This election is too important to play it safe

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The 2025 election campaign begins with Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton playing to win by playing it safe.

The prime minister has been spending heavily on health and education, two of Labor’s perceived advantages, and has made a populist play for votes with a $17.1 billion personal tax cut.

The 2025 campaign will hide policy lethargy behind personal animosity.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

The opposition leader has appealed to families with a $6 billion cut to fuel excise in a budget reply speech that offered a scarifying vision of Australia in crisis – a nation in urgent need of a new direction with a new leader.

Labor deployed sharp tactics. Albanese moved quickly to call the election the morning after Dutton’s budget reply, stealing his rival’s thunder. Labor sources were briefing on Thursday night that the election would be on May 3, just as Coalition sources were sending out embargoed copies of the budget reply. Labor threw shade over Dutton’s big moment.

Once the election was called, Albanese was on his toes. He had the advantage of incumbency, with the backdrop of the prime minister’s courtyard in Parliament House, but he was also carefully rehearsed. He was overwhelmingly positive, with none of the tetchiness he sometimes displays.

Dutton could not have been surprised at the timing of the election announcement but did not seem as ready or rehearsed. He did, however, have a solid question: “Are you better off today, and is our country better off today, than three years ago?” When voters look at their real incomes, many will know the answer is no.

But the competing plans for the hip-pocket, with a $17.1 billion tax cut against a $6 billion fuel excise cut, only offer small change rather than bold ideas that could energise voters. The auction on tax and excise is not a contest of major policy. Neither side feels the need, so far, to set out a more ambitious agenda that might end the budget deficits and put the country in better shape for a volatile world.

The government has set out its economic agenda in the budget, with a future of deficits and debt, but the Coalition response is only half-formed after Dutton chose to keep some of his policy ideas under wraps until later in the campaign.

The public arguments are dominated by character attacks. The campaign hides policy lethargy behind the personal animosity.

Dutton appeared to have the upper hand because the polls were running his way for the past year. Albanese has been confident in parliament this week, after several polls showed Labor was gaining ground. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been buoyant after gaining his chance to reveal a budget that predicts a rise in living standards.

The weakness in the Labor primary vote is a critical factor for Albanese because the Resolve survey published by this masthead in February found it had slumped to 25 per cent – far below the result of 32.6 per cent three years ago. The Coalition primary vote was 39 per cent, well above its result of 35.7 per cent.

There is no such thing as a uniform swing and this campaign will be a hard slog for both sides, seat by seat. Polls tighten when the real campaign begins, but campaigns always have their wild and unpredictable moments – a brain-snap by a leader, a policy blunder by a minister.

Australians can sense the most likely prospect: 41 per cent expect a hung parliament. Even so, nobody should assume this is a certain outcome. There is an outside chance of a swing so powerful that Dutton takes office. There is also a narrow path to a Labor majority.

So both sides play it safe. The competing campaigns do not confront the formidable challenges ahead.

The country is in an economic lull after the pandemic, yet has no sense of a common mission on major economic or tax reform. The high cost of housing punishes the next generation for the complacency of the last.

Productivity is in terrible shape. The Reserve Bank says it shrank 1.9 per cent last year. This is the big reason households are falling behind over time. As I have written before: Labor offers platitudes, the Liberals offer complaints. Australia needs more ideas that will lift growth.

Australia also needs to bolster security when President Donald Trump brings untold volatility to the world, sending a warning that America is an unreliable ally. Can Australia actually afford an increase in defence spending?

If economic history decides the election, Dutton has the edge. Millions of workers have seen their real wages fall over the past three years because their salaries have not kept up with inflation. The consumer price index has risen more than 10 per cent since June 2022, but the wage price index has grown more slowly – and the gap is a clear measure of household pain.

If economic prospects decide the outcome, Albanese has a chance. Salaries have risen faster than prices during recent quarters, so real wages are up. This is not enough to recover all the lost ground from the first two years of this term, but the worst seems to be over. Crucially, the budget said wages will grow every year for the rest of this decade at rates that are well ahead of inflation.

Labor has crafted a campaign to remind Australians about four positive factors: lower interest rates, higher real wages, low unemployment, and lower inflation.

Prices are rising at a much slower rate than seen earlier this term. Inflation was 6.1 per cent in the June quarter of 2022 but 2.4 per cent in the December quarter of 2024 – an obvious improvement. Unemployment is relatively low, at 4 per cent.

Will voters trust Albanese to keep this going?

Dutton faces an immense challenge when the Liberals have been driven out of so many blue-ribbon seats by the teal independents, but a big win is not impossible.

The Coalition drove Tony Abbott to victory in 2013 by gaining 18 seats. Labor swept Kevin Rudd into power in 2007 by adding 23 seats. John Howard took power in 1996 by leading the Coalition to a big victory with 29 more seats. When Australians are unhappy with their governments, they clobber them.

History suggests, however, that a prime minister who finishes his first term will usually be given another. The challenge for Albanese is to defy the instability that has plagued parliament for the past two decades. If he wins, he will be the first prime minister since Howard in 2004 to be re-elected after serving a full term.

The outcome turns on whether Albanese can convince voters he has begun the recovery and can ensure better days ahead. Dutton not only has to persuade voters they have a problem with Labor, but that he is the obvious solution.

Australians have no reason, other than party loyalty, to think one side or the other has a convincing answer to the nation’s challenges. Voters deserve better. The leader who is bold enough to set out a better vision for this country will be the leader who deserves victory, but neither will meet that test if they merely play it safe.

A feeble campaign will mean a feeble future. Nobody should want that.

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