How Labor dodged an Albanese trainwreck Anthony Albanese leaves the Labor party caucus meeting. Picture: Stefan Postles/Getty Images Source: Getty Images ASTONISHINGLY, not one of the leading lights of the Canberra press gallery appears to have realised, or thought it worth explaining, just how close Anthony Albanese came to winning Labor's leadership. If just four additional members of the caucus had voted for him instead of Bill Shorten, he would have won. By such a slim margin, Labor arguably avoided a trainwreck, where a clear majority of the people sitting behind their leader in the house, would actually have voted for someone else. I would suggest there are three broad reasons for the gallery's failure. A story tends not to be a story in Canberra unless a journalist `is told. It would appear no-one was. Secondly, the focus was on how the `winner,' Shorten, lost so decisively in the party vote. This merged with a general failure to appreciate that Albanese could equally have won by also decisively losing the caucus vote; just not quite as decisively. In fact it was just four votes. If Shorten had won the caucus vote by a still very decisive 51-35, he would have lost the leadership. And arguably, incidentally and amusingly, had a better chance of fulfilling his long-held burning desire to become prime minister. Just how long-held? Just how burning? Well, back in the early 2000s, when Kim Beazley was opposition leader, in meeting Shorten at a Christmas party, I ventured: ``am I shaking the hand of the next Labor prime minister. No, no, he protested vehemently. Kim is going to be our next PM. Then he paused, leaned into me and whispered: ``Actually, I think you're right. Well, in that comment he was certainly indirectly right about Beazley. It remains to be seen whether he'll be right about himself. For the best way to get to be PM from opposition is NOT to start as the opposition leader immediately after losing an election. Indeed, just ask the said Beazley and his successor, the said Rudd. The usually lacerating travails of extended opposition leadership aside, Shorten's biggest political and policy hurdle is going to be the issue that arguably brought down both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard as Labor leaders and all-but certainly was the major factor in Labor losing the election. The carbon tax/emissions trading scheme. For someone as personally ambitious and supposedly as politically astute as Shorten, it is both surprising and instructive that he is still clinging to the policy that saw off two Labor PMs and cost it an election. To say nothing of a leader or two on the other side. That history also explains why an Albanese victory over the clear opposition of his parliamentary colleagues would have been a trainwreck. It's not just that he would have been vulnerable to attack every day in parliament for being the `second-choice leader.' With the `first-choice' sitting tantalisingly on the frontbench `supportively' behind him. After Shorten's roles in bringing down both Rudd and Gillard, presumably a `victorious' Albanese would have sought to have Shorten check his virtual reality knife at every door, before entering a room. But probably to little avail. For more pointedly, it's how vulnerable Albanese winning the leadership on that basis would have continually been to a spill. Under the new Rudd rules, a spill - and another extended vote - can now only be called by a 60 per cent caucus majority vote. But if Albanese had won with 35 votes, it would have meant 59.3 per cent of the caucus had voted against him. It would have required just ONE vote to switch to Shorten, to get the 60 per cent for a spill. All that has been rendered moot with Shorten's victory. Along with - unless Shorten picks it up - Albanese's ludicrous `non-offer' to prime minister Abbott to vote to `reduce the carbon tax to zero' in return for the government committing to an ETS. The switch from a straightforward carbon tax to an ETS is going to happen anyway under existing legislation. The government's pledge to abolish the carbon tax is a pledge to abolish the carbon tax AND its succeeding and equally destructive and stupid form as an ETS. An intelligent Labor opposition would join with the government to vote to abolish the carbon tax AND the successor ETS now. That would offer the chance of dealing Labor into policy decision-making more broadly. For example, Labor could seek to make that support conditional on the government agreeing to `reform' Senate voting to limit the micro-party lottery that has most hurt Labor (and the Greens). By maintaining an absolute refusal to allow the government to implement its mandate on the carbon tax, Labor is actively encouraging the government to forge a working senate majority with Clive Palmer's team and the other micro-party senators. Assuming Palmer ultimately comes back to earth and votes to abolish the carbon tax after next July, is Shorten seriously going to go to the next election ``promising to bring back the (dirty big) carbon tax/ETS? He would have to. He simply could not dodge the question. But worse, he'd be damned if he did and damned if he didn't, after Gillard's ``there will be no carbon tax under a Government I lead. Just consider, if he faced up to reality and tried: ``there will be no return to a carbon tax or ETS under a government I lead. Our national buffoon-in-chief Palmer thinks he holds all the cards with his threat to veto all legislation in the Senate unless Abbott gives him what he wants. Abbott in fact holds two aces. He could threaten to do a deal with Labor to `reform' Senate voting, in a way that would cripple Palmer's party in future senate elections. Or he could call his bluff by threatening a double-dissolution election. That would threaten to possibly tip Palmer's three (or two) senators out of the senate before they've hardly touched their seats. The wins by the micro-parties were a combination of a lottery and stupid major party preferencing. Just how much of a lottery was shown by the WA senate count where Palmer's rep got up and Green senator Scott Ludham (who has challenged it) missed out by just 14 votes at a midway preference count. A double dissolution election where all senators were up for election would double-down on the lottery, while offering the major parties a chance to get smarter in their preferencing. If Shorten was smart, he would negotiate with Abbott to abolish the carbon tax/ETS - conditional on the government agreeing to bring it back when and if the world, and especially China, accepts mandatory global emission cuts. In a word: never. That is exactly what we should have done anyway, making our tax - and more importantly, emission cuts - clondtional on global cuts. Otherwise, as they are, utterly pointless and costly and damaging. Shorten could sell it as a win-win, especially for getting an elephant off Labor's back at the next election. It's also why having majority support in the caucus was so vital. He only has to convince the caucus, and he's got a bigger buffer than a simple majority against any move for a spill. Will Shorten be smart? Does he still, desperately and sincerely want to be PM?