back in *checks notes* war-torn Ukraine and a NATO meeting.
“For those people who might like to say which of the events I have attended on behalf of Australia, that I should not have attended, I have not had a day off for a very long period of time. We can’t separate international events from the impact on Australia and Australians. [If] people want to argue I’m not working hard, then they can argue that case,” is how he put it when he arrived in Perth on his way back to NSW.
The Australian’s Ben Packham further wrote that Albanese seemed “well prepared for photo opportunities” while in Ukraine despite having had the gall to accuse Morrison of being “all photo-op, no follow-up” — yep, if you’re gonna criticise a political opponent for a supposed lack of substance, you’d better not let yourself get photographed while doing your job.
While Angus Taylor and an opposition MP — who amazingly didn’t want to put their name to an incredibly mild quote in the Australian Financial Review (“if Scott Morrison had chosen to visit Ukraine over the floods, ‘I know what [Mr Albanese] would have said'”) — have jumped on the issue, it’s worth noting that NSW Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet has dismissed the criticism, saying the PM was doing important work and the engagement with the federal government has been “open, positive, and providing anything they can do to assist us”.
So, News Corp and political opponents are being disingenuous with regards to a Labor prime minister — colour us shocked. But the other thing this mini-saga demonstrates is why these confected outrages actually matter — News Corp is such a big player in the Australian media landscape it naturally influences the discussion across the nation. And so Albanese’s response becomes a story in its own right in the AFR and The West Australian, and the matter is a major topic on ABC RN’s Breakfast show — the circular logic that “people are discussing” this reinforces yet more coverage.
Incidentally, opposition leader Peter Dutton is currently on leave.
