Albo enters pre-election mode
As he prepares for parliament to return next week after the long mid-winter break, the prime minister is getting rid of perceived distractions.
If someone had said at the beginning of this term that as the Albanese government was heading into the home stretch it would be forcing the CFMEU into administration and abandoning a key pillar of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, they would have been called crazy.
At this stage of the cycle, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was supposed to be setting himself for an ambitious and progressive second-term agenda — not angering Indigenous leaders by appearing to abandon his pledge to establish a Makarrata commission in the wake of last year’s Voice referendum defeat.
But as he prepares for parliament to return next week after the long mid-winter break, Albanese is in barnacle-clearing mode. And nothing is getting in his way.
One of the government’s first items of business next week will be introducing legislation to force four CFMEU construction divisions into administration. The bill will allow new Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt to appoint an administrator for a period of three years if he is satisfied it is in the public interest to do so.
