In Victoria last week, the prime minister was able to talk about one of his favourite topics: infrastructure. The North East Link Project would “allow commuters to skip 18 sets of traffic lights and take 15,000 trucks off local roads”. Cutting through abstract economic debates, he declared: “This is what productivity benefits look like, right here and now”. In Western Australia, he visited an Urgent Care Clinic: “we promised 50, but delivered 87”.

We know the prime minister’s values and where he stands on most issues, but what where is Australia going under his leadership?Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

This is politics as Albanese often practises it: concrete, both literally and figuratively. It is concerned, above all, with tangible and demonstrable benefits. On both visits, he was asked about the defection of Senator Dorinda Cox from the Greens to Labor. Twice, with only slightly different wording, he explained that Cox had decided the Greens were “not capable of achieving the change that she wants to see … if you’re serious about social change in Australia, the Labor Party is where you should be”.

Last week, the overwrought political debate continued around the government’s proposed superannuation tax changes. Those changes are minor. The original impulse behind Australia’s modern superannuation system was the opposite. One of that system’s originators, former union leader Bill Kelty, three years ago described to journalist Jennifer Hewett how it all began, early in the Hawke government. “Paul [Keating] said we gotta make up our mind what we are, and what we want to do with super”. They rejected various pathways – most notably, “we don’t want to be tinkerers or........

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