By Situation Theatre 26/10/2019

He may be doing an awful job, but at least he’s the first powerful white man to do so.

You’ve got to hand it to Albo. No one thought a Labor leader could be more disappointing that Bill Shorten but he’s gone and done it.

Studying the history of the Labor Party since Keating lost in ’96, you’d be forgiven for thinking their primary mission has been a race to find the most disappointing possible leader, because boy are they nailing it. Just when you think yep, this is definitely the worst one, they somehow uncover one who’s even emptier.

First came boring Beazley, who is still giving an answer to a question Kerry O’Brien asked him in 1997. Then Simon Crean lost the leadership because journos kept getting him confused with the walls behind him. Mark Latham threw his own faeces at John Howard, but at least he didn’t call climate change the greatest moral challenge of our time only to supersede it by banishing refugees to Manus Island. Julia Gillard certainly knew how to call out misogyny, except when she was cutting welfare to single mums, and she certainly couldn’t stand racism, except when she extended the Northern Territory intervention by 10 years. Bill Shorten may have sucked at jokes and small talk but he did renew interest in T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men.

But now, hats off to Albo, who takes the vegemite cheesecake for most disappointing of them all. Kudos to the self-described Opposition Leader for whom the only thing better than “fighting Tories” is waving through all their legislation.