Last week’s national accounts figures suggest that we are now midway through Act IV and it may be too late to save King Albo from his Shakespearean fate.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has, but for one crucial back-firing moment (the Voice), always been looking over his shoulder fearful and worrying about how what he proposes to do or not do could be used by his opposition (both political and in the media) to be played against him.

The census debacle stemmed from a fear of the reaction of the Murdoch media to “wokeism”. His non-action to control the borders from a post-Covid flood stemmed from the fear that cheap-labour-demanding big business might turn against him.

In Opposition he supported the reward-the-already-rich Stage Three tax cuts for fear of being wedged.

He has now dithered for more than a year over a parliamentary committee’s proposals to ban gambling advertisements for fear of media moguls savaging him. That is not governing.

Last week, he swallowed the self-serving, statistically massaged “facts” from the CEOs of the big university businesses to import 270,000 more customers, naively ignoring the obvious fact that the 270,000 customers (sorry, students) are not coming here to be educated and go home, but are coming here to come here – permanently.

His government’s policies seem more driven by What Will Rupert Think and What Will Dutton Do than What is Best for the People Who Vote for Me.

A few decades ago, politicians used to be condemned for “changing policy according to the latest opinion poll”. That used to be the definition of populism.

If only the Government were now driven by the latest opinion poll or what the people want – climate action; cutting immigration; cutting or banning gambling ads; ramping up Medicare; tax reform; and so on.

Time and time again the voters are not getting what they reasonably ask for because those in power are serving wealthy interests.

Perhaps the most stark example was the e-petition calling for a judicial inquiry into Australian media – its ownership and abuses. It was the biggest e-petition to the Australian Parliament, backed by two former Prime Ministers and gaining more than 500,000 signatures in four weeks. 

What happened? Despite a parliamentary committee agreeing with the petition, there was no judicial inquiry. No political party leader wanted to be responsible for media proprietors having to face cross-examination.

Now populism is redefined. It is the art of pretending to serve the masses while in fact duping them into believing they are being served while the leader does the bidding of big-business interests.

In his heart Albo is obviously a good bloke, but his innate caution now bordering on self-doubt have paralysed him.

It is not the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which are determining his fate, but his own political fear.

Yet the two policy occasions when he should have listened to that fear and questioned What Will Dutton Do, he did not. Fresh from an election victory he naively thought that a weakened Opposition would have no choice but to go along with his decisive move to have a referendum on the Voice.

He should have known Dutton would revert to form and oppose whatever proposal was put up for a few cheap political points. And he should have known that without the support of both major parties, referendums inevitably fail.

And when he cowered to business demands for cheap labour after Covid, he lost control of the borders and allowed anyone in who fitted the legal immigration criteria. He did not ask What Will Dutton Do? The obvious result ensued: out came the dog-whistle.

High immigration has now caused Australia to fall into the only recession that counts: the per-capita one. Raw GDP is just an economist’s illusion that has little to do with people’s lives. Income per head is what counts and what voters feel. And it has been going backwards for 18 months.

So, King Albo started off in Act I with laudable aims which have now turned to dust. His character flaws – fear and self-doubt – have allowed circumstances and other people’s actions to get the better of him and resulted in the failure to do the very thing which has underpinned his political career: to improve the lot of the less fortunate.

In Act V, Albo most likely will not survive the loss of majority government, but if we are true to Shakespeare, in Act V the body politic does survive and learns the lessons of the tragedy

And as with all Shakespeare’s plays, this one has a subplot. Peter Dutton cannot help himself but to be divisive. It is in his character.

It has a similar effect as Albanese’s policy paralysis: the emergence of what I call the rusted-off voter.

Hitherto, political commentary has spoken about rusted-on voters whose loyalty will not let them separate from either one or other of the major parties, however bad a party might be from time to time.

These days the major parties are better described as a large metal post with rusty bits falling off: the Teals in the Coalition’s case and the Greens in Labor’s case. Since 2025, there has been a sign of a reversal of the corrosion.

Dutton has done nothing to regain the Teal vote that was rusted-off because of the Coalition’s failures on integrity and climate. And Albanese has done next to nothing to regain the Green vote that has been rusting off Labor as Labor fails young people on housing, student debt, and entry into the workforce with a meaningful and secure job.