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Paul Bongiorno
What Albanese can learn from Caesar

Famously, Julius Caesar boasted of how he came, he saw and he conquered, but on his return to Rome, in the midst of the ceremonial triumph, a slave reminded him he was dust and to dust he would return.

Anthony Albanese would do well to reflect on this ancient wisdom, even though he defied political gravity to establish himself in the pantheon of conquering Labor heroes.

Governing parties tend to lose seats at their second election; Albanese’s feat is a remarkable defiance of this tradition. The late John Fahey, the finance minister in the first Howard government, would be impressed. As he joined other new ministers on the steps of Government House after John Howard’s first win, he told Alexander Downer to enjoy the moment, “because it’s all downhill from here”.

That was 1996, the election that saw the Coalition win 94 seats, crushing Labor just one term after Paul Keating described his shock election win as the “sweetest victory of all”. It was also the election that saw a young Albanese enter parliament.

Colleagues have no doubt the prime minister has seared into his brain the ephemeral nature of success and the need to continue showing the same focus and discipline that has seen Labor deliver a similar drubbing to the opposition as the one meted out by Howard in ’96 and Tony Abbott in 2013.

The portents are good. Last Saturday, Albanese assured all Australians that repaying their trust “will drive our government, each and every day of the next three years”.

On Monday, in the Prime Minister’s Courtyard, he reiterated that he was deeply humbled by the result and said “we don’t take a second of it for granted”. Albanese’s trademark self-confidence was on show during the election campaign and shows he has well and truly recovered from his funk after the Voice referendum. While that’s a positive now, some in the party are concerned he might start believing his own myths.

There is plenty of precedent of governments with thumping majorities overreaching and seeing their ascendancy quickly evaporate. Tony Abbott’s landslide win didn’t save him when, a year later, a brutal austerity budget that broke key election promises led to his party room dumping him.

One thing Albanese has taken from his convincing victory is that Australians prefer a steady if uninspiring government to a risky alternative promising a radically different approach. He rejects that his government is without ambition and bristles at suggestions it has achieved little.

Albanese nominates progressing the clean energy economy among those achievements that were most at threat from the Dutton alternative. In that sense, the election was a referendum on the transition to renewables. There is much consolidation and building still to be done, but the economy-wide reform will continue apace.

A federal environmental protection agency will be quickly revisited. One insider noted it was almost four years to the next Western Australian election and three years to the next federal poll, making the task less fraught.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, like everyone in the ministry, was nervous over what jobs they would be given when the prime minister unveils his new front bench in the coming days.

Albanese had already nominated Jim Chalmers to remain as treasurer, with Katy Gallagher staying in finance, Don Farrell as trade minister and Penny Wong as foreign affairs minister.

The cautious Albanese of the first term is not about to disappear, however. It is very unlikely he will go beyond the mandate he sought at the election. If he does, as with the rejigging of the stage three tax cuts, it would be only if there were significant community support or pressure.

At Monday’s news conference, Albanese signalled that key measures either stymied or stalled in the Senate last term will be bowled up very quickly when parliament is recalled. He won’t be waiting until Labor’s numbers are significantly improved in the upper house when the newly elected senators take their seats at the beginning of July.

This applies particularly in the area of housing. Albanese says he has a clear mandate to build more housing because the key to ending the crisis is supply. His message was blunt to Coalition and crossbench senators: “Get out of the way and let the private sector build it.”

The prime minister nominated relieving HECS-HELP debt for tertiary students as his first legislative priority. It will be an early test of the Coalition, who opposed the policy during the election.

Everyone loves a winner and nobody more so than United States President Donald Trump. He called Albanese early on Monday to congratulate him.

The president told reporters in Washington he was “very friendly with Albanese”, that “he is very good” and that he had “no idea who the person is who ran against him”. This was a blunt reality check on Liberal campaign claims that a Coalition government would be better than Labor at handling the mercurial Trump.

Albanese said the discussion was warm and constructive, but whether it pays dividends on tariffs and nuclear submarines is far from assured. An indication that endorsement from this US president isn’t seen as a great positive for the prime minister was Albanese’s efforts not to make the phone call the centrepiece of his Monday news conference.

This alone was a clear demonstration of just how tenuous relations with our principal strategic ally have become.

Still unanswered is what further challenges, strategic and economic, Trump’s disruption of the world order will throw up for the re-elected government. Albanese’s enhanced authority, thanks to the substantial endorsement of the Australian people, well positions him to meet them.

The result has left Labor’s political opponents significantly diminished and in disarray, leaderless and with an unresolved identity crisis. This is a major difference compared with the huge defeats Labor suffered at the hands of Howard and Abbott.

By 1996, Labor was a tired and very old government. In 2013 it was a disunited rabble riven not by fundamental policy differences but rather by competing egos. In both cases the election defeat facilitated regeneration.

Veteran political commentator Paul Kelly says the entire meaning of the election was that the Australian public don’t have faith in Liberal values anymore.

On ABC TV, Kelly said the party has increasingly lost touch with so many important sections of the Australian community: “the young people, women, the professional classes, multicultural Australia, public servants”. It had a disconnect from what was going on in the cities. Peter Dutton was the first opposition leader to have also lost his own seat. Kelly said it was “extraordinary”.

Just as extraordinary is the fact there is no readily available leadership successor to Dutton; no one with the stature to begin the repairs that are needed, who would be able to forge a consensus between the internal culture warriors. The conservatives lack pragmatism and breadth, while the moderates have all but disappeared.

The main contenders, Angus Taylor and Sussan Ley, bear a huge responsibility for the policy shambles taken to the election. The third option – shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan – is not far behind.

Compounding the problems is the fact the Liberals are handcuffed to the Nationals, who make a virtue of appealing to the populist instincts of rural and regional Australia while disregarding and even treating with disdain urban concerns, especially over fossil fuel emissions.

A pivotal clash over the future of the Coalition’s nuclear energy policy is complicating the situation. Liberal voices emerged this week, calling for the policy to be scrapped. New South Wales Senator Maria Kovacic said young voters in particular did not support the policy and the party should “scrap the nuclear energy plan and back the private market’s investment in renewable energy”.

She was not supported by the re-elected member for Goldstein, Tim Wilson. Fresh from defeating independent Zoe Daniel, Wilson strongly backed nuclear “as part of the industrial base of our country”. His victory, which he credits to a strong grassroots campaign, was a rare fillip for the Liberals.

The potency of climate policy faded somewhat in the election, with the Greens losing three seats and potentially holding just one in the House of Representatives. On Thursday Adam Bandt conceded defeat in his seat of Melbourne, blaming new boundaries and the fact people were so desperate to block Dutton they went directly to Labor.

The minor party has strengthened its position in the Senate, however, as a balance of power party in its own right. This means Labor can turn to the Greens alone for support if the opposition blocks legislation.

Albanese believes the progressive party will pay a price at the ballot box if they adopt similar hardball tactics to the last term. That comes down to who better judges the electorate and, on last Saturday’s result, the prime minister has the runs on the board.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 9, 2025 as "Mandate with destiny".

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