Extract from ABC News
When Anthony Albanese stepped out in Geelong in January for his first prime ministerial press conference for the year, his still-new government had just finished a successful first six months of getting key Labor measures in areas like industrial relations and a national anti-corruption commission through the parliament, setting out a positive agenda at the jobs summit and making an impressive start on budget repair.
The Coalition was reeling from the legacy of its record in government — from Scott Morrison's secret ministries to the shocking revelations from the Robodebt Royal Commission.
The prime minister declared the government had "four challenges, but also four opportunities" in 2023.
These were: dealing with the difficult international economic situation arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and its impact on inflation and energy; national security, which he primarily defined as advancing the AUKUS relationship; "taking climate change seriously"; and "of course, is what Labor governments always do: how do we promote fairness in our society".
Twelve months on, the prime minister is finishing the year with a sullen electorate that can't really see past the economic pain it is feeling from that inflationary surge and its consequences, and national security back in the realm of talk about border security and terrorists.
There may have been some progress on climate change.
But there's a full-blown national housing crisis, and the task of persuading Australians the government can and will do something about promoting fairness in an economic sense seems stalled.
The rejection of a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament has left unanswered the question of where the country goes next on Indigenous affairs, and cost the government huge political capital and momentum.
And Peter Dutton has clawed his way back into the centre of the political debate with a lethal populism that has drowned out much of what the government may have achieved this year.
Is anybody listening?
Commentators used to talk about the opportunities for a reset that the Christmas break offered a government as voters "switched off" from politics. Considerable anecdotal evidence suggests they haven't really been all that switched on to it in recent times, a phenomenon exacerbated by the splintering of the media landscape and the demise of the dominance of free to air media.
But even if people are watching, or listening, it's hard to believe they have heard much of the government's message.
This worries many people in the government who want to know what the prime minister is going to do to regain control of the conversation, as well as the government's standing post-referendum.
It's apparently not a concern shared by the PM.
"I realise the media get bored and like to look towards a contest, but the truth is we end the year unlike previous opposition throughout history in a much, much stronger position as a government," he told 7.30 on Thursday in an end-of-year interview.
He said that was both a "stronger economic position" and, making a rare commentary by a leader on the polls, he observed that "we're ahead … polls come and go … but the last poll, Newspoll this week, had us ahead with the same vote that we received at the last election … two-thirds of the way into a term".
"We understand that people are under cost-of-living pressure," Albanese said. "But what we are doing is making sure that we continue to focus on the needs of Australia"
Resetting the conversation, regaining momentum
It is true that this week's Newspoll conducted between December 11–15 saw Labor's two party preferred vote bounce back from 50-50 to 52.48.
But some of the prime minister's colleagues are concerned that Peter Dutton's political attacks have been shaping the political discourse.
Asked how the government could counter that, Albanese said: "Well we continue to put forward our positive agenda, offering as examples the fact that in the last fortnight of the parliament sitting, it had managed to get through legislation about the Murray Darling Basin, and environmental changes, among other things."
What matters, he said, is "substance, and the substance of the national security agreement that we reached with Papua New Guinea, the industrial relations changes to promote fairness in the workplace".
"The agenda that we put forward of having a national health plan, we now have a funding agreement with the states and territories going out to 2035. We have an agreement about reform of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We have a National Firearms Agreement for a National Firearms register.
"Those things are the things that make a difference. Our plan to strengthen Medicare increased urgent care clinics – all of that happened in a period of just a fortnight. Meanwhile, the opposition, we're just being negative about everything and not putting forward any alternative."
But the sense that the government needs to reset the conversation about the central issues of the cost of living — and regain momentum — is strong among Albanese's colleagues.
The PM acknowledges that the economic conditions in which the Stage 3 tax cuts — which come into force in July next year — have significantly changed but for now he says the government hasn't changed its mind about proceeding with the cuts, and instead talks about providing additional cost-of-living relief in some other form to low and middle-income earners in the May budget.
Domestic politics overshadow crucial relationships
At some point in the New Year the government is going to have to make a decision on the timing of the Dunkley by-election, caused by the untimely death of Labor MP Peta Murphy from breast cancer.
That is likely to crystallise many of the forces at work in our politics at play as this year ends.
That includes, of course, also having to deal with the local fallout of conflict in the Middle East.
The prime minister finished the year with a major foreign policy speech to the Lowy Institute which aimed to give shape to the government's foreign policy agenda.
Foreign policy, he said, "cannot merely be a catalogue of things that are happening to us" and, in language that echoed former prime minister Paul Keating, that "Australia's strategic policy must be anchored in Asia and the Pacific".
Yet a request from the US Navy (not the Biden administration) for Australia to commit a naval vessel to operations in the Red Sea — and the subsequent decision to send personnel but not a vessel — was portrayed in some sections of the media as a major breakdown in the relationship with the United States.
Australia's foreign policy will be buffeted by a series of election campaigns among key allies in 2024, most conspicuously the presidential election in the United States, but also a general election in the United Kingdom and a presidential election in February in Indonesia.
Anthony Albanese went to some pains in his speech this week to talk about his government's attempts to upgrade this relationship in both defence and investment terms.
But, like other parts of the government's agenda, this crucial relationship with our largest near neighbour gets overshadowed by the noise of domestic politics.
Regaining control over the national political conversation will be the prime minister's one great challenge in 2024.
Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.
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