Is it all over, red rover, for Anthony Albanese and his government? Inexorably sliding polls are just part of it. Now, the PM has reached the same unenviable point as Jacinda Ardern in the dying days of her leadership: he can’t make a public appearance without copping a razzing. How long before he does a la Jacinda and disappears from public view altogether?
Anthony Albanese has been booed and heckled at Lake Illawarra where he was announcing $850,000 in funding for the Shellharbour integrated child and family precinct.
The Prime Minister struggled to speak over residents opposed to the construction of offshore wind farms yelling “you don’t support the regions”, “why don’t you put them out front of your place” and “we don’t want you here”, amid calls for a senate inquiry into wind farms.
Lake Illawarra is in the steel-making heartland of Wollongong and Port Kembla, industries in the firing of Labor’s demented ‘Net Zero’ ideological crusade. Targeting the coastal region for massive offshore wind farms isn’t exactly winning local hearts and minds. Nor is poaching a former Greens candidate to run for Labor.
Responsible Future spokeswoman Alex O’Brien, who was part of a crowd of protesters who heckled Anthony Albanese in Lake Illawarra this morning, has criticised Labor’s rollout of offshore wind farms.
Mr O’Brien, an anti-wind turbine campaigner who said he formerly voted for the Prime Minister, said he did not support Carol Berry’s preselection as the Labor candidate for Whitlam, criticising her history of working and running for the Greens.
“We’ve got grave concerns from an economic environmental aspect.
“We’re concerned about local jobs in fishing and tourism, and that’s why we’re here today.”
The coalition opposition have led Labor for three of the last Newspolls. Albanese’s personal polling is tanking even worse, hitting a new low of -20 net approval at the end of January. The Guardian-Essential poll also puts opposition leader Peter Dutton ahead of Albanese, who is rated ‘out of touch’ by 61 per cent of voters polled. Anti-Semitism is fast emerging as an election issue, with nearly half of respondents saying that Albanese hasn’t done enough to tackle the issue.
Despair is reportedly setting in, in government ranks.
Labor ministers, MPs and staffers are certain they won’t be back in Canberra and that Jim Chalmers’ March 25 budget will not proceed. In what was likely the final question time of the 47th parliament, Labor and Coalition MPs resembled a group of restless kids waiting for the bell to ring on their final day at school.
Labor are desperate for the Reserve Bank to throw them a lifeline.
All eyes are on next Tuesday’s Reserve Bank board meeting. Labor figures believe if the 4.35 per cent cash rate is cut for the first time since 2020, they can use the moment as a turning point and proof their economic plan is working.
More likely it will be too little, too late. The narrative is set in stone and voters just aren’t listening. A rate cut will sink as fast as every other vote-buying sweetener the government has thrown at the public over the last 18 months. Voters will take the money – their money – but they won’t change their minds.
[Albanese] is desperate to avoid the 1931 election fate of James Scullin, whose Labor government was the last to be dumped after a single term, turfed-out in a landslide defeat […]
The question for Labor is; what do they have to offer voters to win a second chance? How will they fix the cost-of-living and housing crises, keep Australians safe and end social division?
Without a healthy surplus of first-term seats like those won by [John Howard], Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, Albanese needs a miracle to win majority government. He’s also not immune to volatile economic and geostrategic conditions that have battered incumbent governments […]
For all of Albanese’s confidence in winning majority government, Labor expects to lose up to 10 seats. Swings gained on the back of Morrison’s unpopularity will evaporate in every state and territory.
Ten seats would give the coalition a one-seat majority. With one seat having to be sacrificed to the Speaker’s role, it would effectively be a hung parliament. But is even a 10-seat loss sunny optimism?
