Did the PM just get mogged at Adelaide’s big Labor conference?

A slip on the escalator just before appearing on stage alongside a glowing Premier with a holiday tan pushed the PM into the shadows, writes Mike Smithson.

A talkfest, a gathering of ideas, a showcase of persuasive orators or was it something else?

The national Labor Party conference in Adelaide had a “look at me” aura from the moment Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stumbled at the top of an escalators on his way to deliver the opening address.

He was always going to be in the shadow of Labor’s energetic today-man Peter Malinauskas, so his near disaster on a piece of sticky Convention Centre conveyancing apparatus was all part of Albo looking like yesterday’s hero.

It was the SA premier’s time to shine yet again on a national stage, and he didn’t let a moment go to waste.

Fresh from a family holiday he wasn’t going to be a shrinking violet when his time arrived on stage.

Contrast Anthony Albanese’s faltering Joe Biden-like arrival with a confident and suntanned Malinauskas, and it almost appeared to be an audition for the reality show equivalent of Who Wants to Be a Prime Minister?

So, let’s analyse the content of the Premier’s powerful welcoming address to hundreds of topflight Labor delegates.

Against the backdrop of the conference’s cliched slogan Delivering Real Change, whatever that means, Malinauskas told the audience to be under no misapprehension that the Australian Labor Party is a party of government, that is firmly in government.

No arguments there, but then his message was subject to conjecture.

“Governing is always a privilege,” he passionately explained.

“A privilege that guarantees our opponents are going to spend all their time worrying about us, worrying about each........

© InDaily