Shortly after Anthony Albanese was sworn in as prime minister, I watched him arrive at the Bogor Palace in West Java in a motorcade. He radiated impish delight. Albanese was mentally pinching himself – am I here? Is this happening? Have I actually pulled this off? Nearly 12 months later, Albanese sat opposite the British broadcaster Piers Morgan. The interview was a pit-stop on the way to the coronation of King Charles. The impishness of those opening weeks had vanished. Albanese was all business; the mantle of the office had settled on him.
Australia’s 31st prime minister is a lifelong republican. I suspect he’d consider Morgan a preening blowhard. But there he was, in London, indulging Morgan’s pro forma pearl clutch about cancel culture and transgender issues (“What is a woman, prime minister?”) before ducking off to swear an oath of allegiance to a septuagenarian who once aspired to be a tampon. Being prime minister is certainly a mood, a lark, a spree. But Albanese’s adventures are usually calculated. Without a plan, without patience, without a strategy, a scrapper from public housing in inner-city Sydney would never have ascended the goat track to the Lodge. Speaking to Morgan isn’t genuflecting to Morgan – it’s connecting with his tribe, folks who like their bubble.
