Scripted compassion
Stage-managed emotions in ritual displays of empathy won't make up for the Prime Minister's failures of national leadership
The PM cut a sorry figure as he left the Bondi memorial service a week after the attack. His tight jaw and distant gaze conveyed the strain of emotional containment as he walked to his car flanked by security studiously avoiding eye contact.
Understandably, the PM is anxious that the photos from that night — his suit and shirt drenched by perspiration and drizzle — should not become the defining image of his political career.
Hence the need for a distraction - gun laws, hate laws, anything - that is consuming his government. Anthony Albanese has succumbed to do-something syndrome, a dangerous condition to which Labor leaders are particularly prone, when actual legislative outcomes come secondary to the imperative of looking busy.
Hence the PM’s evident frustration that his call for a display of national unity in support of his ill-fated Combating Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill was rejected by the Coalition and the Greens.
Albanese reaction to Bondi has been to appeal for national unity at every opportunity. Yet no amount of determination can command it into existence. National unity and social cohesion cannot be created in a vacuum. The PM’s job at a moment like this is to articulate the values around which we should be closing ranks, a job Albanese has manifestly failed to perform since December 14.
Instead, he fills the void by trying to stage-manage our emotions with ritual displays of empathy, declarations of togetherness, designated days of mourning, and scripted condolence motions.
