State voters are sending a clear message for Anthony Albanese

By-elections may not be good for incumbents traditionally, and state elections do not always translate well to federal polls, but there is no mistaking the hit to Labor in Victoria and what it means for Anthony Albanese.

The Allan government is within a whisker of losing Labor’s heartland seat of Werribee, and the ALP must ask itself if this is a trend that could continue nationally.

The Prime Minister is facing all the same problems that cost-of-living pressures have meant for incumbent governments everywhere.

Labor’s red wall of defence in the most ideologically driven state is looking shaky.

As polling had suggested, Victoria is emerging as Labor’s toughest challenge for the upcoming federal election.

Political editor Simon Benson wrote in December that Labor’s assumed stronghold of Victoria was evolving into one of its greatest electoral dangers.

“For the first time in more than three decades, Victoria can be observed through the prism of a state that alone could decide the result of the coming federal election,” Benson wrote. “Western Australia delivered Albanese victory in 2022, yet Victoria could snatch it away in 2025.”

Polling from Western Australia has shown half of voters believe the Prime Minister does not deserve to be re-elected, ­despite his state counterpart Roger Cook being expected to deliver a third landslide victory for WA Labor.

Newspoll results suggest Mr Albanese’s unpopularity in WA could help the state Liberal Party win back a host of seats it lost in the 2021 election rout.

Only 35 per cent of voters polled in WA agreed that the Albanese government should be re-elected, and 50 per cent said it was “time to give someone else a go”.

Saturday’s by-election result in Victoria puts more meat on the bones of Labor’s dilemma.

A double-digit swing against Labor, as in Werribee, would result in the party losing a swag of federal seats.

With Labor already swept from office in Queensland, under serious pressure in Victoria and expected to go backwards at the upcoming state election in WA, the question is whether this is a trend that will extend to the federal arena.

Will voters have released their frustrations on state governments or will they still be waiting on the veranda with their proverbial baseball bats come the federal poll?

As Benson writes, the weekend by-election result confirms a sharp rejection of Labor in a state where the left has dominated for the past decade.

And if the rejection of Labor is happening in Victoria, it will be exaggerated elsewhere.

That cost of living and law and order were the big issues in the Werribee by-election is a positive for Peter Dutton and a problem for Mr Albanese.

Both are areas of strength for the Opposition Leader and are likely to be big issues in the federal election as well.

The outlook is made worse for Labor by warnings of a damaging revolt in heartland seats across key NSW electorates.

Four NSW seats identified as vulnerable to revolts from mining workers and suppliers include the Labor seats of Hunter (4.8 per cent margin), Paterson (2.6 per cent margin) and Shortland (6 per cent margin) as well as the central west electorate of Calare held by independent MP Andrew Gee.

Mr Albanese is hoping the government’s production tax credits for critical minerals such as cobalt and lithium will win over the mining sector.

But the message from business leaders to the government is that they don’t need incentives to invest, they “just need better economic conditions”.

The priorities include flexible industrial relations laws, greater certainty in project decision-making and less red and green tape.

As Werribee shows, the stars are starting to align against the federal government, which must be doubly hoping for good news from the Reserve Bank of Australia this month on the future direction of interest rates.