Fri Mar 28

Labor’s in with a fighting chance, but must work around an unpopular leader

Written by: Chris Wallace, Professor, School of Politics Economics & Society, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra

The Albanese government has a fighting chance of winning the 2025 election, but will need to achieve in five weeks of campaigning what it hasn’t in three years in office. That is, work out a narrative explaining what it’s about and that can persuade Australians to back it for a second term.

Convincing voters that electing a Peter Dutton-led Coalition government would be risky is the other essential element for a Labor victory – a task made easier by the evident chaos arising from the Trump administration’s recent actions in the US.

The main Coalition promises announced ahead of the election being called were to start a nuclear power industry, slash the public service and, without explaining how, cut immigration. These policies are sufficiently Trumpesque in tone to lend some credence to Labor insinuations that Dutton could be a mini-Trump if elected.

Attacks on Dutton’s integrity and policy credibility have improved Labor’s position in the run-up to the election. With Prime Minister Anthony Albanese somewhat lifting his performance this year, and getting Dutton slightly off balance, the trend is perceived to be moving Labor’s way.

Government insiders hope the 2025 election will mimic the 1998 election, where the incumbent government survived despite losing the two party-preferred vote 48.5% to the opposition’s 51.5%. This paradoxical outcome, which saw the Howard government survive, was because the swing to the Beazley Labor opposition was concentrated in seats the opposition already held, rather than those it needed to win office.

There’s little room for complacency, though.

A handkerchief-sized set of policies such as Dutton’s did not stop opposition leader John Howard winning the 1996 election. Nor did a campaign built entirely on a three-pronged slogan stop opposition leader Tony Abbott winning the 2013 election.

Labor will need to do deliberately what it did on the fly last time, when opposition leader Albanese got COVID during the 2022 campaign. That is, showcase attractive and articulate Labor frontbenchers to glow up, by association, an unloved leader.

Albanese will need to lean on his stronger front bench performers such as Jim Chalmers and Tanya Plibersek. Mick Tsikas/AAP

Both Albanese and Dutton have negative net approval ratings and are a drag on each of their party’s vote. In the latest Newspoll ^[2] before the election was called, Albanese was on –12% and Dutton on –14%.

An aggregate analysis of Newspoll by state and gender, covering the three months in the run up to the election, underlines the problem.

Both leaders had double digit net negative approval ratings in every state except Queensland, where Dutton has a positive net rating of 9%. Both leaders have negative net approval ratings by gender, though Albanese’s (men –16%, women –18%) is worse than Dutton’s (men –8%, women –15%).

Albanese has been famously indifferent to advice in the government’s first term. He long resisted the urgings of some cabinet colleagues to restructure the stage 3 tax cuts ^[3] legislated by the Morrison government, for example, until the need for a mid-term political circuit-breaker made him budge.

However, the risk of not getting a second term will make the prime minister more open to the advice of senior colleagues, ALP national secretary Paul Erickson, and party elders during the campaign.

Albanese’s solution to all problems, as one Labor figure puts it, is to “apply more Albo”.

Since voters rate Labor more highly than its leader, however, “more Albo” during the campaign is not the answer.

Effective communicators such as Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Education Minister Jason Clare, Housing Minister Clare O'Neil, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Employment Minister Murray Watt must be showcased.

Their job is to embody an implicit promise that inside the Albanese government there’s a better one waiting to break out, and through that to stir voters’ hopes.

So if the Albanese government can finally work out its story and get the message out via frontbenchers to whom voters are willing to listen, it could get across concrete promises that make them want to give it another go.

What those concrete policy promises are will, of course, be crucially important.

Labor has a tremendous challenge ahead. When up against one of the worst governments since Federation – that led by prime minister Scott Morrison – Albanese Labor won with a majority of just two seats in 2022.

Voters have accorded new governments a second term at every federal poll since Federation, with the exception of the Depression-era 1931 election. But in 2025, this is far from assured.

The unusual situation is partly a product of what systems thinkers describe as an “eroding goals” problem.

After the loss of the Voice referendum campaign, the government’s leadership quickly conditioned Labor MPs to settle for the likelihood of minority government after the 2025 election. Now that election is here, and there are real fears even this lower hurdle might not be achieved.

Having a leader who can do both the substance and theatre of politics is crucial to winning elections. If people don’t want to listen to you, the best government policies and performance can’t be communicated, recognised and rewarded.

Having the right people in key portfolios is another. The prime minister prioritised the containment of potential leadership rivals over party and the national interest in some portfolio allocation decisions. This hurt the government’s performance and disappointed voters.

Australians have signalled in repeated polls that they believe neither the current Labor prime minister nor the current Coalition alternative prime minister are up to the job.

It is striking that the major parties, which claim to listen to voters, disrespect those voters by offering them deeply unpopular choices for prime minister. The spraying of votes to minor parties and independent candidates evident at the 2022 election could well accelerate as a consequence.

People and parties often seem to be determined to learn the hard way. Now the election is here, Labor needs to tack around its shortcomings in this term of office and convincingly project there’s better ahead to win.