Albo's great at buying votes but he's dragging Australia into decline. We're all suffering the cost of his cowardice: PETER VAN ONSELEN

By PETER VAN ONSELEN, POLITICAL EDITOR, AUSTRALIA Published: 12:50, 4 April 2026 | Updated: 12:50, 4 April 2026 Australian politics has a problem bigger than any one leader, party or bad week in Parliament.  It's no longer organised around the art of persuasion. It's built instead around managing headlines, expectations and risks. That may be clever politics in the short term, but over time it produces a managed decline. The political class is not always incompetent, but it is often hollow. It struggles to inspire voters or make a convincing case for reform. At times, it's not even clear that modern politicians want to do these things. Winning the day has taken precedence over shaping the country. The current government has become highly adept at the mechanics of incumbency, and at exploiting an opposition that still looks traumatised by its 2025 defeat. Things have become so bad for the Coalition that, less than 12 months after the election, repeating its worst ever result next time would be an improvement on where the polling now has it.  But that's only the arithmetic of politics. One side rises as the other falls. The deeper problem is that our policy and fiscal debates have become more superficial, more arbitrary and less serious. Take Labor's 20 per cent HECS debt cut. It was smart retail politics, plainly aimed at buying votes, but a very poor policy. Higher education is already heavily subsidised, with taxpayers covering a large share of the cost before the state carries the remaining debt until graduates earn enough to repay it.  A random 20 per cent write-down isn't just unfair to those who already paid off their debts, to people who never went to university, or to future students who will miss out. It's just so arbitrary. Where was the larger argument about what universities are for, who should pay, and what kind of system Australia actually wants? 'The current government has become highly adept at the mechanics of incumbency, and at exploiting an opposition that still looks traumatised by its 2025 defeat,' writes Daily Mail political editor Peter van Onselen  The same habit is visible in the government's long-awaited move on gambling advertising. To be sure, Albo deserves credit for finally tackling an issue that has cried out for action for ages. Any measure that reduces children's exposure to gambling and weakens the saturation of betting around sport is worth supporting. But the package also seems to confirm the wider pattern: After years of delay and pressure, Labor appears set to act, but only within carefully managed limits. Caution rules.  There will be some caps, some blackouts, some restrictions and a phased in pullback. There won't be a full ban, nor a national regulator with teeth. And there's no real appetite for a confrontation with the media companies that benefit the most from gambling advertising.  Equally, sporting codes and the gambling interests themselves that profit from the status quo aren't being challenged head-on. In short, Labor is acting because it has to be seen to act. It's not nothing, which is something, especially in an era of do-nothing politics. But it's certainly not bold or comprehensive.  Albo too often seems to act only after working out how much disruption can be contained without causing a stir. That is the cost of governing through calibration. A government that's permanently cautious eventually starts to look evasive. That might be a problem for Albo if the opposition was remotely competent and united. The same cautious approach pervades our foreign policy now. Labor's hesitation and internal sensitivity over the Middle East crisis reinforces the idea that conviction has been replaced by choreography. Say as little as possible, even when talking for a long time. Politics designed to avoid errors eventually forgets how to make a case. 'Micro-economic reforms, superannuation, tax reforms, industrial relations flexibility and tariff reductions are just some of the legacy items left to us by the likes of Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard and Peter Costello. Without which Australian prosperity wouldn't be what it is now,' writes PVO (former PM John Howard pictured) If Labor's vice is excessive caution, the Coalition's is something much worse: it doesn't seem to know what it even stands for, and the few convictions that get raised to repel the accusation are so contradictory that it feels like the things that divide the modern Liberal Party (and Coalition) are greater than what unites it. How do you bring together anti-immigration nationalists who demand government intervention, and small L market liberals? Much less moderates with socially progressive views and values that butt heads with religious and social conservatives? Or regional interventionists and inner-city teals?  The forces that once came together as the non-Labor forces in Australian politics probably now see each other as more repulsive than Labor. While Team Albo are underwhelming, they at least aren't a disconnected rabble. A movement that cannot settle basic questions of identity and direction can't perform the central task of opposition, which is not merely to oppose but to persuade the public that it has learned something such that a return to power might be meaningful. Instead, every time the Coalition looks close to coherence it falls back into its familiar psychodrama of leadership tension, internal positioning and culture-war reflexes. The problem with the failures on the political right at the moment is that democracy requires more than a semi-competent government. It requires a plausible alternative government sitting on the opposition benches.  Right now Australia has one functioning electoral machine in Labor, and a coalition of grievances opposite it that couldn't work together even if it wanted to. Then there is the impact all of this has on Australia's political culture. More and more Australians feel unrepresented, unheard and unconvinced that politics is working in their interests. That's why the rise of independents, minor parties and protest voting shouldn't surprise anyone. 'Australian politics has a problem bigger than any one leader, party or bad week in Parliament,' writes Peter van Onselen  Side arguments about whether Parliament should eventually have more MPs miss the point. The public is questioning the legitimacy of the institutions irrespective of their size. If anything, growing the parliament right now will only increase cynicism. Which no doubt is why Albo knocked the idea on its head last week. Australians don't think the current political class has earned an expansion of trust, let alone an expansion of itself. So where does all of this leave us?  Australia is drifting towards what looks like a stable place.. But our stability over the past three decades was built off the back of major economic reforms and a political class willing to take bold risks in order to do what was needed: Micro-economic reforms, superannuation, tax reforms, industrial relations flexibility and tariff reductions are just some of the legacy items left to us by the likes of Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard and Peter Costello. Without which Australian prosperity wouldn't be what it is now. But we need today's politicians to continue that legacy, rather than merely spin achievements that don't add up to a hill of beans. Until that changes, Canberra will keep producing what it now specialises in: politics without confidence and leadership without boldness. Leaving us with governments of all stripes that lack any real sense of national purpose. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. 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