Drain the Billabong: Why Albanese must take on the elites to survive

Labor can’t afford to let Peter Dutton dominate the economic debate. To win in 2025, Anthony Albanese must fight the entrenched elites - just as Trump once vowed to drain the swamp, writes Nick Dyrenfurth.

Donald Trump is right. There is a “swamp” and Albo must drain it to save his job.

Sobering then are recent polling results for federal Labor ahead of a likely May election.

A belated interest rate cut, low jobless numbers, falling inflation and rising real wages might not spare Albanese Labor from the anti-incumbent surge that up-ended governments across the globe during 2024.

Former British Labour prime minister Tony Blair prophesied ahead of his party’s 2015 defeat that it would be an election “in which a traditional leftwing party competes with a tradi­tional rightwing party, with the traditional result”.

Anyone thinking that Labor can run on Medicare alone while leaving the economic field to Peter Dutton may need a history book.

Following Trump’s lead is not high on the agenda of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, with the US President’s dreadful treatment of to Ukrainian President Volody­myr Zelensky. Picture: Saul Loeb /AFP

This has been federal Labor’s approach for 15 years, a period in which they have won one slim majority (2022) but failed to do so four more times.

By contrast, Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the John Curtin Research Centre’s podcast this week that the election would be “won or lost” in the outer suburbs. “We’ve tried to maintain this focus on the cost of living while the other guys have tried to drag us into culture wars and conflict,” Dr Chalmers said. “It will be a battle of the burbs and that means (the election) will be about the economy. I hope it is. I’m spoiling for a fight on the economy. Nothing would make me happier than if this election was contested on the economy.” Amen.

If not, we may be able to update Blair’s dictum: if Labor runs on its traditional strengths while the Liberals run on theirs, they’ll get a traditional result.

Following Trump’s lead is probably not high on the agenda of Team Albo at present, what with the US President’s tariff war on Australia steel and  aluminium exports and the dreadful treatment meted out to the heroic Ukrainian President Volody­myr Zelensky.

No matter, Trump and Vice President JD Vance are right to speak of “draining the swamp”. Trump popularised the phrase to attack the old party establishment, bureaucrats and “woke” activists, but in Australia as in the US the real swamp dwellers are political and economic elites who rig the system for themselves, leaving working people behind.

Team Albo must show that Labor is the only party willing to drain Australian billabongs of entrenched power and privilege. For decades, rent seekers and wealth hoarders have tightened their grip on Australia’s economy, manipulated tax laws, suppressed wages, and profited off essential services like energy and healthcare.

These elites – protected by politicians – have helped to create a society where ordinary Aussies work harder for less, can’t buy a home, or face exorbitant utility bills. Economic elites plunder us at the checkout, fleece our farmers and squeeze small businesses.

The Coalition styles itself against “elites” but look at its record of governing this country for 20 of the previous 29 years. From corporate handouts to privatisations, it has redistributed wealth upwards while attacking unions and undermining the safety net. Productivity went backwards. Australia ranks 93rd on the Economic Complexity Index, behind Uganda, Guatemala and Kenya. Despite a cost-of-living crisis, Dutton prioritises big business elites (and long lunches) over battlers and opposes more affordable housing or higher wages. “Get Australia Back on Track” means more of the failed Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must show that Labor is the only party willing to drain Australian billabongs of entrenched power and privilege. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

If Labor wants to win in 2025, it must rediscover the reason it was put on this earth.

Labor was created by insurgent, anti-establishment working men and women sick of the status quo. The electorate is far more economically interventionist than the elites (and more socially conservative). They salivate at the thought of draining the billabong.

Labor, unlike Dutton, can do this by tackling the corporate elites that dominate energy, retail, banking, healthcare and housing. On the latter, it’s time to take on the cartel of ­monopolists, landlords, mass immigration-boosters and banks who have turned our housing market into a giant Ponzi scheme.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton prioritises big business elites. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass

Then there is wage suppression. Albanese’s legislative reforms have restored balance to industrial relations. But a fair go must extend to a fair say in our workplaces. Company law should be amended, as is the case in Germany, so that the 0.2 per cent of large businesses employing 200-plus employees (e.g. Woolies) must engage worker representatives on their boards to improve the decision making of companies they make profitable. It would cost the federal budget nothing. Let Dutton explain why our corporate elites can’t draw on the ­wisdom and shopfloor experience of workers. And Labor should be the party of small business, driving the states to abolish payroll tax, and making their lives easier.

While Team Albo is at it, let’s clean up the act of our pollies. Compel every MP to give up their Qantas Chairman’s Lounge freebies and Virgin equivalents.

Australians are tired of a globalised, neoliberal system that rewards the few at the expense of the many. They know culture wars are a distraction. They want politicians to fight for them.

With the prospect of becoming the first one-term government in 100 years, over to you Albo.

As Trump might exhort in another context: “Drain, baby, drain!”

Dr Nick Dyrenfurth is an executive director at the John Curtin Research Centre