Anthony Albanese is not busy stealing Liberal Party policies and shifting his party to the right simply because he admires Tory politics and practices.

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Despite his supposed dedication to the old two-party system, he is trying to crowd the Liberals out. They are being squeezed by Pauline Hanson's One Nation from the right and finding it almost impossible to manoeuvre against her because her position is constantly shifting, and because she can always outflank them with more extreme and irresponsible statements.

But they cannot reposition themselves into a more comfortable middle ground since Albanese and Labor are there. Labor plans to kick downwind in both halves of the game. And to regard about 60 per cent of the ground as its own "half".

The extra space is ground Albanese could claim has been surrendered by the opposition.

Labor has simply moved into a void created by conservative geniuses who have argued over time that the only way to respond to steady and comprehensive defeats was to make their parties even more conservative.

The Coalition has made no effort to woo back Liberal moderates, whether still in the party or out of it, as represented by community independents and teals. Some Liberals seem to see their departure as a bonus, making the remnants more unified and monolithic in their policies, and thus far more attractive to an electorate they are convinced wanted and needs Angus Taylor, or is pining for Scott Morrison or Peter Dutton or some reincarnated Tony Abbott.

The same Liberal strategy in 2025 brought disaster. The Liberals misread the electorate badly.

It was not so much a lurch to Labor as a retreat from the Coalition. Albanese's charisma or personality did not draw votes.

The prospect of Dutton was the motivator. 2025 was not won by specific Labor campaign promises, even as to tax, so much as by doubt and uncertainty about Coalition policies.

It was won by fear of Dutton's extremism, and the opposition's lack of understanding of the mood and the temper of the electorate. Dutton had made a party whose councils were dominated by angry old men (and a very few old women) even more out of touch with middle Australia, particularly among women, professional women, younger Australians and better-educated Australians.

Because of this it also lost heavily in capital cities, to the point that the Liberals now hold very few metropolitan seats, particularly in south-eastern Australia. Nothing in the character of Angus Taylor or the present Coalition suggests a new approach to voters by more likeable, or less frightening characters.

Timidity reassures those who feared Labor would be too radical

During Albanese's first term, Labor's reach for the middle ground was more a matter of being slow and steady. It shrank from bold steps or complex solutions. Albanese was not one for frightening the horses, for being described as bold or visionary, or for dramatic changes.

The critics from the left side of politics lambasted Albanese and the government for its irresolution, timorousness and hesitancy, and there was a widespread view that the government was "disappointing".

Those of that opinion may have inadvertently helped quell any suggestions from the right that Labor had some sort of secret agenda, particularly one involving bold tax reform.

The government's own predisposition for inaction may have also received a boost from the resounding defeat of the Voice referendum in 2023, which seemed to stifle any Albanese impulse to make grand gestures in circumstances where it did not seem to mean much.

The government's response to the defeat was not some defiant decision to pursue justice for Aboriginal people by other means, but depression, policy paralysis, and, ultimately, a feeling that Aboriginal people had brought it upon........

© Canberra Times