Short of a Rishi Sunak-level suicide complex, any thought of Anthony Albanese going to an early election must surely be dead in the water. Unless he aims to try and limit the damage while he can.
Should he still be so inclined, though, Albanese is inching toward another potential election trigger, with his flagship Future Made in Australia Act going down in flames in the upper house.
The centrepiece of Anthony Albanese’s second-term election agenda has just been taken out behind the Senate shed and quietly put down.
Having few friends beyond those industries that stand to benefit, the Future Made in Australia Act has found fewer friends in parliament. This is a serious setback for the Prime Minister and Labor’s political agenda. It also complicates the government’s election spending plans. It’s not dead yet but its life is slipping away.
The same could be said of the Labor government.
It was never in robust health, of course. Labor won government with a near-record-low primary vote of just 32 per cent. Until very recently, winning the votes of less than a third of Australians would have consigned Labor to a landslide defeat. With voters deserting the major parties in favour or minors and independents, though, the coalition couldn’t muster enough seats to hang on to government.
Ever since the election, it’s been a steady downhill run for the government. The Voice referendum, a humiliating personal defeat for Albanese, was the irrevocable turning point. Ever since, everything Albanese touches has turned to poo.
The latest polls are a solid wall of bad news. All agree that the two party-preferred vote is either neck-and-neck, or slightly in the coalition’s favour. Roy Morgan has it at exactly 50/50. Meaning, either party would have to form a minority government.
The only real difference between the polls is in the fortunes of the minor parties. Newspoll has the Greens falling and One Nation steady; Roy Morgan has the Greens slightly up, One Nation even more slightly down.
Even more deadly for Albanese, Essential Media’s polling reveals an electorate in a depressed and ugly mood. More than half think the country is heading in the wrong direction. Less than a third think it’s doing well. Albanese’s approval has plunged. Opposition leader Peter Dutton is very nearly tied with Albanese for personal approval.
On nearly every measure, most especially the government’s great albatross (cost of living), voters overwhelmingly expect things to get worse in the next 12 months. Dangerously for a Labor government, voters see the government as listening to big business much more than ordinary Australians or regional communities.
The fallout from the referendum continues, too. Support for the government’s post-referendum actions on indigenous affairs is also dropping sharply. Most especially, what was supposed to be the Next Big Thing following the referendum, so-called ‘Makaratta’ treaty negotiations, is as despised as the Voice itself. Opposition to the idea is at almost exactly the same level as the No vote in the referendum.
No wonder Albanese has dropped it like a hot coal.
Interest rates remain a ticking bomb for Labor. If the Reserve Bank raises rates again, it’ll be a grenade in the government’s re-election chances.
Albanese can push boutique issues like the Voice or ‘Net Zero’ all he likes – around the kitchen table in middle Australia, it all comes back to the economy, stupid.
Voters have marked down Labor over its handling of the nation’s finances after a political dispute about public spending and high inflation, shifting more support to the Coalition on a key test of budget management [...]
Voters strongly favoured Dutton and the Coalition when asked to choose the leader and party they believed would do a better job managing the nation’s finances: 41 per cent chose the opposition and only 23 per cent chose Albanese and Labor.
Even in the wealthiest households, the doctor’s wives can clutch their pearls about the climate all they like, but, sooner or later, reality reasserts itself. Add to that, the shockwaves of unbridled anti-Semitism sweeping the party of the ultra-rich, the Greens, and the coalition is increasingly confident of winning back the formerly blue-ribbon seats it lost to the blue-green teals.
At this point, the only hope on the horizon for Albanese is holding on in a minority government, which would only be possible by partnering with the disgraced Greens – and giving in to their insane Israel-hatred.
