Anthony Albanese’s recent response to China at the Pacific Island Forum revealed two things.

One, he knows how to screw nice, diplomatically, when he needs to.

“The ‌Pacific Islands Forum determines what happens here, not any other country,” he said.

“This is primarily a gathering of the Pacific family … and I look forward to the engagement.”

China wasn’t named of course – it rarely is. But in diplomatic terms, Albanese was telling Australia’s most important trading partner, and constant strategic burr in its side, to back off.

China has made it clear it isn’t happy with Taiwan being included in the forum as its own nation, and has warned of consequences. In the Pacific, that matters. And when it comes to China, Albanese – who has made the mantra “agree where we can, disagree where we must” the nation’s diplomatic personality – has no qualms with pushing back.

Which comes to the second revelation – it’s a choice not to apply this attitude to other areas where it’s needed. That includes the United States and, domestically, One Nation.

Others have written on how Australia is failing to meet the moment with the US much more eloquently (for those interested in more on that, the recent conversation between Bogan Intelligentsia founder Joel Jenkins and Un-Diplomatic host Van Jackson is very much worth a listen).

On the day Labor lost a “safe” state seat to One Nation, Albanese responded by once again pointing to how Labor has felt painting One Nation over the past three decades. It’s divisive. Dangerous. Downright dishonest:

“They’ll say anything and do anything to win votes. Bend any facts. Peddle misinformation and disinformation. Turn Australian against Australian. Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to our problems. Their own divisions and disagreements are now showing through.”

What he keeps missing is that the chaos is now the point. We have covered this in this column since before the last election. Keep offering people the same stuff that’s not working (and arguably never has) and people will eventually turn to a disruptor.

Disruption can be good. It can also be Pauline Hanson and One Nation. As we reported last week, Labor has fallen back on its own methods – having identified David Farley as too moderate to survive in One Nation, it’s used the full force of its organising charm to ensure Farley feels like he has the space to jump. The Saturday Paper’s Jason Koutsoukis caught that too.

Albanese’s firm response to China in the Pacific only highlights the missteps on One Nation. Photo: AAP

But Labor keeps failing to look at what it can do and instead remains laser-focused on what One Nation is, hoping that maybe, this week, will be the time that the public remembers it is a rabble.

Labor and the Coalition continue to see themselves as the main threat, with both falling into the trap of thinking a One Nation win is a victory for themselves. Labor loses to One Nation? It’s a victory for the Liberals. The Coalition loses to One Nation? It’s a victory for Labor!

What neither appears to see in this old-school boxing match is that One Nation is not only in the ring, it’s delivering knockout punches. And it’s doing it without answers because, again, the chaos is the point. It doesn’t matter that One Nation candidates don’t know the policies, or don’t know the party line, or that policy parameters change within the hour. The chaos is the point.

Andrew Hastie, who was watching the Secret Harbour byelection result maybe closer than anyone in the country, could see what was going to happen. For him, the result adds credibility to his push to have the party fight One Nation by showing points of difference, not capitulating to it.

There are more within the Coalition who are starting to question Angus Taylor’s “return to Howard principles” style of leadership, which leaves the summer open to another political career-killing season.

The voices within Labor, sympathetic to Hastie’s “fight” message, are yet to find focus. Part of that is the deference Albanese has cultivated by winning an election with a historic majority, but that majority is as stable as a soft serve cone.

That Labor chose a staffer-turned-gas lobbyist as its candidate in Secret Harbour showed more than any focus group that the government has not realised where the public is at.

Labor followed its old model of choosing candidates, because that’s how it is done. It forgets that the public is not as obsessed with the gas industry as it is – it assumes that, because it supports gas, the public does and being connected with the gas industry is enough to convince people the candidate is sensible. This was the same arrogance that saw Labor parachute Kristina Keneally into the seat of Fowler in 2019, only to see the backlash as an anomaly and not a shifting tide.

Just as the Liberals ignored the signs of their first seats falling to independents in 2019, Labor has ignored the signs of almost losing seats to independents in 2022. It hasn’t changed course – just moved closer to the “centre”, which, in Australia, like the US and the UK, is the right.

Watching Albanese confront what he sees as issues with China’s influence in the Pacific with a directness and unflinching resolve only makes his response domestically seem even more tepid. They know what the fight is. You can only assume they just don’t want to have it.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute