Another day, another dire poll for Anthony Albanese. This one is even more of a killer blow, given how crucial Western Australia was to handing government to a Labor party with a near-record low primary vote.
Half of voters in the crucial election state of Western Australia believe Anthony Albanese does not deserve to be re-elected, despite his state counterpart Roger Cook being on the verge of delivering a third landslide victory for WA Labor.
A minor caveat, here: ‘a third landslide’ could also be construed as ‘the beginning of the end’. That’s because the WA Liberals so screwed up the business of opposition, thanks to the dominance of the woke, wet, so-called ‘moderates’, that they were all but wiped out.
In fact, this ‘landslide’ would be a huge step backward for Cook, with the Liberal-National Coalition potentially getting a 14 per cent swing and picking up 12 seats. Only coming from such a dismally low base could make such a surge translate into a landslide win for the government.
But the bigger story coming out of the sandy wastes and across the Nullarbor is just how much trouble the Albanese government is in.
Just 35 per cent of voters polled in WA agreed that the Albanese government should be re-elected, with 50 per cent saying it was “time to give someone else a go”.
And one in five Labor voters who responded to the poll believe the Prime Minister does not deserve a second term.
The findings will be a major cause for concern for the Albanese government, given its success in the west in the 2022 federal election was key to it securing power in its own right.
When 20 per cent of your own voters (and those are just 30 per cent of the population) want you gone, you really are in trouble.
One especial cause of the PM’s unpopularity in WA could also be a factor in the other resources-heavy state: Queensland.
Liberal insiders have told The Australian of strong anti-Albanese sentiment among voters during doorknocking across Perth. The Albanese government’s flirtations with nature positive laws, which have been strongly opposed not just by the state’s resources sector but also the Cook government, and its ban on live sheep exports have proved particularly unpopular in WA.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek was repeatedly targeted by the Coalition in question time on Thursday. Ms Plibersek had been negotiating with the Greens and other crossbenchers over the policy before Mr Albanese intervened to kill off the bill during this parliament.
So, Albanese is in deep trouble in WA, as well as Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Oh, well, there’s always South Australia and Tasmania. Except he’s on the nose there, too.
Returning to WA state politics, it’s a sign of how thoroughly the ‘moderates’ wrecked the state coalition that even a likely drubbing is an improvement. The projected 14 per cent swing to the coalition is also a warning shot to Premier Roger Cook. It may not be the beginning of the end, but it’s the end of the beginning of the revival of the WA Liberals.
The swing forecast by Newspoll would still deliver the WA Liberals their second-worst result in the party’s history, and would be poorer than the 2017 landslide defeat that prompted a party review and which was thought at the time to be the party’s lowest ebb.
But such a swing would deliver a host of new names into the parliament and give the party something to work with in 2029, when Labor would be pushing for a fourth term.
Recent history is littered with once-stellar Labor state premiers who’ve suddenly vanished, with their parties either humiliated at the next election or in the polling toilet. Daniel Andrews in Victoria, for instance, or Annastacia Palaszczuk in Queensland.
Hubris cometh before a fall.
