Federal election 2025: Anthony Albanese’s Labor poised for victory over Peter Dutton’s Coalition

Labor is heading for a second term in government, Paul Starick writes, with vast consequences for South Australia.

Peter Dutton will have to defy history, campaign momentum and slumping opinion polls if he is to become the nation’s 32nd Prime Minister after the May 3 election.

Australia has not had a one-term federal government since Labor’s James Scullin was defeated in December, 1931 – at the height of the Great Depression.

History looked like repeating for a little while late last year, when blame for a cost-of-living crisis was being sheeted home to the Albanese government.

Peter Dutton will have to defy history, campaign momentum and slumping opinion polls if he is to become the nation’s 32nd Prime Minister. Picture: Mark Stewart / NewsWire

But United States President Donald Trump’s roiling of global markets with a tariff-induced trade war has diverted blame to him for economic uncertainty and pain.

Labor has gained traction with a ruthless campaign, sharply focused on a swag of taxpayer-funded “cost-of-living measures, including $300 off power bills, reducing HECS debts, cheaper medicines and, crucially, Medicare bulk-billing.

The billions of dollars doled out by the-then Coalition government during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have changed public expectations.

Tough reforms to grow the economy, like those of the Hawke/Keating Labor government, are distinctly out of favour.

Instead, the Labor campaign has thrived with big-spending promises, mostly matched by the Opposition, to redistribute government revenue.

The Coalition campaign, by contrast, has been loosely focused on the slogan of Getting Australia Back on Track, trying to knit together measures including a halving of fuel tax, introducing nuclear power and funding housing infrastructure.

Mr Dutton has been unlucky with world events, such as the Pope’s death, blunting his bids to recapture momentum and turn attention away from Labor’s highly effective Mediscare and Coalition cuts campaigns.

A week out from polling day, the Coalition is at long odds of victory. Picture: Richard Dobson / Newswire

A week out from polling day, the Coalition is at long odds of victory and being effectively written off by some senior figures close to the Liberal Party. There is always the prospect of an unexpected Coalition win, like Scott Morrison’s in 2019, as both Mr Dutton and Mr Albanese have been keen to remind voters for self-interested reasons.

But, assuming Labor wins more seats, it is worth considering the implications beyond the immediate results.

In the event of a hung parliament, Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie has been mentioned as a potential Speaker.

Her close ally, state Kavel MP Dan Cregan, performed this role after a shock defection from the Liberals in late 2021. He went on to become a minister in the Malinauskas Labor cabinet, before quitting this January.

Since last October, Ms Sharkie has consistently been saying her constituents would expect her to negotiate first with Peter Dutton – Mayo was once the stronghold of former federal Liberal leader Alexander Downer. But Mr Cregan’s ties to state Labor suggest a clear negotiating path there too.

In the longer term, a Labor victory would end debate about nuclear power, at least for a generation.

Ironically, union boss and future premier Peter Malinauskas in early 2014 urged a “mature debate” about nuclear energy. At the time, he said nuclear “can be a safe source of base load power, with zero carbon emissions”.

If the Coalition manages a come-from-behind win, its reasonable to assume Mr Malinauskas would be ideologically open to working with a Dutton government for a nuclear power station at Port Augusta.

The $2.4bn in government funds being ploughed into the Whyalla steelworks has been backed by both major parties. Persistent speculation remains about a future federal government taking an ownership stake, to preserve the ageing plant’s important sovereign capability as a structural steel manufacturer. Clearly, this prospect would be more likely under an Albanese government.

Whatever the result, the election timing has limited the window for the state Liberals to release substantive policy ahead of the next state poll. They will need something extraordinary to happen to dislodge Mr Malinauskas next March.

Originally published as Federal election 2025: Anthony Albanese’s Labor poised for victory over Peter Dutton’s Coalition