Anthony Albanese a marked man if Eden-Monaro is lost

Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese and Labor candidate for Eden-Monaro Kristy McBain in Queanbeyan, NSW, this week.

After six years of stalking Bill Shorten from the shadows, Anthony Albanese is now the hunted.

Just over a year into the job he has coveted since arriving in parliament in 1996, the Opposition Leader knows he must win Eden-Monaro. Unrest in the Right faction, and elements of the Left, will morph into a destabilisation campaign if Labor fails on Saturday.

Joel Fitzgibbon, who underwent a political epiphany after One Nation came close to stealing his coalmining seat of Hunter, is viewed by some as a potential stalking horse if Albanese fails to improve Labor’s position. The rogue frontbencher will be first out of the blocks on Sunday morning, appearing on the ABC’s Insiders program.

Jim Chalmers, Chris Bowen, Richard Marles and Tony Burke consider themselves long-term leadership options. But if Scott Morrison calls an early election next year, as expected, they will wait for their opportunity.

Shorten and former deputy leader Tanya Plibersek, a Left-faction rival of Albanese, also loom as key figures in any conversation to dump him.

Albanese has thrown everything into winning Eden-Monaro, holding up to 20 events in the sprawling NSW marginal electorate, dwarfing the Prime Minister’s five events.

Former Bega Valley Shire mayor Kristy McBain, Albanese’s hand-picked candidate, will win votes on the NSW south coast, where her profile peaked during the summer bushfires.

But Labor strategists are concerned that voters in the northern population bases of Queanbeyan, Yass and Cooma will not be as kind.

Albanese’s leadership will not come under immediate threat. But his hold on power will become increasingly untenable if he wears the tag as the first opposition leader to lose a seat at a by-election to an incumbent government in 100 years.

He did well to pull Labor together after last year’s shock election defeat. He allowed colleagues to vent, dropped Shorten’s class-war rhetoric and used the ALP election review process to map a way forward.

But over summer Albanese and senior colleagues fell into the trap of falling into the social media vortex.

They believed Morrison’s Hawaii trip during the bushfires would inflict long-term damage on the Prime Minister. It didn’t. As the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the nation, they could only watch as his popularity shot to record levels.

Post-September, the government will face the long road back to economic growth. There will be opportunities for Labor. But few Labor MPs believe they can win the next election.