Anthony Albanese's wedding ends this 'killing season' with love's triumph

The two months preceding a wedding are notoriously hazardous. Many micro-disasters can cause distress.

The bomboniere are unsatisfactory. The chair-hire guy turns out to be a scoundrel. The string quartet contains a drunkard. Numpty cousin X is actually planning to attend despite everyone's assumption that she wouldn't. Something unspeakable occurs at the stag do.

These are the ordinary hiccups that can complicate human nuptials.

Consider, however, the two months that preceded Saturday's surprise event at The Lodge, at which Anthony Albanese married Jodie Haydon, becoming the first prime minister in Australian history to get hitched while in office.

In that time, Albanese has recognised the state of Palestine. Addressed the UN General Assembly, at which he and Communications Minister Anika Wells hard-launched the declaration of war against the Tech Bros in defence of Australian kiddies. Zipped to the UK to speak at Labour's party conference, and thence to Abu Dhabi to sign a new strategic Middle East partnership. Last month, the groom-to-be entered the hostile territory of the Trump White House (strewn with booby traps and golden gewgaws in comparable and bewildering numbers) and emerged not only intact, but covered in smooches and clutching a new critical minerals deal. Then he went to Uluru to solemnise the 40-year anniversary of its restoration to the Anangu people. Next day: the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur. Then the APEC Economic Leaders summit in South Korea. Then parliament. Then to WA, during which daytime visits to AUKUS facilities gave way to midnight phone calls negotiating Australia's role in next year's COP. Then to the G20 in South Africa, from which he scudded home scarcely a week ago for the last sitting week of parliament, acquiring on the way a horrid, flu-like lurgy. But still managed to achieve — by Thursday — passage of his naggingly overdue environment protection bill. This occurred thanks to a deal with the Greens, flawlessly — indeed, almost cinematically — lit by the technicolour explosions of the Coalition blowing itself up in real-time.

And on Saturday, the PM concluded all this by GETTING MARRIED. Which feels — even for regular entrants to the Multitasking Olympics — dangerously close to showing off.

Various questions spring to mind. Okay, maybe just one.

"What on earth were you thinking?"

This question is directed conjointly to a man who would look at that professional schedule and think, "Yeah, I can squeeze in a wedding," and to a woman who hasn't done the obvious, sensible thing, which is to grab her handbag, plead a trip to the ladies' and then just never return.

"Was ever woman," (to cadge from Shakespeare) "in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won?"

Neither Albanese nor Haydon was available to comment on Saturday, for obvious reasons.

But the answer — in all probability — is about optimism.

'Yes, I can' energy

Haydon — who could be excused for going full bridezilla about the fact that her intended came home from Johannesburg sick as a parrot only to announce that he had a few more things to do at work before the wedding — is clearly a person of calm, wisdom and good faith. Who makes her husband very happy.

And the "Yes, I can" energy is similarly strong in Albanese.

Think about it: Six years ago, he got dumped by his first wife and took over the leadership of a Labor Party seriously dispirited by the shock loss of the 2019 election. Then he got hit by a car.

Who would have put money, back then, on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seeing out 2025's Christmas "killing season" with a significant political victory, the largest majority of any single political party in Australian history, and a blissfully happy personal event presided over by a cavoodle in fancy dress?

Certainly wasn't on your correspondent's bingo card.

But Albanese often feels himself to be underestimated. And looking at this year, you'd have to give him the points. He's done some seemingly-impossible things, and approached them with a calm measure of self-belief and hard work. Even his harshest critic could not look at recent months and accuse the man of phoning it in.

Not to be a downer at the wedding…

So… the answer to the question: "What was he thinking?"

Probably: "I reckon I can pull this off". Turns out he was right, on a number of fronts.

You don't, very often, get a political year like Albanese has had. One in which nearly everything goes right for you, while nearly everything goes wrong for your opponent.

But let's not forget that Kevin Rudd had a year like that, too, in 2007. And his fortunes changed pretty quickly.

Not to be the downer at the wedding, but next year brings a great flapping flock of deepening problems for the groom. (And, by extension, for the bride, according to the ancient marital principle "for better or worse").

Electricity prices and inflation bolting northwards. Housing crisis dividing generations. A renewable energy rollout that is simultaneously too slow to generate the ambitious generation targets, and too fast for regional Australians who are horrified both by high power prices and the scarring of their landscapes.

All that lies ahead.

A good parliament is like a good marriage

In the meantime, it would be a hard-hearted soul who didn't — on this day — rejoice for two people who have found each other, who make each other happy and moreover have been afforded the opportunity to be together. A wondrous and lovely thing. Bless them and their families.

And let's hope, for the sake of our democratic system, that the aging marriage across the aisle — the Coalition, currently experiencing a dreadful rocky patch — can find a way to repair itself.

Marriages work best when both parties are healthy and strong and able, in good humour, to speak their minds and challenge each other. Parliaments are the same. No democracy does well for long without opposition voices that are strong and brave and audible.

But enough of that. For now: Huzzah! Champagne! Cavoodles! Let us resume our arguments on the morrow. And tonight give thanks that in 2025's "killing season", love had the numbers after all.