James Morrow: Anthony Albanese must pull his government together after latest Newspoll results

The prime minister has a pretty clear choice before him as he surveys the latest Newspoll results, writes James Morrow.

Anthony Albanese has a pretty clear choice before him as he surveys the latest Newspoll results.

He can either pull his team together and impose some message discipline after his worst two weeks of public performance since his election campaign’s most shambolic moments.

Or he can take the general approval of his superannuation tax reform as permission to turn up the politics of envy.

Which direction he takes will determine much about the future of his government and Australia.

Politically, the latest Newspoll shows that the laws of gravity are beginning to assert themselves on the prime minister.

Even with general support for superannuation reforms, Peter Dutton has narrowed the gap between himself and Mr Albanese as preferred prime minister to 54 to 28.

The alarm bells are not ringing yet but it means the long honeymoon of the Albanese government, which has been forgiven much by voters content to let Scott Morrison be the scapegoat for whatever’s going wrong, is over.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaking during NSW Labor's campaign launch. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The project to sell superannuation reform, even if it did land safely, began not from a desire to impose modest reforms but from a push to deploy individual retirement savings for “nation building” projects the government wouldn’t or couldn’t find money to invest in.

As late as Friday, Defence Minister Richard Marles was being shown up by Karl Stefanovic and was unable to answer basic questions about how the government would be able to reverse eons of accounting practice and essentially tax the profit on assets in high value super funds before they were sold.

Meanwhile whatever the reasons behind Tanya Plibersek’s public suggestion she could have won the leadership in 2019 had she challenged, the fact is that Mr Albanese’s unitary authority over his party is now under at least a wisp of cloud.

And while the numbers may sound like an impossible mountain to climb for the Coalition, consider this: After the Kevin ’07 landslide, then-opposition leader Brendan Nelson was regularly polling in the single digits.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture Lachie Millard

Tanya Plibersek. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Before he was rolled by Malcolm Turnbull in late 2008, Nelson was regularly polling in the single digits and in his last Newspoll as leader was being beaten by Rudd 62-16 in the preferred prime minister stakes.

What happened next is worth remembering.

Both sides went through bouts of leadership chaos and less than two years later voters returned a hung parliament before comprehensively evicting Labor in 2013.

But preferred prime minister stakes aside, the bigger danger in the poll numbers is not so much for Mr Albanese as the nation.

To put it bluntly, if the government decides support for slapping extra taxes on Australians who have built up more than $3 million in their super accounts means permission to more broadly pick the pockets of the better off we will all wind up poorer.

As belts tighten across the nation, pushing the class warfare button would be an easy play for the government - and given how many Australians were willing to turn on each other during Covid, it might even be politically effective for a time.

Last week Mr Albanese was quick to smack down his Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, after he failed to rule out taxing the family home.

But once the tall poppy logic of resentment cloaked as fairness enters the conversation, it may be hard to resist, especially when many on the left now talk about those “lucky” enough to own a home and all the responsibilities from mortgage to maintenance that entails.

Mr Albanese’s instincts may still be rooted in the socialist left, but he should remember that Labor’s most successful time in office since the war was when Bob Hawke and Paul Keating decided to unleash achievement rather than envy.