Is Albo taking Grayndler for granted?

Albo is supposed to represent one of Australia's most progressive electorates. What's going on?

A few weeks ago, I did something that for most of my life would have been unthinkable. I left my home in the safe Labor electorate of Grayndler and headed to a pub in Wentworth, the most affluent electorate in the country.

The bit that was unthinkable was that I was heading to Paddington to hear the local member, independent, Allegra Spender, talk about a fairer tax system. Spender was launching her Tax White Paper in the heart of Sydney money and privilege.

For most of our history, a tax launch in Wentworth would have been about finding new ways to rig the tax system in favour of Wentworth’s privileged constituents. Not 2026. If implemented, Spender’s plans would collect more tax from many of her voters.

She's said she wants to improve a tax system that favours investment over work. Focusing on capital gains and negative gearing concessions she says, “Right now, if you earn your income from a job, you pay significantly more tax than someone earning the same amount from their assets.”

Most of Labor's recent superannuation changes were also supported by Spender - despite their likely disproportionate impact on her wealthy constituents.

Members of her team told me her plans to put the nation first are popular in the electorate. Let's hope so.

Spender has also endorsed a tax on the super profits being generated by international gas companies from the Iran war - a policy that’s been supported by other independents. Even future Liberal leadership hopeful Andrew Hastie is keen. Labor is being dragged kicking and screaming to a policy that should be a natural fit.

Spender and her independent colleagues may be the best thing to happen to Australian politics in decades. Her positive policy energy contrasts with Albo, who after four years in office, is timid or silent on many important national and international issues.

Dodging the Dutton bullet was a proud moment for Albo and the ALP. But Labor has tinkered away knowing it's light years ahead of the alternative. That's not enough in crazy times.

It’s time for Grayndler to send someone to Canberra who can assert our progressive values and respond to the domestic and international crises of the moment. Even an unsuccessful challenge to Albo from an effective independent, might help the PM rediscover his long-repressed progressive voice.

Albo's tinkering and timidity list

Below is a quick list of the many many things that Albo has either tinkered with or ignored.....
1.Tax reform - capital gains concessions, negative gearing, resource royalties and taxation (wealth tax, death tax??).
2. Gambling advertising reform
3. Media reform to address the toxic Murdoch monopoly
4. Universities in crisis - fees, Job Ready Graduates, standards, funding
5. Grotesque inequality in the school system.
6. Continuing environmental destruction
7. Labor’s policy efforts to disadvantage / wipe out the independent movement.
8. Slow walking donations, lobbying and transparency reforms.
9. Dismally weak NACC
10. AI regulation
11. AUKUS and the US alliance
12. Iran War response
13. Netanyahu's genocidal Israel

Huge issues. Tough challenges. They predate this government but after 4 years, Albo's missing in action. The government is flat. Let me know what I’ve missed?