Labor’s national conference has come and gone as expected – without bloodshed or public disagreement.

Labor, under Anthony Albanese, has been a model in what political watchers like to call “discipline” – disagreements are brief and in-house, and the leader’s view prevails.

That is praised by Australia’s modern political and media class, which puts a primacy on order above almost anything else – including good policy. It doesn’t matter if Albanese and Richard Marles are behind the beat or failing to meet the moment – they are doing it orderly, with control over their caucus, and any change is incremental and within the bounds of what the media and political classes have deemed acceptable.

Take away the party branding and the big announcements could have come from a Liberal campaign event – more money for AUKUS and defence, and ruling out a gas tax, while the fossil-fuel obsessed states of Queensland and Western Australia sent their representatives in to make sure everyone knew the environment wasn’t to be given any special consideration.

At the same time as offering the same sort of major policies as their vanquished ideological enemies in the Liberal-National party, Albanese and co named One Nation as their opponent in the back half of this election cycle. That’s a fight they would much rather have, given it means they can defend positions they never had any intention on moving on – like multiculturalism versus a monoculture – and not change anything else.

In fact, Labor doesn’t have to change anything it doesn’t really want to. What some within its branches and electorates would want it to change – a stronger position against Israel, including sanctions, scraping AUKUS, setting up some distance with the US, having an AI plan that involves thought-out policy, funding the NDIS and scraping fossil fuel subsidies, and a gas tax – are also the issues the Coalition and One Nation don’t really want to delve into either, so there is no opposition.

Albanese leads a caucus that is striking for its lack of public dissent. That’s a risk. Photo: AAP

Instead, we get stories about how Albanese is “leading” (which is just a very civil and palatable word for a cowed caucus that seems incapable of finding a difference of opinion on any issue from its dear leader) and fake drama over whether or not a “workers’ court” is just another level of bureaucracy.

Albanese is not infallible on the politics. He has proven that, time and time again. And yet, his caucus seems mostly happy to follow him with the zeal of the backline of the late Roman western infantries. He is a politician’s politician and a very effective negotiator – but in terms of reading the room, he tends to see things the way he thinks they should be, rather than how they are.
This is not a problem for those who agree with his view of the world, but it is for those wanting more.

And it’s the same trap the Coalition fell into under its various incarnations of Howard spirit duplicator copies (if the spirit duplicator was in a Queensland state school in the 1980s and dangerously low on ink). Seeing the world how you think it should be, and not how it is, leads to hearing only from those who already agree with your view.

In its campaign to put its Rudd-Gillard-Rudd past behind it, Labor, under Albanese, has mistaken a lack of dissent within the caucus for order and good policy. It’s how we are still with AUKUS. What created the gambling advertising legislation. Why Israel hasn’t been sanctioned and why weapons parts still leave Australian shores bound for death and destruction of civilians. It’s why the NDIS is being gutted but fossil fuel subsidies remain intact. It’s why we have a gas plan “to 2050 and beyond”. It’s why we don’t have a gas tax. It’s why Albanese will sit next to Donald Trump at dinner and stay silent (or worse, cheer him on) as he drags the world into never-ending wars and it’s why Marles is considered to be someone with authority.

Not having the fight doesn’t mean the fight goes away. It just goes elsewhere.

Albanese is buffeted by the giant majority that the last people to ignore these messages handed him. His mistake is in thinking it’s only the next election that matters. It’s not. It’s what happens after the next election if people don’t think they are being heard that truly counts.

Just ask Keir Starmer or Joe Biden or Kamela Harris. A lack of dissent doesn’t mean the right direction. If Albanese won’t listen, maybe it’s time for some in his caucus to remember why they got into politics in the first place.