The times, they are a-changin’. Bob Dylan wrote it as a protest anthem for the 1960s. But muso and Prime Minster Anthony Albanese might find himself humming it for different reasons, as he pores over increasingly complex electoral maths in the coming months.

Voters last turfed out a single-term government in 1931, which had more to do with the Great Depression and a ferociously bitter split in the Labor party. There are no such signs of a once-in-a-century economic calamity this time around, and Albanese fronts a united caucus which backs his leadership. So, with that sort of history on his side, you’d think Labor would be sitting fairly comfortably as we head into an election year.