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It’s been a year since the ‘Voice’ referendum in Australia and in those 12 months it’s only become clearer than ever just what a turning-point it was. Anthony Albanese and his government have been on a downhill run ever since – and accelerating. Right now, they’re slipping faster than a soaped-up pig thrown down a bobsled run.
Not that things were ever looking exactly rosy. This was a government who scraped in on the second-lowest vote in the party’s history, the lowest in a century. Even just a decade or so ago, a 32 per cent primary vote would have condemned Labor to a landslide defeat. Instead, as happened in Britain, voters not only chucked out an almost-as-bad ‘conservative’ (in name only) government out, but deserted both major parties for a host of minor and fringe parties.
From the get-go, Albanese was putting his own arse on the slippery slope. Rushing to Government House to get sworn in the very next morning, so he could bugger off on an overseas jaunt the day after, rubbed a great many Australians the wrong way. Spending nearly all of the first months in government out of the country, as a cost-of-living crisis was biting hard, only deepened the resentment.
But the ‘Airbus Albo’ tag was just the beginning of his problems. The humiliating defeat of the referendum appears to have doomed Albanese every bit as much as Brexit did David Cameron, even if Albo’s a bit slower to take the hint.
For the first time since the election, Labor trails the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis.
The numerical movement is small but the shift in the political dynamic is significant.
Momentum has shifted away from the government at the worst possible time.
Like Malcolm Turnbull before him, Albanese has become a victim of his own big arrogant mouth. When Turnbull gave the justification for knifing Tony Abbott in the back, that Abbott had ‘lost 30 Newspolls in a row’, he set a ticking bomb under his own arse. Sure enough, Turnbull went on to rack up even more negative Newspolls – and his leadership was toast.
Albanese for his part has been bragging that he’s never lost a Newspoll.
Anthony Albanese’s brazen claims to date, to have never lost a Newspoll, have now evaporated.
Setting such a benchmark was foolish and dangerous, claim several of his colleagues.
By doing so, the Prime Minister established a point of political failure.
That has now been reached. How does he now explain this to the caucus, when his own political capital and authority continues to be eroded?
And when his party is falling to pieces, right in front of our eyes?
Labor is appearing increasingly desperate, divided and politically adrift.
Its legislative agenda has been up-ended, with a Senate becoming increasingly hostile to the government’s contested agenda.
And with cost of living taking a back seat to debate over Middle East politics, Labor continues to lose touch with the electorate’s key concerns.
And with each other. It’s a moot question whether the Albanese cabinet are even talking to one another. Day after day, senior ministers make loud pronouncements on issues that are not just beyond their ministerial purview, such as Israel/Gaza, but completely at odds with the actual minister concerned. For his part, the prime minister simply flops from one unconvincing stance to another.
The polls, which have been neck-and-neck for the last three months, have at last tilted against the government. With every one of its big policy announcements of the past year sinking like a stone, it seems likely that the tilt is just the beginning of an inexorable slide.
But the big question is just where disaffected voters will go. While Peter Dutton is doing a remarkable job of rebuilding the Coalition’s credibility, whether that is enough to win back voters from the minor parties will be the critical test.
The difference is a subtle shift in support for left-wing and right-wing minor parties that have altered the preference flows.
The Coalition’s lead has come by virtue of a one-point fall for the Greens, which favour Labor, and a rise for One Nation […]
Dutton will be able to rejoice in winning his first Newspoll since becoming Opposition Leader but to maintain this lead, and to put the Coalition on to a competitive election footing, he needs to get a four in front of the Coalition’s primary vote.
And there is no sign yet of that happening, with Dutton suffering from the same disease as Albanese.
Both are talking about everything but the things that matter most to voters.
Is that true, though? Dutton has taken an unequivocal stance on anti-Semitism, which is ripping apart Australia’s social cohesion, as well as energy prices, and immigration. The latter two, especially, are first-order issue for voters.
Whether the media class like it or not.
