You would think Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese would be the best of mates. PETER VAN ONSELEN exposes the sliding doors moment that turned their relationship toxic – as Albo brutally kneecaps his rival (again)

From the outside, it could be hard to understand why Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek don’t get along. 

It is something once again front and centre as the PM once again sinks the knife into Plibersek, this time over environmental laws she has been developing for years. 

The reasons the pair do not like one another are many, and the animosity between them goes back a long time. 

They would seemingly have a lot in common. Albo and Plibersek have been in Parliament for a similar stretch of time – with Albo first elected to the House of Representatives in 1996, while Plibersek joined the club at the following federal election in 1998. 

Both belong to the Labor Party’s Left-wing faction. Their inner-city Sydney electorates are right next to each other. Both face challenges from the Greens, who control state seats in their electorates.

They were ministers together during the tumult of the Rudd and Gillard years. They served in Cabinet together, and in shadow cabinet during Bill Shorten’s time as Labor opposition leader, and again after Albo assumed the party leadership following Shorten’s crushing 2019 election defeat.

So why don’t they get along? 

In a nutshell, it’s a case of old bull Albanese (seven years Plibersek’s senior) not liking the up-and-comer putting herself first. 

For much of their joint time in Parliament, Albo was the more senior figure of the two. 

However, after Kevin Rudd’s 2013 election defeat, Plibersek’s star rose. 

Rudd’s defeat, amid years of leadership dramas with Julia Gillard, led to the party adopting new rules for selecting its party leader – with half the vote cast by the party membership, and the other 50 per cent from its elected officials. 

Albo saw that new approach as his chance to become Labor leader. 

It was a goal the man himself admits he never really had until he briefly became Deputy PM – for just 83 days – in the dying months of Rudd’s prime ministership. 

Albo set about using the 2013 campaign for Labor leadership to raise his profile and build the sort of support amongst members that might knock Shorten out of the contest. 

He then wanted Plibersek to endorse him as leader. But she said she would happily serve as deputy to either Albo or Shorten. 

It wasn’t realistic for Labor to elect a leader from inner Sydney as well as a deputy living in the electorate right next door. Especially when both MPs were in the factional Left. 

That helped turn Shorten into the more viable option – he was a leader from the factional Right out of Victoria, and he would be paired with a female deputy from the NSW Left.  

Albo wanted Plibersek not to contest the deputy position, but she refused. 

It scuttled Albo’s chances and he was furious.

Albo won more support amongst party branch members, who lean left, he couldn’t carry enough votes in the party room – who he believed had split in favour of a Shorten-Plibersek ticket. 

Shorten was elected Labor leader.

Put simply, Albo blames Plibersek for Shorten’s narrow victory.  

Plibersek over the next six years developed her own animosity towards Albo, believing he took regular opportunities to trail his leadership coat when Shorten’s poll numbers were low. 

She saw it as a direct threat to her own political ambitions, which were at that time tied to Shorten’s. 

Had Shorten succeeded at the 2019 election Plibersek would have become the Deputy Prime Minister, and by extension she would have overtaken Albo as heir apparent.

When Shorten lost in 2019, he quickly tried to endorse Plibersek as the best candidate to take over the leadership. 

But Albo had already lined his political ducks up and quickly announced his intention to run. 

The Left fell in behind him and Plibersek swiftly announced she wanted to spend more time with her family.

It’s a stock standard line for politicians who don’t have the numbers to fulfil their political ambitions in that moment.

During Albo’s term as opposition leader he had no choice but to keep Plibersek in cabinet. 

Few voters know it, but it is the faction of the party, not the leader, who select the MPs who make-up Labor’s frontbench. 

Albo also kept Plibersek in the education portfolio she coveted.

But as Opposition Leader Albo felt like Plibersek always took her opportunities to expand her media profile, niggling him when his popularity was in question.

From Albo’s perspective the actions were disloyal and exacerbated the rift between the pair. But at the time he had no choice but to look after her in shadow cabinet.

Opposition leaders don’t have the power of Prime Ministers.

However, once Labor won the 2022 election and secured the keys to The Lodge, he took his opportunity to dump Plibersek from her much loved education portfolio and handed her the environment portfolio instead.

He would have demoted her from the ministry altogether if he could, but as already mentioned, Labor leaders don’t get to choose their frontbench teams, the factions do that.

And Plibersek has significant power within the factional left.

But the shift to a dead end portfolio backfired. By putting Plibersek in the environment portfolio it gave her enormous capacity to appeal to the party’s traditional left wing base.

She approved all manner of environmental requests and stifled mining projects in the name of environmental protection.

It has been the perfect portfolio for Plibersek to build her following in the Left to help with any future leadership tilt, assuming Albo’s leadership falls over.

Plibersek has enjoyed watching Albo squirm, as he has most recently been forced to do so, having overruled her on environment reforms negotiated with the Greens.

WA Premier Roger Cook was concerned the ‘nature positive’ reforms would impact mining in his state ahead of the looming state election. 

It’s also a key state for Albo, having won five seats off the Liberals in the west in 2022. Without those pick ups Labor wouldn’t have been able to form majority government.

So with speculation growing that Albo will reshuffle his cabinet in January, don’t be surprised if he finds a new home for Plibersek, who has used her powers as environment minister to make Albo’s life that much more difficult than it already is during a housing and cost of living crisis.

But what portfolio he could sideline her into exactly remains unclear.

The pair of course deny there is a rift between them. The PM did it again, today, on morning radio!

But anyone who knows anything about their long and fractious history knows that the denials are rubbish. 

Equally you only have to have spoken to each of them discreetly over the years to know that there is no love lost there.

When political ambitions and a long shared history collide, even the best of friends can fall out. Even friends who share similar philosophical views on most ideological issues.

That is certainly the case with Albo and Tanya.