Success has many friends, to tweak an old expression. Failure has no mates and it’s getting increasingly lonely for Anthony Albanese.
The Australian PM is so on the nose with voters that not even his fellow Labor leaders want to be associated with him. West Australia is unusual in that its election dates are fixed: the second Saturday of March, every four years. Which, next year, is shaping up as likely to be before the next Australian federal election. Any ideas that Albanese would go to an early election (a federal election is due before September 2025) have evaporated in the last week.
One Labor insider said the likelihood of a federal election before the WA vote had dropped sharply in the past month, as the Prime Minister was battered over accusations he had sought and received more than 20 upgrades on Qantas flights including when he was serving as transport minister.
Cue panic in Perth.
West Australian Premier Roger Cook is investigating moving the fixed date of WA’s next election to avoid an anti-incumbent wave hitting him before Anthony Albanese, amid growing concerns that whoever goes to the polls first risks a backlash over the Prime Minister’s waning popularity.
Mr Cook shocked the state on Monday when he said he had sought legal advice on whether he could change the March 8 date for next year’s WA election, leading to accusations he was trying to “gerrymander” the vote.
Both Liberal and Labor MPs at a state and federal level believe Mr Cook’s real intention is to minimise the damage to his team from an increasingly unpopular federal Labor government.
Cook is obviously hoping that WA voters will feel that they’ve vented their frustrations by booting a hated PM, and give him an easy run in his turn. For his part, Albo is trying to get Cook to take one for the team.
One Labor insider told The Australian that the dominant parliamentary numbers enjoyed by the Cook government in WA and Labor’s slender majority federally meant it made sense for WA to go first and wear any backlash against Mr Albanese.
It’s certainly true that Albanese can ill-afford to lose even a single seat in WA, given the dire state of his polling in the eastern states.
Labor’s primary vote has fallen to 30 per cent in NSW, marking a historical low with a swing against the Albanese government potentially enough to cost it three to four seats in the largest state alone.
An exclusive demographic and state by state Newspoll analysis shows Labor facing a partial rebellion among middle-aged voters and ethnic communities with statistically significant shifts against Labor in these key demographics over the past three months.
This phenomenon now spreads across the two largest states, on the basis of seats, further entrenching the likelihood that if these numbers were reflected at an election, Labor would lose its majority.
With the Coalition maintaining a lead in NSW, sizeable swings against Labor have also begun in Victoria, where the Labor brand has also been damaged by the legacy of the Andrews government, with the federal Labor primary vote dipping to a new low of 31 per cent […]
Labor has also lost ground in Western Australia, the state that catapulted it to victory in May 2022 on the back of the then popular McGowan state Labor government, leading to the potential loss of up to two seats.
So now it’s Albo no mates.
Speaking at a business breakfast in Perth on Monday morning, Mr Cook said he had made inquiries about the potential to reschedule the next state election […]
The state opposition has long been quietly hoping for the state election to be held before the federal poll, in the hope that building discontent in WA towards Mr Albanese and his government can boost the Liberals’ and Nationals’ performance at a state level.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton is gleefully jumping on yet another opportunity to stick the boot in.
Peter Dutton has accused Anthony Albanese of trying to hatch a “tricky deal” with West Australian Labor Premier Roger Cook about election timing, and has demanded the Prime Minister be open with the public […]
The Opposition Leader on Tuesday told reporters that if Mr Albanese called a March election, it would be “at odds with what he said publicly before when he said he’ll go full term”.
“And now he’s trying to, it seems, do some tricky deal with the WA Premier to move their fixed term,” he said.
Never mind that it’s the WA government who are trying frantically to move the poll date: it’s the perception that counts. Like John Howard nearing the end of his second term, Albanese is widely seen as ‘tricky and out of touch’. Unlike Howard, Albanese can’t bank on a Tampa or 9/11 to save his political bacon.
