Labor insiders say they weren’t surprised by Anthony Albanese’s shocking week on the election campaign trail

In extraordinary bloodletting, Labor insiders have revealed morale within the Labor Party has “fallen apart”.

Exclusive: Anthony Albanese is “infamous” for not properly reading his policy briefings, surrounds himself with too many inexperienced advisers and has been exposed as a political “chameleon” on the campaign trail, Labor insiders and some of his MPs claim.

In extraordinary bloodletting six days into a campaign he remains favourite to win, the Labor leader’s critics within his caucus are already privately gunning for him and have revealed morale within the party has “fallen apart” after a week which one MP labelled a “s**tshow”.

NewsCorp has spoken to a number of Labor frontbenchers, multiple backbenchers, staffers and operatives employed on Labor’s campaign who, speaking on the condition of anonymity, revealed they weren’t surprised by Mr Albanese’s shocking performance because of his failure to do basic preparation.

Those exasperated with Mr Albanese include some supporters as well as factional enemies.

But the Opposition Leader’s close confidantes within the party reject the charge, insisting the fundamentals of the campaign were sound and his most significant gaffe – not knowing the national unemployment rate or the Reserve Bank’s cash rate – wouldn’t matter on polling day because voters are already moving on.

“The so-called wiser heads are saying everyone will have forgotten this,” said one veteran campaign staffer who is working on Labor’s bid for power.

“I think they think it’s good it happened early in the campaign and we can get back on track.”

“The problem is it’s not just he had a bad day – he doesn’t read the briefings. It’s infamous. He just thinks he can blag his way through things,” he said.

Anthony Albanese leaves a press conference early with security detail in tow. Picture: Toby Zerna

One senior MP said the warning signs of trouble for Mr Albanese were there on Sunday, when the election was called.

“That’s the one day you can be sure the TV news is going to run your quotes, so you need a sharp grab that frames the contest the way you want it to be seen,” the MP said.

“Instead he went out there and just rambled. How could they not have prepared that speech?”

Mr Albanese’s first week included three other major controversies including his $135m plan for bulk billing GP clinics, which the Australian Medical Association slammed as being “barely coherent policy” and a blunder when the ALP leader appeared to suggest he would close down offshore detention centres, and a backflip on his plan hold a review into how much people on JobSeeker should receive.

A Labor MP said the dole backflip move had gone down “really badly” with the party’s core supporters.

“There’s Labor Party supporters and volunteers who are taking down posters: they’re saying they’re not going to campaign for us; they’re saying you don’t stand for anything,” he said.

“It was a shemozzle. The whole thing was completely unnecessary. People are really angry: ‘What? You can’t even review it?’

The MP, who was hoping for a campaign reset over Easter, described the first week as “a sh*tshow. The whole thing was concentrated on Albo and he f**ked up. Morale has just completely fallen apart. He’s just going to have to lift his game.”

Other insiders complained that after Monday’s horror show press conference where Mr Albanese failed to name the RBA cash rate and the unemployment numbers, the leadership had failed to provide talking points for Labor MPs to deal with the issue.

It’s been a tough start to the campaign for Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Toby Zerna

Party insiders were also stunned by the failure to get the AMA on-board with the GP clinic policy.

“There was a level of shock about the AMA – that was news to us,” one campaign insider said.

Asked how this could happen, a senior MP was blunt: “Very easily when you put (Labor’s health spokesman) Mark Butler in charge of the policy.”

But the AMA wasn’t the only stakeholder nor managed properly, with Labor’s sudden backflip over the use of migrant nurses to fulfil its aged care workforce pledge catching shadow cabinet members off-side.

The move left Labor’s aged cared spokeswoman Clare O’Neil red-faced as she had been telling stakeholders migration wasn’t a part of the plan.

That wasn’t the only backflip in a panic-driven first week.

Labor’s promise to spend an extra $14 billion on state schools over the next decade also went out the window.

That one didn’t get the publicity it would normally have because it came the same day as the JobSeeker backflip, which one Labor MP bluntly described as “dumping on the unemployed.”

“He used to say he wants to fight Tories now he wants to fight for Tories,” the MP said.

A number of Labor MPs said campaign’s problems stemmed from Mr Albanese relying too much on “an inner circle which means they don’t need to listen to anyone.”

“He’s surrounded by young advisers,” one complained, “why is that? He chooses them; they’re not imposed on him.”

Those exasperated with Anthony Albanese include some supporters. Picture Tony Zerba

The MP said part of the problem of the past week was Mr Albanese’s lack of definition in the public’s mind.

“He’s been there 26 years, why is he having to introduce himself?” the MP asked.”

“This is all to be expected because he’s run this chameleon approach to politics.”

The view that Monday’s brain fade is disastrous was rejected by a senior Labor official who described it as a bigger deal for insiders than it was for the punters.

“By the end of the week people were saying they were sick of it. They’d had enough, move on,” he said.

A senior Albanese supporter in caucus, agrees: “It’s not an issue out there, I’m really certain of that.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal to get our positions right on the big issues over the past few years, but this isn’t a big deal.”

One shadow minister said they were happy this was happening now and not on polling day.

“I’m just banking on spending four days off as a circuit breaker and working out what we need to do to win,” the frontbencher said.

“This is something that can actually be fixed. They will make mistakes. People’s contempt for Morrison is so great and it’s real.

“In 2019 no one stopped and did a course correct. This is completely rescueable.”

A senior campaign insider said the people around Mr Albanese appear to have been blindsided by the pace of the campaign: “the pressure of the campaign and the scrutiny is not comparable to parliamentary business. When you’re in a campaign everything gets exposed. Things you can get away with day to day you can’t get away in a campaign.”

The insider described the week as “a near-death experience” akin to a middle-aged man who has survived a heart attack: “Does he stop smoking and start doing some exercise or does he just carry on?

“We’re not that naive. People understand the need to get our s**t together. How prepared are people to hear things they don’t want to hear? We’ll know that in the next few days.”

One veteran Labor MP said the idea of a reset was reminiscent of an earlier Labor campaign that went wrong: “It’s a bit like the Real Julia isn’t it?

Another laughed at the idea there will be a reset inside the campaign and things will change: “In practicalities it means crossing your toes and crossing your fingers and waiting for Morrison to do what he does best which is f**kup.”

Originally published as Labor insiders say they weren’t surprised by Anthony Albanese’s shocking week on the election campaign trail