Grattan on Friday: Welcome King Charles, farewell the republic as Albanese casts aside lost causes

Anthony Albanese can’t escape the powerful symbolism. In October he is due to greet King Charles on Australian soil – hard on the heels of formally burying Labor’s hopes of turning Australia into a republic.

Charles’ last official visit to Australia was in 2018, for the opening of the Commonwealth Games. Ahead of that, former prime minister Paul Keating told the British media he had “no doubt” the then prince “believes Australia should be free of the British monarchy and that it should make its own way in the world”.

Whatever the now king’s views, last year’s referendum killed a republic for at least a generation as soundly as it did the Voice. Sunday’s reshuffle was the latest acknowledgement, when the PM scrapped the post of assistant minister for the republic.

Even in Labor, few seem to care. It used to be said the republic’s time could come after the popular Queen Elizabeth’s reign ended. Instead, the constitutional status quo is as dug in as ever, for as far ahead as we can see.

Of course much has changed, even as the fundamentals stay the same. Charles’ first visit as king will be brief and limited, just to New South Wales and the ACT. He’s in the region for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.

Contrast his mother’s inaugural visit as queen, in 1954, when she spent nearly two months here, touring all states and dozens of cities and towns, cheered by rapturous crowds.

For most Australians, the monarchy today is little more than a constitutional convenience, while achieving a republic would be, if not impossible, more trouble than it was worth.

Anyway, Australia is certainly able to “make its own way in the world”, regardless of its present constitutional arrangements.

Dropping the republic post in the reshuffle was Albanese’s nod to a political reality. Putting Tony Burke into the home affairs and immigration portfolio is an attempt to change a political dynamic.

The opposition had months of easy pickings with the government’s weaknesses in this area under Clare O’Neil (home affairs) and especially Andrew Giles (immigration), who struggled with the issue of the former detainees. From now until the election it is likely to face tougher resistance. The Coalition understands this, which is why it is trying to portray Burke as an unsafe pair of hands.

But it’s unconvincing to hark back to when Burke was briefly immigration minister in 2013. And it is a long bow to claim that because he could come under pressure from Muslim voters in his western Sydney seat, Burke is likely to be soft on applications from Palestinians to come to Australia, although his decisions will be carefully scrutinised.

Burke’s mantra this week has been his priority on keeping Australians safe. He immediately jumped on a plane to Indonesia to attend talks on security and border control. The Coalition is attempting once again to talk up the prospect of more boat arrivals (which in itself is not very responsible), but we can expect Burke to pull out all the stops on border control.

The opposition is also condemning the return of ASIO to again come under the attorney-general (who already signed warrants for it) rather than under the home affairs minister.

But former Liberal attorney-general George Brandis, in an article in Nine papers backing Albanese’s action, has undermined this argument.

Brandis writes:

Both of the Hope royal commissions during the 1970s and early 1980s – the most searching inquiries into ASIO ever conducted – accepted the power of the argument that jurisdiction over an agency whose activities are of necessity covert, should be with the minister and department responsible for protecting the rule of law.

As attorney-general, Brandis resisted, and hated, the loss of ASIO to home affairs during the Turnbull government, just as in the Labor government, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus fought to get hold of it. Reportedly Dreyfus never stopped pushing, and there were tensions between him and O’Neil in relation to ASIO.

Burke’s replacement in workplace relations, Murray Watt, probably won’t have as high a profile in coming months as his predecessor. But sharp eyes should be kept on him, because he has to oversee the clean up of the CFMEU.

The general manager of the Fair Work Commission has been gathering evidence for the court application to put an administrator into the construction union. It’s unclear whether the government will need to bring in legislation to facilitate the intervention.

There have been varied signals from the union on how it will react to the installation of an administrator – fighting words, but at the same time it has appointed anti-corruption expert Geoffrey Watson to investigate the allegations of nefarious behaviour in its construction division.

Watson’s appointment at one level looks a good move, but equally appears a way of saying, we can wash our own dirty linen.

Watt on Wednesday reiterated that the task couldn’t be left to the union.

He also stressed the government would be ready to go if legislation is needed.

“The very first briefing that I received in this new role, within hours of being sworn in, focused on the legislation, where it was at, what further decisions needed to be made to finalise it. I had another briefing on that yesterday and gave further instructions and I’ll be doing it again this morning,” he told the ABC on Wednesday.

The former minister for emergency management is used to getting on top of situations quickly.

If Watt’s first key performance indicator will be making sure the CFMEU really is being sorted out, new housing minister Clare O’Neil has a performance indicator that is actually harder.

O’Neil said in a post-reshuffle interview, “A lot of Australians probably don’t realise this, but the Albanese government actually invested more money in housing in just our last budget than the entire nine years that the Coalition were in power”.

Maybe, but the trouble is that, in face of a range of problems, homes just aren’t being built fast enough, certainly not fast enough to meet the government’s targets. Treasurer Jim Chalmers admitted on Thursday, “The housing pipeline is not what we want it to be”.

O’Neil stressed she was focused on “delivery, delivery, delivery”. And it’s on getting homes delivered (largely through the states) that she, and the government, will be judged. But given how little time there is until the election, just how much “delivery” can there be?