Anthony Albanese is preparing to launch his re-election bid immediately after Roger Cook’s expected March 8 Western Australia election victory, as Labor MPs have been told to get their ducks in a row for a bruising campaign.
With the Prime Minister likely to pop up in Perth during the final week of the WA election campaign – despite his deepening personal unpopularity – Labor, Coalition, Greens, Climate 200 and minor party strategists are pencilling in April 12 or April 5 election dates.
If the RBA cuts rates on Tuesday and Labor improves in the polls, Albanese could go a week earlier and overlap with the WA election. But it is now firming that Albanese will press the button on an April 12 election. Labor MPs are understood to have been told to prepare for an election to be called anytime between March 3 and March 11.
Labor and Coalition campaign headquarters will be run out of Sydney, with NSW looming as the key election battleground state alongside Victoria.
ALP strategists have the advantage of incumbency in terms of preparing ad buys, travel schedules and announcements based on election timing. Senior Liberal sources said Coalition campaign HQ has been active since January 26 and was already directing messaging and policy positioning.
After weekend polling indicated Peter Dutton was in prime position to form minority government after the election, Climate 200-backed independents could play the role of spoilers in key seats across the country.
Climate 200, the brainchild of Simon Holmes a Court, on Monday announced its final list of 35 endorsed independent MPs and candidates. The teal wave that decimated the Liberal Party in 2022 is not expected to crash and burn at the upcoming election.
Of the 35 seats Climate 200 is backing with funding, logistics support and polling insights, only four are held by Labor – Gilmore (NSW), Solomon (Northern Territory), Franklin (Tasmania) and Bean (ACT). The ALP is expected to lose Gilmore and potentially Solomon and cop big swings against it in Franklin, held by cabinet minister Julie Collins, and Bean.
Climate 200, which conservatives believe exists to keep the Liberals out of power, is also backing candidates in seats where Coalition MPs are retiring, including Lyne and Bradfield (NSW), McPherson (Queensland), Forrest (Western Australia) and Grey (South Australia).
The self-described “community crowd-funded initiative”, which requires candidates to agree to climate change action, integrity in politics and gender equality, is also running candidates in Moore (WA), Monash (Victoria) and Calare (NSW), where former Coalition MPs Ian Goodenough, Russell Broadbent and Andrew Gee are also running as “independents”.
Climate 200 picks, which include a candidate running against Dutton in Dickson, are strategic and intended to splatter preferences away from the Coalition and divert Liberal and Nationals resources into sandbagging seats.
The days of the traditional Labor v Coalition major party brawl are long gone.
Dutton’s election mountain to climb is littered with political landmines and a preferential system that favours Labor.
Albanese’s 2022 election victory was won on the worst ALP primary vote since the 1934 election, in which the Labor vote was split between two parties led by James Scullin and Jack Lang’s renegade NSW branch.
Regardless of the polls, which will move around in coming weeks, Dutton has every right to claim underdog status given no first-term government has been turfed out since 1931.
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