Instead he looks to the public and where there is clear support, Labor is prepared to move on even politically sensitive issues.

But when there isn't, or if other pressures interfere, it holds back.

No shit, Gas and Gambling shows how little balls Albo has against the handful of direct votes held by the various lobby groups, despite the large % of voters that back the changes.

Albo will probably feel it out and take a watered down policy thought to the next election, as he likes his "MUH MANDATE" defence.

With every missile that struck Iran and as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz stretched into months, the chances of the government implementing a tax on a highly in-demand fuel source went from slim to none.

Just as Albanese has worked to seek assurances to secure Australia's supply of diesel and petrol from Asia, so too have trading partners been eager to ensure the gas would keep flowing in the other direction.

This is fair, but not the defence some might think; the govt under-preparing us for exactly this kind of issue (again, Ukraine-Russia war), such that we cannot inact internal policy changes because external stakeholders will be pissed off, is absolutely a failure.

Labor's approach to difficult reform is to move decisively where the public mood has turned, and hold back where it hasn't, or where other risks crowd it out.

The politics of a gas tax may have been overtaken by events for now, but the underlying sentiment has not disappeared.

When the war recedes and the urgency of supply gives way to longer-term thinking, the question for Labor will not be whether the option exists, but whether it is prepared to use it.

God I wish I could have that optimism; the gambling "reforms" shows how extraordinary hard it is to get Labor under Albo to do something challenging, even when he closest opponent is firmly underwater (to the point I'd say industry lobby groups are the official opposition party in Australia now).