Paul Starick: Last man standing Anthony Albanese poised to become Prime Minister | Analysis
Scott Morrison is on perilously thin ice but Labor is desperately hoping Anthony Albanese doesn’t make a fatal stumble, Paul Starick writes.
Opinion
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It’s clearly a little unfair to both parties to compare the alternative prime minister to Olympic speed skating gold medallist Steven Bradbury.
But there’s more than an element of his 2002 Olympic victory to Labor’s campaign to install the gaffe-prone Anthony Albanese as prime minister at a federal election now just days away.
Famously, Bradbury swept to the gold medal when the four opponents in front of him were stricken in a last-corner pileup and he skated from last place to win. An athlete of sufficient standing to compete in an Olympic final, he won gold because everyone else fell over.
After almost nine years of Coalition government, Mr Albanese is poised to become Prime Minister in a week’s time in a similar fashion.
Yet even some of the most unwavering Labor supporters – and some party figures – hold grave doubts about his ability for the top job.
There was considerable dismay when, on the campaign’s first full day, he failed to recall the most basic of economic figures – the national unemployment level and the Reserve Bank cash rate.
Labor MPs and backers know Prime Minister Scott Morrison is perhaps the only opponent Mr Albanese could beat – so they have helped shield him in the desperate hope of avoiding a fatal gaffe.
Just like Steven Bradbury, they hope Mr Albanese has sufficient political skill to skate past the falling wreckage of Mr Morrison’s public standing without stumbling himself.
But they fear a repeat of the 2019 election, when Mr Morrison somehow crafted a narrow path to victory that defied predictions by opinion polls, bookmakers and most commentators.
Time is not on Mr Morrison’s side as he attempts a reprise. The Prime Minister has thrown the kitchen sink and just about everything else at Mr Albanese but failed to deliver a knockout punch.
About a week out from the May 21 election, YouGov polling showed Labor heading for government in its own right by securing 80 seats. Bookies had a Labor win at $1.35 and the Coalition at $3.20. Labor is streets ahead in every published opinion poll. After almost nine years of Coalition government under three prime ministers, there’s a major it’s time factor.
Mr Morrison has spearheaded a technically competent campaign, unlike his Liberal counterparts at the March 19 state election that they lost in a landslide to Labor. By contrast, Mr Albanese has forgotten the unemployment rate, cash rate and even his own NDIS policy – without any major political damage.
Mr Albanese is being rolled around the country with often-limited participation in his own press conferences, because he’s being shielded by Labor luminaries like Premier Peter Malinauskas, Senate Leader Penny Wong and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
At Mr Albanese’s press conference at Flinders Medical Centre on Tuesday, he answered just three questions and handed off one apiece to Senator Wong and Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Mr Malinauskas answered ten questions, Senator Wong three and Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers two.
On Wednesday in Melbourne, Mr Andrews delivered the cut-through lines attacking Mr Morrison. “Every federal dollar that Victorians get from the miserable Morrison Government, it’s as though we ought to bow our head and treat it like it’s foreign aid. We have been ripped off by this Liberal National government.”
As he and the press pack revelled in his rhetoric, Mr Andrews stopped himself, recognising: “This is Albo’s press conference and back to him. Don’t get me started.”
The point is that Mr Albanese is being outshone by his Labor colleagues. As well as the premiers, Mr Chalmers and Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare have proven more effective on the hustings than the likely prime minister.
Some within Labor argue Mr Chalmers, in particular, would have more successfully tapped into voters’ thirst for a long-term, future-focused agenda – just as Mr Malinauskas did so successfully to spearhead Labor to a landslide win. Mr Albanese, first elected in 1996, clearly has challenges presenting as the face of the future.
Ahead of the campaign’s crucial final week, though, Liberals are privately despondent, worried that whatever Mr Morrison says or does is fruitless – because the public has stopped listening to him.
Mr Albanese is on the brink of doing what Bill Shorten couldn’t in 2016 and 2019 – winning government from opposition. Labor has done this only three times since World War II.
If “Albo” wins a presidential-style campaign, it will be because others have fallen around him – not because he’s effectively showcased his own fitness for the nation’s top job.
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