While the opposition leader criticised the prime minister’s clothing as a ‘profound failure of judgment’, Albanese posted he was ‘getting things done’

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Sussan Ley, faced with internal turmoil over climate and environment issues while trying to extinguish simmering challenges from a disgruntled backbench who want to philosophically reshape the very party she leads, has elevated a critical new political issue to the top of the national agenda.

The prime minister’s decision to wear a Joy Division T-shirt.

The opposition leader was criticised by those inside her own party for instantly jumping on criticisms of Kevin Rudd after Anthony Albanese’s successful meeting with Donald Trump. Ley leapt too early, and once it was clear that few in her party were joining her – and that, by all accounts, Rudd had actually done a decent job – she backtracked on her own demands to sack the US ambassador.

Having learned from that mistake, Ley waited five days this time to launch an even stranger and politically puzzling attack on Albanese’s choice to wear the T-shirt of seminal British post-punk band Joy Division as he departed his plane on arrival from Washington DC last Thursday. Discarding the traditional suit and tie, Albanese sucked in fresh air from 24 hours in transit in a tee with the famous artwork from the band’s influential 1979 Unknown Pleasures album.

In a speech to parliament on Tuesday – which her office helpfully typed out and swiftly blasted to the entire parliamentary press gallery, just in case you missed it – Ley claimed it was a “profound failure of judgment”. She pointed out, correctly, Joy Division was named after “a wing of a Nazi concentration camp where Jewish women were forced into sexual slavery”.

“At a time when Jewish Australians are facing a rise in antisemitism, when families are asking for reassurance and unity, the prime minister chose to parade an image derived from hatred and suffering,” Ley told parliament on Tuesday.

Sympathy and sensitivity toward the Jewish community, in and of itself, is of course a worthy cause. But it’s important to note here that Australian Jewish groups weren’t exactly lining up to endorse Ley’s comments on Tuesday. None of the major community organisations chose to back her in, or complain about Albanese’s sartorial choices.

A senior source from one of the most-respected Jewish groups, which has had no problem criticising the Labor government on occasion, was bemused by Ley’s claims. They noted Albanese’s well-known history as a music fan, and said if their group had problems with his clothing, they’d complain to him directly.