Anthony Albanese really must have a good sense of humour to come up with the ministerial reshuffle that he has. Torn from the pages of a Yes Minister script, it is dripping with ironies.
His Home Affairs minister has been dumped into the homelessness portfolio, which seems appropriate really.
Clare O’Neil stays in cabinet in the much diminished new role which includes housing, guaranteeing that she fails again – because Labor won’t meet its promised target of 1.2m new homes in its first five years in power.
Failed immigration minister Andrew Giles – who was responsible for the botched Directive 99 disaster that saw murderers and rapists walk free from detention – has retained an outer ministerial role as expected.
But he’s lost his immigration portfolio – and fair enough too.
Giles has been shifted into skills and training given Brendan O’Connor’s retirement. Giles is just the sort of person you don’t want running such an important portfolio, given his track record of failures.
Yet Albo has put him in charge of up-skilling the nation.
And the portfolio has been demoted from Cabinet too, driving the business community wild. This is the government that held a skills and training summit when it first came to power to show how seriously it takes such matters. So much for that.
Anthony Albanese must have a really good sense of humour to come up with yesterday’s ministerial reshuffle, writes political editor Peter van Onselen
New Home Affairs boss Tony Burke, above, has a lot on his plate. Meanwhile, Clare O’Neil was punted from Home Affairs to the homelessness portfolio
The PM insists nothing was going wrong in Home Affairs and Immigration, by the way, even though he’s dumped both ministers from their portfolios and gutted the once all powerful Home Affairs department. And he’s moved responsibility for ASIO back into the Attorney General’s office.
If you believe Albo when he says the changes aren’t a consequence of failure then you’ll believe anything.
Tony Burke has been moved into what’s left of the Home Affairs role, retaining his responsibilities for the arts and as the Leader of the House of Representatives.
So Burke will be expedited to be tough on borders and illegal asylum seekers before donning his best suit and heading to the opera, where the chattering classes can explain to him over a nice glass of champagne at intermission why his policies lack nuance.
Speaking of social cohesion the Labor backbencher whose Melbourne electorate office has been threatened with fire-bombings, and hence been closed for months, has been made the special envoy for social cohesion.
Peter Khalil will be able to take that message to pro-Palestinian protestors who continue to make threats at and around his office.
This new term ‘special envoy’ has become Albo’s way of handing out extra trinkets without giving capable MPs who have been languishing on the backbench actual frontbench duties. Like at children’s parties where every kid gets a prize.
It’s essentially a made-up role. Three new special envoys have been created all up, one of which was handed to Andrew Charlton. Promotion for the Oxford PhD economist and self made business success story makes sense, except that the PM has put him in charge of ‘digital resilience’, not anything remotely economic.
I suspect Treasurer Jim Chalmers – who has a PhD in politics not economics – wouldn’t want someone so qualified with special envoy powers floating around his economic portfolio. So Albo will keep Dr Charlton busy in an area that doesn’t touch on his significant expertise.
The single biggest issue Australians are concerned about is the state of the economy, yet the reshuffle made no changes whatsoever to any of those portfolios. For example, no new role focused on cost of living challenges.
By not adjusting his finance team – none of the Treasurer, Finance Minister nor Assistant Treasurer hold any sort of finance or economic qualifications whatsoever – Albo hopes that sends a message of stability. That they are already doing a good job so no changes are necessary.
It is a risk, given that Australians are having to endure high inflation and potentially more rate rises being stoked by the decisions the existing finance team have made.
Presenting, the special envoy for digital resilience, Dr Andrew Charlton
Elsewhere, Pat Conroy has been promoted to Cabinet but his ministerial role haven’t changed. He’s still in charge of aid for the South Pacific, a role that allows him to sit and watch as Albo sends $600m the way of impoverished PNG. Not to help the needy and address violence and disease – to help set up a commercial rugby league team.
The assistant ministerial role for Australia becoming a republic has been dumped altogether, as Daily Mail Australia flagged it would be months ago.
It had to happen given that after the Voice referendum’s failure Albo said that he won’t be seeking a vote on a republic anytime soon or far.
Linda Burney’s departure from Indigenous affairs in the wake of her failure promoting the Voice sees senator Malarndirri McCarthy step into the role, ensuring that an Indigenous parliamentarian continues to oversee the portfolio.
Along with the promotion to the outer ministry of Senator Jenny McAllister (responsible for cities) it also ensures there are two extra ministers in the upper house, bringing the total to six, to help spread the load.
There are plenty of other changes in a lineup the PM says he’ll take to the next election. The most notable is Murray Watt moving from Agriculture to Workplace Relations.
Again business has been aghast with the policy changes made in that portfolio already, but knowing this government it will no doubt find more ways to adjust the industrial laws in favour of the unions. Watt will likely only do that after the next election, however.
