Albanese talks about his ‘five biggest things’: What’s next? |
Right at the end of his press conference on Thursday, hit with yet another question on travel expenses, the prime minister said: “What I’m focused on today is an issue which is a revolution.” When people are writing books about this government, looking at the “five biggest things that we did, I tell you what, this will be one of them”. He was talking about – or trying to talk about – the social media ban.
Illustration by Joe BenkeCredit:
If Anthony Albanese’s claims sound dramatic, it is worth remembering how allergic he usually is to dramatic claims. He resists making large promises because, he argues, disappointing expectations is a sure way of disillusioning people.
Most of the time he dislikes talk of revolution. In the past, asked whether his government could be bolder, he has defined himself in opposition to the idea: “I am a reformist, not a revolutionary.”
For Albanese to be saying such things is, in part, a pointer to just how significant he thinks this new law is.
He is probably right. A year ago, the novelist Zadie Smith wrote about her recent experience of addressing 400 14-year-olds. “I was meant to be talking to them about fiction, but every question they asked was about social media.” And so she put to them something that felt like “utopian optimism”. In past acts of resistance, she said – to slavery or oligopolies, say – huge forces had to be marshalled, on many fronts. But now, she asked, what would have to happen “to........