Albanese could boldly go where no first-term government has gone before (for a century)

It meant that the policy engine Albanese brought to the leadership was suited more to a family sedan than a V8 muscle car. People who’ve worked alongside him – and like him – note his discomfort with geopolitical issues and say that his resort to brief comments and generalities when he’s speaking about defence and foreign affairs matters is the tell.

Albanese has tried to remake his role as leader into something more suited to his talents and experience, hence his aversion to disruptive policy positions in opposition and, once he’d become prime minister, his devotion to what he calls steady, predictable, orderly processes. There was a lot of unintentional political risk in that approach. In these fragmented times, when attracting attention is at least half of the battle, slow and steady can mean that not enough people notice what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. Worse, they start to conclude you haven’t been trying hard enough to work on their behalf. That can be a problem that feeds on itself; for example, early voter feedback on the bulk-billing announcement has been that it should have happened earlier.

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A distinctive feature of Albanese’s time as prime minister has been his reluctance to change his public demeanour, policy direction and political strategy, even though by the mid-point of the term he started to seriously lose support. He’s not the only new PM to have a troubled first term. John Howard and Tony Abbott got into terrible strife. At his nadir, Howard took matters into his own hands. He chose a radical option, argued for a new tax system with a GST and seized control of the national narrative. Despite a negative swing, his government was re-elected. In Abbott’s case, his colleagues didn’t wait around. They replaced him with Malcolm Turnbull after just two years.

By contrast, Albanese stuck with his plan and his colleagues in the cabinet, the caucus and the party organisation – recalling the charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, when British cavalrymen armed with swords followed a misdirected order and charged headlong towards a heavily armed Russian artillery battery – let him have his way. He’s moved into a more attacking mode lately but it’s very late.

All hope is not lost for the government. The “fair go” instinct that has guaranteed a second term for every government for the past 90-odd years might kick in, although the political settlement is remaking itself so quickly Labor wouldn’t want to rely on it. And the opposition’s half-formed vibe-as-a-policy offering could come to Labor’s rescue when voters get to the moment where they have to fill out their ballot papers. Globally, these are genuinely frightening days, making the stakes so high. How did it come to this indeed.

Shaun Carney is a former associate editor of The Age and a regular columnist.