Anthony Albanese’s weak leadership at heart of plunging Labor Newspoll numbers

Anthony Albanese’s lead in the preferred prime minister stakes have tumbled while the Coalition has pulled level with Labor thanks to some horror weeks over immigration and Gaza, writes James Morrow.

Even before Sunday night’s Newspoll dropped, those who keep a close eye on such things knew the government was concerned about its position.

Little tells like Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s manic tweeting about Peter Dutton’s “risky reactors” and the rather desperate efforts to distract from Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’s Direction 99 debacle suggested something was up.

Now, Newspoll has confirmed what Labor’s internal polling has likely been telling them: Australians are not happy.

And that unhappiness is increasingly crystallising around the person of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Not only are the Coalition and Labor on level pegging in the two-party preferred stakes, but Albanese’s own approval has tumbled.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Three weeks ago the prime minister beat Dutton as preferred prime minister by 19 points.

In the latest survey, that lead has shrunk to just eight.

There are a host of reasons for this, including continued weak economic numbers, rising insolvencies, the ongoing housing and cost of living crises, and a sense that things are getting worse and not better.

But for Albanese, with the country heading into increasingly choppy waters, the worry must be that Australians see him as weak.

Here the prime minister hasn’t helped himself.

Members of the Palestine Action Group gather ahead of a rally in Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / Flavio Brancaleone

On Gaza, an issue which takes in not just geopolitics and history but also everything from radical left protest politics to the success or failure of multiculturalism, Albanese has been seen to walk both sides of the fence.

Sure, he may have condemned Greens leader Adam Bandt in parliament last week, but Labor also blocked a motion by Liberal MP Julian Leeser to call an inquiry into anti-Semitism on university campuses.

When four Israeli hostages were rescued from Hamas, who had hidden them among the civilian population of Gaza, barely a peep of celebration was heard from the government.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said, “We want to see all hostages released, civilians protected, and parties agree to the ceasefire proposal presented by President Biden.”

Noa Argamani and her father Yakov Argamani, pose with bottles of Coke after the military said that Israeli forces have rescued four hostages alive from the central Gaza Strip, in Ramat Gan, Israel. The Albanese government was muted about the successful operation. Picture: IDF

Woo-hoo.

Likewise on immigration, an issue not entirely unrelated to the war in Gaza, Albanese has been seen to be weak.

Allowing factional mate Andrew Giles to stay in the ministry rather than boot him over months of demonstrated incompetence again shows an inability to show leadership and cauterise a wound that is badly bleeding.

Even Australians who don’t tune in to the day to day cut and thrust of parliament or follow who’s up and who’s down in Canberra pick up on the vibe.

With Peter Dutton now setting out real points of difference with Labor in anticipation of an election as soon as later this year, Albanese needs to decide whether he will take control of events, or let them take control of him.