Nearly three-quarters of Australians are unwilling to vote Labor, according to an opinion poll released today.
Just over one in four voters (27 per cent) said they would cast their first preference vote for the government in the latest Resolve poll.
This is an extraordinary result for a first-term government just months before a federal election.
And one reason is clear, according to an increasingly despondent elected Labor MP.
“It seems like he doesn’t give a shit anymore,” the MP told Daily Mail Australia. It is low energy Albo.
The purchase of a $4.3 million retirement home on the New South Wales Central Coast didn’t help. But that doesn’t fully explain the feeling among Labor that Albo’s performance of late has been lackluster.
Another opinion poll published today, Newspoll, found that Albo is seen as a weak leader, while opposition leader Peter Dutton is considered decisive by 60 percent of voters. However, Newspoll considered Dutton more arrogant than Albo.
“Of course I do. Why does Albo have to be arrogant, anyway?” the disgruntled Labor MP asked sarcastically.
Nearly three-quarters of Australians are unwilling to vote Labor, according to an opinion poll released today.
Today’s Resolve poll result is actually so dismal that even if the preferences of all Green voters flowed to Labour, that would only lift the ALP vote to 39 per cent.
That would require the government to find an additional 11 percent support among voters of interbank parties and independents just to reach the 50 percent mark in the two-party preferential vote after preferences.
In the 2022 federal election, Labor won a narrow majority of seats in Parliament with a two-party preferred vote of 52.13 per cent.
The same poll also revealed that a comfortable majority of voters (59 per cent) feel worse than before Labor came to power.
It’s a sentiment supported by economic data, including the current per capita recession, which is exacerbating the cost of living crisis.
The poor results come as the prime minister faces growing criticism for inadequately responding to a rise in violent antisemitism across the country, including Friday’s arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue.
The prime minister and his senior ministers appear reluctant to intervene too much in condemning the attacks, fearing a backlash in Labor seats with significant Muslim populations. It’s a deeply cynical exercise in fence-sitting.
Albo and his team may also be reluctant to take a stronger stance for fear of the political impact doing so would have on Green voters in inner-city seats. It could also worry the Greens’ own parliamentary party, whose support Labor will likely need after the next election if it manages to form a minority government.
“It seems like he doesn’t give a shit anymore,” the MP told Daily Mail Australia. It is Albo of low energy (above, in Parliament, on November 27)
But could Albo even get the party over the line in the first place?
It’s often forgotten, but Albo’s campaign efforts in 2022 weren’t very good, even though Labor won.
He stumbled on the economic figures on the first day of campaigning before recovering to get Labor’s campaign back on track.
The then Opposition’s best week began at the end of the second week, when Albo was forced to isolate due to Covid.
That meant senior shadow ministers, such as Jason Clare, took the lead instead of Albo. In the electoral campaigns they proved to be better than their leader.
Unless Albo can find his mojo, and quickly, there is a growing risk that the government will not be able to regain its footing enough to push for a majority victory.
No first-term opposition has lost a re-election bid since 1931, suggesting that Albo nevertheless remains in the box to win the next election, despite all the problems he is having.
However, while there is almost 100 years of precedent showing that first-term governments manage to get re-elected, the last three first-term governments that did so only narrowly won their re-election efforts.
Can Albo recover his charm? You’ll need it, if today’s polls are any indication
John Howard’s Coalition was re-elected in 1998 with less than 50 per cent of the two-party vote, and was successful only because it won enough key marginal seats to claim victory.
Julia Gillard won the Labor Party for a second term in 2010, but only as a minority government, after the fallout from the appointment of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister during the Labor Party’s first term.
And Malcolm Turnbull’s victory in the 2016 election reduced the Coalition’s majority to a single seat, after the tumult caused by Tony Abbott’s dismissal as prime minister in his first term.
As difficult as each of the aforementioned re-elections were for these first-term governments, they all began with larger majorities to defend than Albo has now, increasing the degree of difficulty for the current government as the next Elections are coming.
My prediction is that Labor will find a way to win, with enough voters giving him a second chance rather than unceremoniously throwing him out after a single term.
That said, retaining a majority government given all the problems and missteps during Albo’s first three years as prime minister could be going too far.
He really has been a disappointment as Prime Minister.