‘Two doomed referendums’. That was this column’s heading on 9 July 2022 about the Albanese government’s decision to hold a referendum for an indigenous Voice in the constitution. If successful, another was scheduled  to follow, changing the constitution to one for a politicians’ republic. This is one where most or all checks and balances on a prime minister are removed.

With the Voice defeated by a 60 to 40 per cent landslide, Tony Abbott explained this was a rejection, not of the Aboriginal people, but of what was a power grab. He explained this as did John Howard, Alan Jones and other experts in an ACM conference held just before the referendum, available on demand on ADH TV. A late warning was that with a proposal to triple ACT Senate representation, and with a likely High Court interpretation, the Voice would make future hard-left governments powerful without precedent.

While the defeat of the Voice confirms a referendum for some politicians’ republic is highly unlikely during the current reign or William V’s or even George VII’s, the rest of Albanese’s radical change agenda remains. Because of the extensive honeymoon many in  the mainstream media curiously granted Albanese, his agenda has not been subject to proper scrutiny. If you doubt that some in the mainstream can act as players rather than reporters, just recall the succession of campaigns to force a politicians’ republic onto the nation, to replace Howard with Rudd and Abbott with Turnbull. Remember too, the campaign to remove Abbott from parliament. Was that to prevent his return to the leadership?

Not only had Albanese abandoned interest in any of the major issues confronting the people, when account is taken of the real costs of the referendum, including such items as the vast use of the VIP fleet, staff and other resources, big business understandings and the 30 per cent tax forgone from the novelty of making corporate tax deductions especially for the Yes case deductible (a matter discussed recently with Simon Fenwick on ADH TV), the amount Albanese wasted is conservatively estimated to be at least three-quarters of a billion dollars.

More importantly, there is the far larger cost incurred in dividing the nation.

Instead of the proper course of resigning and advising a new election, Albanese appears to have had his vast taxpayer-funded staff work for weeks on a speech conceding defeat.

The best distraction they could come up with was to feign concern over the ‘gap’, something which should have been the subject of his attention from his swearing-in.

The gap is the direct result of policies introduced when Gough Whitlam persuaded  Harold Holt to centralise Aboriginal affairs in a vast and wasteful Canberra bureaucracy. This was to replace R.G. Menzies’ and Paul Hasluck’s policy of full integration of Aborigines into the Australian nation with one of separate development. This was supplemented later with the vice of welfare dependency and then judicially invented collective native title. The solution is obvious, but requires courage.

Apart from his obsession with holding a referendum which anyone with experience knew was doomed, Albanese had recently heightened concern as to his capacity to act  in the national interest.

This was especially so after Hamas’ attacks on Israel which John Howard had condemned as ‘totally and utterly reprehensible’ and deserving of instantaneous condemnation. He asked, ‘For the life of me I can’t understand why there wasn’t an instantaneous denunciation of the horrific character of the attack by Hamas.’

That view was reflected among most responsible commentators, one referring to the time when Labor wasted billions in obtaining a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.

The first important question to come before the Council was whether Palestine should be accorded observer status. Then prime minister Julia Gillard decided Australia should follow bipartisan practice and oppose the motion.

Michael Danby says the then foreign minister Bob Carr broke cabinet solidarity to have this overruled by caucus, pleading:  ‘How will I explain this on the steps of the Lakemba mosque?’

Albanese, whose electorate is significantly Muslim, joined Carr’s approach in breaching cabinet discipline.

More recently, the Albanese government performed poorly in relation to the depravity of the recent Hamas attack.

But it was not Albanese’s laxity or the Foreign Minister’s inappropriate call to Israel for restraint that drew unwelcome, world-wide attention to Australia. This was done by the NSW Labor government, without federal protest.

With its iconic status, Sydney’s Opera House is as much an identifier of Australia around the world as is the Eiffel Tower of France. Because of its location and time zone and its spectacular fireworks show, the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and the Harbour will often feature on New Year’s Day television bulletins around the world.

But when the first coronation this century was to be held,  the new NSW Premier Chris Minns claimed that for financial reasons, arrangements for the Opera House sails to be illuminated to mark this were cancelled.

This ensured that Australia would not be featured in television bulletins around the world. But as explained on ADH TV, a young politician Chris Rath’s diligent investigation demonstrated the true reason was political, not financial.

But later when the Opera House sails were illuminated to show support for Israel, the state government also allowed police to accompany a hostile mob to the Opera House where a demonstration was held, and flares fired, all accompanied by chanting including ‘F— the Jews!’ and ‘Gas the Jews!’

The result was these scenes went around the world to the great damage of this nation.

Worse, Jewish organisations were counselled not to come to the city. The only person arrested was a man with an Israeli flag, notwithstanding several obvious and serious breaches of the law, including advocating terrorism  under Section 80.2C of the Federal Criminal Code.

Is the law being applied selectively depending on the electoral relevance of the apparent offender?