Labor 2025: Censorship Over Courage

Unless Labor rediscovers its roots in transformative reform and rejects the neoliberal militaristic straitjacket, the cries for real change will only grow louder.

Our freshly married Prime Minister delivered his policy pièce de résistance towards the end of another hazy parliamentary term: it wasn’t a housing program or a sovereign wealth fund. (Source: X)

Our freshly married Prime Minister delivered his policy pièce de résistance towards the end of another hazy parliamentary term, in a year that seemed to drag on, filled with cries of ‘social cohesion’, ‘regional security’, ‘shared values’ and the general decay of the domestic and global order under war, genocide, end-stage neoliberalism, and malignant leadership riddled throughout the collective West.

After a year that most Australians couldn’t tell you what policy has had a real world impact on them, it wasn’t the announcement of a national housing commission that would build homes across the country, putting an entire generation to work. It wasn’t the announcement of a sovereign wealth fund that sought to ensure the country benefits from its resource wealth. It wasn’t the announcement of a world-leading approach to climate change, or a welfare program to eradicate child poverty in his country—it wasn’t even a tax on over $3 million super accounts, or a measly gambling ban. It was a blanket draconian ban on under-16s from accessing social media, among a lurch towards militarism.

This capped off a year of collective anguish from Australians who—other than this problematic, disjointed, suspiciously prioritised underage social media ban—have not really had a tangible policy movement that makes a difference from the (second-term) Albanese government. The only exceptions have been the $364 billion introductory AUKUS price and a bunch of neoliberal hand-outs to the childcare industry, universities, energy providers, and the private industrial class under the guise of cost-of-living measures.

From economic repair to strategic surrender

Jim Chalmers, once seen as the natural next-generational successor to Albanese to lead the party, may be willing to defend his job so far as Treasurer and would spruik his high ranking in managing a national budget. But he can’t talk about the importance of maintaining Australia’s AAA credit rating or how much his government has mitigated inflation, when profit-laden duopolies are making year-on-year record profits, jacking up essentials and ten thousand Australians are going homeless a month. A man who once hinted at being closer to a democratic socialist has dropped the Tupac and Wu-Tang references and resorted to driving an end-stage, self-propelling neoliberal hearse between the narrow lines he has imposed on himself, favouring incremental budget repairs micromanaged by the Productivity Commission, the RBA and the business class, over transformative generational reforms with the mandate of the population.

The US-Australia relationship had become more significant but also more consequential and intense under the Albanese govenrment. (Source:X)

Richard Marles has met with his US counterpart, the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, on fewer times than he could possibly want (two official, two unofficial) and has projected a vision that he feels is best for our nation: the sovereign transfer of Australia’s strategic agency to the bosom of the US strategic umbrella. As Trump’s administration shakes down more significant and consequential alliances through Europe and Asia—still laden with Australian AUKUS gold and satisfied with our self-saucing vassaldom (for now)—Marles is a true believer in the American role as global leader, including with Trump, and is offering a ‘crocodile-will-eat-us-last’ strategy as his rationale to ape in with the US war plan. No submarines in sight.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been busily steering Australia’s ethical and moral trajectory further into uncharted geopolitical waters during her time in the role. Wong may argue she has pragmatically balanced our most important military and economic relationships while pursuing closer ties in the region—but her wish to appear pragmatic and measured is cast against the backdrop of global chaos and her decision-making in it. But long story short, she has overseen our response to Israels genocide in Gaza, and had acquiesced our ability to walk tall among nations of the world, tarnishing our bipartisan adherence to international law in the process. Now when she sends stern messages to China or bold words to Russia, she does so after squaring the circle on the most brutal human eradication project this century, and refusing to utter the word needed to explain it: genocide.

Apart from the vague mantra of safety, security and jobs, you would think our entire political class is positioning as a tributary trying to promote its good vassal status.

US Ambassador Kevin Rudd has been spruiging Australias sovereign wealth like a fat cow. (source: Twitter)

Kevin Rudd has been busy on social media in his role as Ambassador to the United States, but his content has not been designed for an Australian audience. In the years since Rudd has been our representative in Washington, his Twitter timeline has been a montage of pro-AUKUS takes, photo ops with Zionist rock stars and controversial FIFA presidents, and over-the-top pro-alliance statements like ‘We’re taking the US-Australia relationship to the next level’ and ‘The US-Australia alliance has never been stronger’, couched with vague sentence markers like ‘security’, ‘safety’ and ‘jobs’. As the former PM pushes Scott Morrison’s template for Australia up Hamburger Hill in the chaos of Trump’s Washington, he is offering something even more brash, openly flaunting our sovereign wealth around like it’s a teamsters fund.

A cabinet adrift

Education Minister Jason Clare has been the main spruiker of the underage social media ban; Shorten cut the NDIS before peacing out; Murray Watt opened up the biggest carbon bomb we could ever see; Anika Wells announced co-payments for aged care showers while racking up $100k in travel expenses to high-profile sporting events and ski trips to Thredbo—all of them seemed as disconnected from the punters as the Morrison Coalition. None of them said ‘Free Palestine’, all of them voted to censor children from being able to see it on their devices. Those who did share more than the allowed concern were forcibly ejected from the party or condemned to the backbench after offering their moral fibre to be good Labor people.

So while the Albanese government secured a dividend of additional seats in the 2025 election, Australians treaded water for another year in a volatile economy that hasn’t changed, and whatever mandate this government assumes--it is built on shaky ground. The purchasing power of the average Aussie has not improved even for nearly half a decade, and the best economists and most glass-half-full treasurers cannot read sections of the economy like people running households can. Recent polls reflect this voter frustration; for example, the Guardian Essential poll from December 2025 shows One Nation at a record 17% primary vote, with a majority pessimistic about housing affordability and cost-of-living pressures. Similarly, Essential Research indicates Labor’s two-party preferred lead narrowing to 49-45, beset by a deceptive low primary vote, with Albanese’s approval ratings declining amid ongoing economic woes and a dysfunctional opposition.

Never has there been a bloke more obsessed with being a PM, yet so terrified of being a leader: a message that is being communicated with more definition the further the Albanese government runs in its term and the further away it is from making any difference than its predecessor. There have been pundits and analysts talking about political ‘courage’, of the need for bravery, critiquing Albanese for his fear of rocking the vote in his obsession with gaining the vote and all the problems that presents to a country demanding bold leadership.

Sean Kelly wrote up a prescient review in the Quarterly Essay titled ‘The Good Fight: What Does Labor Stand For?’, where he highlights the Labor shift from boldness to political pragmatism at the expense of its working-class base and paints the PM as a man ‘trapped by his own certainty of an uncertain world; scared to govern, scared to confront, scared to lead, scared to move on anything that may upset those with the greatest assets of all—money and power’.

The real legacy

The Australian press tacitly praise Labor, recently joining in celebrations with the government’s underage social media ban by projecting its slogan ‘LET THEM BE KIDS’ onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Some of the pundits who have evolved from playing chess into checkers in the Australian press present Albanese as some kind of tactical middle man who walks the reasonable centre. But it is getting what it wants, just like the oligarchs in this country, and it wants to celebrate its wins.

‘LET THEM BE KIDS’ emblasoned on the Sydney Harbour Bridge marking a new age of private-government censorship. (Source: X)

Circuitry of Scott Morrison’s vision for an Australian-American state and southern hemisphere—it’s enough of a struggle appeasing a rapacious America in a state of flux that’s reaching out and taking everything it can in Europe, Africa and Latin America, without old K Rudd handing over a $1.4 trillion pension fund as a cherry on top. This handover alludes to the October 2025 deal between Albanese and Trump, where Australian superannuation funds are projected to boost investments in the US to $1.44 trillion by 2035—an increase of nearly $1 trillion—effectively channelling national retirement savings into American assets to bolster alliances like AUKUS. Coupled with Australia’s additional $800 million payment to the US in 2025 for AUKUS submarine production, this year exemplifies the aspiring vassalage of the government.

Those in the government and at the embassy would tell us punters that everyone doesn’t understand the give-and-take of grand diplomacy, stressing the chess over checkers of people like Rudd who were playing the cards in front of them to make the best outcome. How is handing over our pension fund to Trump’s America as a cherry on top the best outcome?

In the end, the Albanese government’s term has been a masterclass in missed opportunities, with the social-media ban its flagship, where bold vision yields to timid pragmatism and national sovereignty bends to foreign whims. As Australians grapple with stagnant wages, escalating costs and a world teetering on the edge, this administration’s legacy risks being one of complacency rather than courage, prefering to censor a cohort of Australian youth over giving them the opportunities they need to take this country to where it urgently needs to be. Unless Labor rediscovers its roots in transformative reform and rejects the neoliberal militaristic straitjacket, the cries for real change will only grow louder—perhaps ushering in an era where voters demand leaders who lead, not merely occupy the Lodge.