A PM for all Australians — unless you have a mortgage
Anthony Albanese has started the 2025 election year with furious energy and a real change in his message and strategy to address the issue of cost of living.
Beginning his campaign in Queensland in a Coalition seat he doesn’t expect to win but armed with the message that he’s a Prime Minister for all Australians, Albanese tried out a new approach to addressing the key issue of cost of living.
He effectively concedes Peter Dutton’s claim that people are “worse off now” economically, but Albanese wants to switch the argument to values and is seeking to put the “human cost” above the consequences of the real economic cost of inflationary government spending.
The Prime Minister is falling victim to the contradiction of admitting things are worse than when he was elected, albeit with the “worst behind us”, but resorting to even more spending to rectify the consequences when this is the base cause for the problem in the first place.
In contrast, like a tortoise to Albanese’s hare, the Opposition Leader has started the election year with slow and steady tread – allowing for an election in March or May and sticking to his so far successful message and strategy that has gained momentum in all the polls.
Dutton will kick off a more orthodox campaign in Melbourne on Sunday, when it’s considered more people will be out of their holiday haze and likelier to pay attention to a politician, with a campaign launch in the seat of Chisholm. It’s a declaration that his campaign is about winning back Labor seats in a mountainous challenge to gain more than 20 seats.
For those voters who have tuned in to Albanese’s early holiday message and were aware of Dutton’s mantra before Christmas, the election choice on the key issues of economic management and leadership basically is shaping as a pick between the least worst.
Dutton’s successful message that Australians are worse off than they were three years ago, when Labor was elected, because of cost-of-living pressures and lack of strong leadership is countered by Albanese’s claim that people would have been much worse off if the Coalition were in power and will be much worse off if Dutton is elected in 2025.
Given Albanese can’t deny what people know is true about the cost of food, housing, fuel and energy, the Prime Minister is appealing to the better nature of taxpayers and mortgage-holders and seeking to absolve his government of broken promises on energy costs with taxpayer-funded rebates.
Labor’s risk is that many of the people Albanese is trying to appeal to with easing the cost of living through the care economy, such as aged care and childcare, are the same people facing real cost rises for basics such as groceries, petrol, electricity and gas, housing, insurance and services. Voters can see what they are being given through rebates and subsidies is lost through rising prices.
The public understands, after such a long period of economic duress and high inflation, the importance of stopping inflation and providing a real cut in costs such as power prices instead of a taxpayer-funded rebate.
After Albanese’s 2022 promise of better management, more caring government and a $275 cut in power bills by 2025, a switch to conceding things are worse and appealing to values and “building a better future” as an excuse for maintaining government spending and higher prices is a large and dangerous shift in political narrative.
Faced with a weak domestic economy, declining growth in China, trade uncertainty under Donald Trump as US president, recession emerging and almost paralysed governments in Europe and Canada, neither Australian leader is prepared to make overly optimistic predictions about what they can achieve. It has come down to an election about who will do the least harm in a competition to be the least worse.
There is a definite shape emerging of the campaigns to come with the Prime Minister and Jim Chalmers conceding the dissatisfaction voters feel over living costs, targeting the Dutton’s “division and negativity”, and attempting to reconcile emphasis on the costly “care economy” as the place for easing living costs with the pressure it places on persistent “sticky” inflation and higher interest rates.
Up against the problems of the drastic failure of his first-term signature policy of the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, a perception of weak leadership and being seen to be stoking inflation with government spending, Albanese has started 2025 with a huge future spend, putting infrastructure spending at the heart of his policy and economic message in a retreat to his comfort zone.
He repeatedly has referred to his previous job as infrastructure and transport minister, an attempt to maximise the depth of his ministerial experience and leadership.
In all his years as a government minister Albanese never held a senior portfolio outside transport and infrastructure – no finance, education, health, welfare, defence or immigration responsibilities.
Harking back to his days in government while looking forward with his theme of a Future Made in Australia, Albanese started his campaign blitz in Queensland with a $7bn commitment to upgrade the Bruce Highway, $100m for housing as part of the $32bn Homes for Australia program and $159m for local community projects.
The infrastructure largesse continued in Western Australia with more than $200m for housing, community projects and expanded port facilities as Albanese declared his government “is building Australia’s future”.
As he traversed the continent in just three days – in Queensland, the Northern Territory and WA in one day – Albanese spruiked the recent $1bn extra for childcare and consistently listed the other spending aimed at “easing the burden” as he promoted himself as standing for “all Australians” and denigrating Dutton as divisive.
Albanese reeled off the names of towns in Queensland, the Territory and WA like the lyrics from I’ve Been Everywhere as he talked about the number of times he had travelled on the Bruce Highway and been to Darwin (“more times than the last three prime ministers” combined) as evidence of how he got out to meet people and got to know “what people want”.
“I work hard and it’s my job to get out there and to listen to people where they are, where they live, where they work,” he said.
“And that’s how you get an understanding of what this nation needs.”
In addition to the Bruce Highway announcement, Albanese said in Queensland: “We also announced $1bn for infrastructure to make sure that childcare is available in remote communities, regional communities, outer suburbs, where it’s not available at this point in time. And importantly as well, our 15 per cent increase in the pay of childcare workers – just like our aged-care pay increases – is about making sure that there’s a workforce there, as well as when you combine that with free TAFE, training more people to go into childcare and aged care.
“That’s an example of my government’s commitment to look after all Australians, from the very youngest to certainly the oldest, so that older Australians can have the dignity and respect that they deserve in their later years.”
Even as the latest monthly inflation figures showed the annual headline inflation rate had edged up from 2.1 per cent to 2.3 per cent and Albanese was challenged over the upward pressure on inflation from government spending and public service jobs, he started to shift the argument from the real economy to the care economy and the “human cost”.
He also dodged the issue of whether there would be an interest rate cut before the election and declared he was “doing his job” in trying to ease the pressures of higher costs. Acknowledging that “people can make the case” on government spending pushing inflation, Albanese said: “What I say is that the care economy is a part of who we are and the values that we have.” He said Labor’s promise to put nurses back into nursing homes 99 per cent of the time was designed not only to provide a better service for the aged but also avoid real costs.
“If Mrs Smith is at a nursing home and there’s no one there to provide healthcare for them, you know what happens? An ambulance gets called,” Albanese said.
“There’s a cost to that. Mrs Smith then gets transferred to a hospital. There’s a cost of that. There’s a waiting of Mrs Smith to get the care that she needs. There’s a human cost of that as well as a financial cost of that.
“At the next election, people will have a choice. A choice between Labor, committed to addressing cost-of-living pressures while building Australia’s future, or Peter Dutton, who will cost Australians more with his energy plan for nuclear that will push up prices by $1200 and just push Australia backwards.
“You can’t address the challenges before an economy by just being negative and saying no to everything. And that is what Peter Dutton has done.”
Albanese argued under a Dutton government “people will be worse off, where he doesn’t have a plan for anything, just a plan to go backwards”.
He went further to entrench his new message in an interview with The Australian’s Greg Brown this week amid claims government spending had exacerbated the inflation challenge. Albanese said higher levels of unemployment and a recession were not the Labor answer to bringing inflation down. “We are never better off seeing people punished,” he said.
“And my government was committed to … I said no one left behind. We weren’t going to say: ‘No, you are on your own.’ And you can’t divorce an economy and statistics as if they don’t impact on people,” Albanese said, explicitly adding the new message of people before economic numbers.
“If Peter Dutton had got his way there would have been no energy-price relief, no cheaper childcare, no cheaper medicines, no tax cuts for all.”
Before a more comprehensive campaign launch on Sunday, Dutton accused Albanese of “leading a desperate government with no vision for the future” and of having only a scare campaign against the Coalition’s plan for nuclear power.
“The fact is that our plan is cheaper than the PM’s renewables-only policy, which is driving up prices; it’s more reliable than Labor’s because it will keep the lights on,” Dutton said. “The PM has no intellectual argument against nuclear power. His position is an embarrassment.”
Albanese’s response, as he reassured supporters he would win a majority, was: “I’ll be putting forward my optimistic vision for this nation. I think if we get this decade right, we can set Australia up for the many decades ahead.”
Launching his campaign in Queensland was an optimistic start for Albanese, who will go into the election with a majority of only two seats and will need the biggest swing towards a first-term government in terms of national vote and seats since World War II if he is to avoid being the first “oncer” government in 100 years.
Even Albanese admitted he didn’t expect to win the Coalition seat of Wide Bay, where he started his campaign, and hoped only to burnish his claim of being a Prime Minister for everyone. With only 29 per cent primary support in the latest Newspoll in the state and only five out of 30 seats, Labor’s chances are poor and Albanese’s strongest hope of winning a seat in Queensland is the Greens’ seat of Griffith in Brisbane.
Likewise his early journey to the NT, with Solomon MP Luke Gosling, and ninth trip to WA is more defensive than offensive as Labor Premier Roger Cook – facing his own election in March – declares he’s independent of unpopular federal Labor, which has done much to antagonise the West over environmental, trade, energy and heritage decisions.
Again, when asked about campaigning so early in the year and in seats that are unlikely to fall to the ALP, Albanese responded: “I’ve campaigned every January and I work hard for the national interest. And I’ve been – when it comes to the regions of WA – this is my 27th visit to Western Australia as Prime Minister. I’ve visited Port Hedland, Karratha, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Albany, Bunbury. All of these places I have visited because, as Prime Minister, I want to represent the entire country.”
Labor hopes to hold its gains made at the 2022 election in Perth and pick up the new seat of Bullwinkel but, again, even the affluent West feels the cost-of-living pain and regulatory drags on fundamental resources industries.
Apart from his theme of wanting to represent all the nation, Albanese’s early January cross-continental campaign to mostly unfriendly territory means he has greater latitude when the campaign proper starts and he can concentrate on the states where he has more seats at risk.
But such a big change in political and economic messaging so far into the electoral cycle and a couple of months at most from calling an election is a risk on a national scale beyond a seat here or there. Albanese is going all-in on a new message that may be too late in the cycle to make a real difference.
Committing to serving a full term if elected is all well and good as long as the new strategy and the harking back to the old days does enough to ensure Labor is re-elected in its own right on the narrowest margin for 80 years. Albanese is not leaving anything “on the field”, as he said in 2024, but like his beloved rugby league Rabbitohs he’s taking a big chance with a new look during the finals season.
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Anthony Albanese has started the 2025 election year with furious energy and a real change in his message and strategy, in a typical January blitzkrieg aimed at recovering political ground lost at the end of the previous year.