Australians traditionally consider the country to be on holiday until Australia Day, even if they have to work, but this year, the federal election is already well and truly underway.

Labor has got off to a miserable start engaging in personal attacks on Opposition leader Peter Dutton that even some of its MPs have condemned. As Andrew Blyth points out in his article this week, Labor seems to have taken a leaf out of former prime minister Paul Keating’s playbook who went into the 1996 federal election hurling insults at then Opposition leader John Howard.  As history shows, it didn’t work. Australians weren’t interested in Keating’s caustic abuse – he called Howard ‘a desiccated coconut’ – they were focussed on policies and the cost of living.

Mr Albanese’s lack of leadership and moral clarity following the unprovoked mass terror attack by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Israel has unleashed an unprecedented explosion of antisemitic attacks. As Rebecca Weisser writes in her article there has been an increase from just under 500 attacks a year to over 2000.  The distressing fact is that Labor has put grubby electoral politics ahead of principle, trying to court the votes of the hard-left ideologues in the Greens and the hardline Islamists in the Muslim community.  Ironically, it has belatedly realised that in chasing these extremists, it has vacated the middle ground occupied by the vast majority of fair-minded Australians. It is now trying in a halfhearted fashion to move back into the mainstream by attempting to rebuild its relationship with Israel. Yet at the same time, it is ignoring the advice of its envoy on antisemitism, Jillian Segal, who is calling for the government to convene a national cabinet to make sure the patchwork of state and federal laws are enforced and social cohesion is rebuilt.

Mr Albanese’s weakness has become the defining feature of his prime ministerial tenure at a time when Australia and the West face an extremely uncertain geopolitical environment. This does not augur well for the country.  Mr Albanese might boast that he has the makings of a good relationship with President-elect Trump but in reality, on critical issues like climate change, defence spending, and general political orientation, Mr Albanese and Mr Trump are poles apart.

While Mr Albanese’s determination to sabotage Australia’s economy with his net zero policies will hardly worry America, Australia’s incredible shrinking defence force capacity will be a major problem for America and Australia with the prospect of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and an aggressive expansion in the South Pacific on the cards. Australia is woefully unprepared for a confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan.  Indeed, our defence forces are declining on every measure whether manpower or materiel. President Trump will pursue a policy of securing peace through effective deterrence but Australia needs to be better equipped to play its role in protecting vital sea lanes and deterring China from locating missiles in the South Pacific.

Under Labor, our foreign policy has been woeful. As former executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute from 2012 to 2022 Peter Jennings put it, ‘Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s Middle East policy could not possibly have been more amateurish. We are fighting with Ireland for the prize of having the dumbest policy position on Israel.’ Luckily, for Israel and the West, Mr Netanyahu has inflicted massive damage on Iran and its proxy armies. At the same time, Russia has exhausted its military options so comprehensively in Ukraine that it could no longer defend its ally Syria. This weakness in the Axis of Autocrats aka the Crinks will unfortunately make them, if anything, even more dangerous.

As for Mr Dutton, he is on a winning ticket vowing to protect Australia Day. A poll conducted by the Institute for Public Affairs showing that almost three-quarters of all Australians (69 per cent) want Australia Day to be celebrated on 26 January up from 63 per cent a year ago.

No country is perfect but Australians should take pride in the long, stable democracy we have created, our world-leading records on universal suffrage, our egalitarian culture, and the extraordinarily prosperous and tolerant country that we have created.