Sooner or later Anthony Albanese or his successor will lead the Labor Government to defeat.

Probably a decisive defeat, with many in the electorate thinking that Labor had had its turn and that it was time for the other side to have a go. As NSW and Queensland show, voters are quite forgiving of parties after they have had a spell, sometimes only a short one, in the wilderness.

When the time for a turnover arrives, campaign warnings of the risks posed by the Opposition, based on old history, will be ignored. When Labor loses, it will be only because Labor’s biggest governing weakness was always its failure to galvanise voters around ideas and ideals, or to unite its supporters around enduring Labor values.

The aftermath of defeat always involves regret and recrimination. We are seeing that now in the Liberal Party as it responds to its May defeat. Leadership ambitions, as much as self-criticism and helpful advice, are in play. It’s a short time of free-for-all before the party, or so its leaders hope, settles down around new leaders and ideas, and redevelops discipline and unity of purpose. Hard to know how it will end, given the pyromania some have brought to the task. But it is instructive to watch it if only as a foretaste of the Götterdämmerung at the end of the next Labor Government.

During the inquest, both insiders and perpetual outsiders will get a run. The party organisation will be stringently criticised. Factions will be denounced, though insiders will take care. The leader and the party will be accused of having done too little, or too much. Of being too bold or too timid. Of having a personality and image that scared off voters, or of being so vapid that voters wondered if they held firm convictions or genuine character. The poor, dim voters who failed to endorse the party will be accused of being too greedy for instant benefits in future and too ungrateful for benefits in the past. Too stupid to see through the lies of the other side, or the irresponsibility of a particular policy promise. The party will have been too far to the right, or too vulnerable to charges of being too far to the left. All will agree that the party must change its approach and its ideas in response to the humiliation. But some will seem to want to redouble the doses of the unpopular medicines and some will want to drop the medicine altogether.

The wipeout will wrench many of the best and brightest young women and men from well-paid political jobs and seats. It will also drag a host of Labor cronies, mates and lobbyists out of comfy patronage sinecures, installing instead the power brokers of the other side. These will immediately change the way that power is exercised, and the new regime will not hesitate to ensure that the flow of government money and discretions goes to their friends, their pet ideas and their ideologies.

Labor has already become smug and comfortable, back to its old vices and feeling secure from voters

For Labor insiders, the sense of loss will be the greater because Labor will be said to have quickly become smug and comfortable in power. Quickly reunited with the old Labor tree people and in the pockets of its old mates in the lobbies, in business, in unions and the non-profit sector. Unembarrassed about returning to the old petty corruptions and abuses, including the improper rewarding of friends and the conscious punishment of enemies.

Astonishingly for a party which initially won office on promises of restoring honesty, transparency and integrity in government, it will be accused of having quickly adopted virtually all the rorts of previous administrations, including compulsive secrecy, politicisation of the public service and the neutralisation of regulatory bodies with watchdog functions. This would include the National Anti-Corruption........

© Pearls and Irritations