Election 2022: Anthony Albanese’s gaffes show ALP hasn’t learned lessons of Peter Malinauskas’s SA election landslide

In SA, Labor stormed to power with a tight, focused campaign, writes Paul Starick. But is it too late for Anthony Albanese to the same?

If there is a key lesson from Labor’s landslide state election win, it’s the vote-pulling power of focusing on the future and portraying your opponent as a risk on things that matter to voters.

Peter Malinauskas stormed to the Premier’s office with a disciplined campaign relentlessly portraying him as having a long-term plan for the future, spanning health, education, clean energy and the economy.

Crucially, this was backed by a scare campaign on ambulance ramping and hospital capacity – aided and abetted by unions representing doctors, nurses and, most importantly, paramedics.

Mr Malinauskas, who became the first Australian opposition leader to win during the Covid-19 pandemic, was the face of a new generation from the moment he now-famously ripped his shirt off at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre for a picture opportunity.

More soberly, he is the first South Australia premier born in the 1980s (he is 41). The office has skipped the 1970s – Steven Marshall was born in 1968, Jay Weatherill in 1964 and Mike Rann in 1953.

As Liberals have been extraordinarily keen to point out during the federal election campaign, Anthony Albanese is no Peter Malinauskas.

Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Premier Peter Malinauskas talk in Moseley Square, Glenelg, on April 7. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

Mr Albanese’s pitch centres on his “fully-costed plan for a better future”.

Like Mr Malinauskas, he might not be well known to voters in the election campaign’s early stages. Unlike the comparatively youthful Mr Malinauskas, though, Mr Albanese, 59, has been around for a long time.

He was elected in 1996 – the poll when John Howard ousted Paul Keating as prime minister. He is experienced – he was a cabinet minister from 2007 to 2013. For a few months in 2013, he was deputy prime minister.

But, as focus groups conducted for the Australian Financial Review showed, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is being viewed by voters as the least worst option ahead of the May 21 election. Mr Morrison is viewed negatively, while Mr Albanese is seen to be dull, disinterested, uninspiring and too negative. He is not the face of the future.

Watching his campaign press conferences, this is hardly a surprise. Mr Albanese has looked tepid and nervous. He seems to be trying too hard to be accommodating and friendly to the press pack, in a bid to contrast himself with Mr Morrison’s brusque demeanour.

Of course, the most damaging performance was his ham-fisted response to one of the simplest questions he’s likely to face: “What’s the national unemployment rate?”

In a devastating blunder on the election campaign’s first full day, Mr Albanese looked and sounded foolish, rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue as he stumbled verbally. He guessed the rate was 5.4 per cent – it’s 4 per cent – then apologised and declared: “I’m not sure what it is.”

A tongue-tied Anthony Albanese. Sky News

This was like an Test cricket captain being bowled by an easy full toss in the opening over of an Ashes campaign.

If Mr Albanese torches overwhelming favouritism with bookies and a huge opinion poll lead to lose the May 21 election, he will be able to look back on Monday’s epic gaffe as the moment he blew up his chances. Even senior figures within his own party were astonished by the vision.

The blunder painted Mr Albanese as a risk to the economy. Knowing the national unemployment rate is vital to performing the prime minister’s job. If he caves under pressure when asked this simple question, will Mr Albanese be able to take the heat that comes with holding the highest office in the land?

Mr Albanese has kicked an enormous own goal by providing substantial evidence to support Mr Morrison’s claim that he cannot be trusted to run the economy. He fuelled the charge that he would be a risky proposition as prime minister.

This was compounded on Thursday, when he vowed Labor would turn people smugglers’ boats back and argued this “means you won’t need offshore detention”. The Coalition seized on this to paint him as weak on border protection. Mr Morrison branded him a “weathervane” who “has had every position on border protection”.

“He has supported everything he has opposed, and he has opposed everything that he has supported. We have seen that across so many issues. I am not surprised that Australians are confused about what he stands for,” Mr Morrison said.

The Labor campaign desperately needs an Easter resurrection. Already, it’s looking like Labor might have been better off jumping a generation with a fresh leader to present a future-focused agenda, such as Jim Chalmers.

Thus far, Labor’s federal campaign seems to have learned little from its SA success. It may be too late already to change course. Mr Albanese needs to lift or Labor risks oblivion at another federal election.