Why Albanese barely mentions Libs, but speaks his true enemy’s name

July 27, 2026 — 5:00am

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Arguably, the three most important political events of Anthony Albanese’s first term happened elsewhere. The first two, in fact, happened before he was prime minister.

First, the outbreak of COVID caused both governments and households (eventually) to spend, at a time when supply chains were in chaos. Second, Russia invaded Ukraine. Inflation then rose around the world, hurting Labor in the polls: for about two years, its vote declined. Then inflation began to ease, in time for the election.

The third occurred late in Labor’s first term: just before the election, Donald Trump imposed himself on global politics with a strange meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and the announcement of tariffs – underlining the importance of stability and the appeal of an Australian government utterly unlike Trump’s.

So it was interesting last week to watch as two of those events found echoes. There is talk – again – of an escalation of Trump’s war against Iran, with all its drastic inflationary potential. Meanwhile, Trump repeated his tariff trick, hiking costs for many countries, including Australia.

Domestically, most eyes were trained instead on Labor’s national conference.

Albanese’s iron grip has delivered unity, but the harder battle lies ahead

At first glance, we learnt little. After four years in government, Labor remains united – extremely. Discipline – for better or worse – is at an all-time high. And, not unrelatedly, the prime minister is absolutely dominant: nothing happened at conference, nothing was allowed to happen, that would displease him.

His widely........

© Brisbane Times