Take a minute and put three political moments on the same page and see if you can find even a skerrick of common sense uniting them.

First, on the first campaigning day of the 2022 federal election campaign, Labor’s Anthony Albanese was asked in Tasmania’s city of Launceston if he could nominate the official cash rate set by the Reserve Bank.
Albanese took refuge in the corner called “there are lots of rates” set by the bank.

Sensing some soft political skin, the would-be prime minister was then asked to nominate the unemployment rate. After letting his tongue swim around his mouth for too many seconds, Albanese took a stab and hit on 5.4 percent – with plenty of ums and ahs – before saying “sorry, I’m not sure what it is”. He was right, he didn’t know – it was 4 percent, as his finance spokeswoman Katy Gallagher said when she literally stepped in to rescue her boss.

Albanese did a clean-up interview on the same afternoon with Sky News political editor Andrew Clennell (remember that name) when he admitted to messing up.

Next, fast forward to last week when Albanese addressed the Labor Party’s national conference in Brisbane, with a sweeping address covering the Voice referendum, the AUKUS pact to the bedeviling issue of the cost of living.

Saying cost of living was the government’s “number one priority”, Albanese was emphatic: “ We assist with the cost of living because of the value that we hold in our hearts.“Labor wants to ensure that nobody is left behind. It is what we do and part of our character.”

With that fresh in the mind of those few paying attention, Albanese went on Sky News’ Sunday Agenda after the conference, with Andrew Clennell asking the questions.

Clennell is a very good TV reporter who never misses the glimpse of a yarn. He tripped up then prime minister Scott Morrison in January, 2022 for not knowing the price of petrol, a loaf of bread or a litre of milk.
So “cost of living is the number one priority” PM Albanese sits down with Clennell and half way through the interview he’s asked this: “(It was) … pretty obvious during a conference speech that cost of living is front and centre for this government.
“Can you tell me what the price of petrol is, roughly, at the moment?”

Albanese grabbed an overcoat to hide ignorance, saying he didn’t go out and fill up his car … “but it was around, about, $1.80 last time I did”.

The price of petrol is volatile and will remain so, although more so on the higher side of the pocket-pain with the cost at the pump expected to remain at the top of 2023 levels for weeks if not months.

Albanese’s guess – for that’s all it was – was at the lowest end of possibility and at least a few weeks out of date. Right now, prices are between $2 and $2.20 a litre, as Clennell offered helpfully. In some unlucky Brisbane suburbs you pay close to $2.30.

Albanese deployed the always handy “Ukraine war” suspect for high petrol prices although any serious analyst will confirm this excuse has long passed its use-by date.

Right now high petrol prices are due to deliberate decisions by OPEC-plus countries to restrict supply and the very weak Australian dollar.

The simple point from all this is something equally inescapable. If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’ll repeat them. If you don’t do the most basic preparation for a set piece, sit down, one-on-one interview you will walk into the first sucker punch that comes along.

This is especially true if you’re sitting down with a journalist like Clennell.

Experienced observers of Albanese, from the Young Labor rabble rouser who rattled the party’s establishment cage in the early 1980s; through the still-young staffer to New South Wales Left Wing Steering Committee Hawke minister Tom Uren (who viewed Albo as a surrogate son), to the freshly elected member for the inner west Sydney seat of Grayndler (very safe ALP), recognise his habits and attitudes.

He’s always had a chip on his shoulder (reference his constant refrain of growing up in public housing with his struggling single mum) which has become more than just another paragraph in his back story. It’s now a statement of defiance thrust back against anyone who challenges his achievements or abilities.

Just a few weeks ago he answered a question about the collapsing support for the Voice to Parliament constitutional referendum with a quick reference to his ability to defy people’s doubts.
“There’s a long way to go in this campaign, of course,” Albanese told Brisbane ABC Radio. “I remember people telling me that there was no possibility Labor would win the last election and I’m speaking to you from the Lodge.”

Another thing that’s colliding with renewed community anxiety about prices – especially petrol, household shopping, services and lifestyle – is the prime minister’s propensity to hop on his RAAF VIP jet and head to international summits, meetings and White House dinners.

Albanese has four more international trips in his 2023 diary and, according to LNP reports, the voices in the focus groups have noticed and are chatting about it without any encouragement.

With an October 14 date for a referendum many haven’t even heard of being announced late next week, followed by the first of those overseas trips, Albanese has a challenging time.

The economy might retain some resilience but the impact of inflationary pressures – which feels like it’s getting a second wind – is going to sour the mood of voters. This will be compounded if the referendum fails. Not only will it seriously dent Albanese’s standing he will be seen as having pursued an issue most voters were unwilling to lend little support to.

One final point about how worrying the repeat failure on knowing the basics in the Sky interview on the weekend: the journalist who asked the question in Launceston about the Reserve Bank cash rate was Stela Todorovic, then working for Channel 10. She is now on the prime minister’s staff as one of his nine media advisers. Yes, nine.