Federal election 2022: our verdict on week one of the campaign
Every Friday during the 2022 federal election campaign, Chris Kenny and Troy Bramston will hand down their verdict on the week that was. Here’s how our commentators saw the first week on the hustings, as Anthony Albanese stumbled on some key points.
Kenny: Albanese shocker will live in infamy
Anthony Albanese had a bad first campaign week in much the same way that Burke and Wills had a bad first expedition. His press conference on the first full day of the campaign will live in infamy as the second most spectacular implosion in our political history.
It is beaten only by former rugby league great Mal Meninga’s opening press conference in 2001 when he began explaining his switch to ACT politics before sitting back and declaring, “I’m buggered, I’m sorry, I have to resign.”
Carrying the weight of the Labor Party, the labour movement, and the broader green Left, Albanese does not have that option.
He has to dig deep for five more weeks. It will make or break him.
Raised a Catholic, he will be familiar with the Easter message of resurrection and renewal, and although he identifies with the lapsed Catholic brigade, Albanese might be tempted back into prayer this weekend.
Can he recover? It is within the realms of possibility, because according to my favourite political maxim, nothing is ever as good, or as bad, as it seems.
Time is on his side, Labor started with a healthy lead in the polls, the government is unpopular, and the electoral map is challenging for the Coalition. If Scott Morrison has one day as messy as Albanese’s Monday or Thursday, it will change the dynamic immediately – but how likely is that?
The trouble for Labor is that Albanese revealed inexplicable ignorance on the party’s areas of greatest vulnerability – economic management, and national and border security – where they were always going to struggle. Compounding this, he was forced into corrections, then an apology to a voter he wrongly maligned, ultimately running from media questions after promising to take them all.
It hurts even more because Albanese was an unknown quantity, which is why Labor’s first commercials were about introducing their candidate. But in week one he has framed himself in the most unflattering terms.
Scott Morrison will not be able to believe his luck and must guard against smugness. But right now he looks like putting the lie to Kerry Packer’s famous observation that “you only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime”. With Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese, Morrison might have encountered two.
Bramston: Week one a much-needed lifeline for PM
The Coalition won the first week of the six-week election campaign. They were gifted this win by Labor. Anthony Albanese’s stumbles were manna from heaven for Scott Morrison, who needed a lifeline and got it on day one.
Albanese’s list of blunders was long by week’s end: not being able to name the unemployment rate or the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate, initially saying there was no need for offshore processing of refugees, claiming to have been an economic adviser to the Hawke government and cutting a media conference short after promising to answer all questions. Not a good start.
The Labor leader needs to sharpen up. It has raised questions within Labor that he might not be match-fit for what will be a bruising campaign. Labor frontbenchers and backbenchers are not panicking yet but they are worried. Some say they knew this would happen; others are genuinely surprised.
But there was more. Albanese said Labor’s Medicare urgent care clinics were costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office when they were not (Katy Gallagher had to clarify this). Labor also walked away from a pledge to review the JobSeeker allowance. This has not gone down well in Labor heartland.
It is not just Albanese’s long-winded responses to questions that concern Labor MPs, it is whether Labor has a clear and compelling political message for voters. We know they are a small policy target but the key lines and killer facts should be polished. Albanese’s opening statement on Sunday was not encouraging either.
The impact has also been psychological. Labor is demoralised and the Coalition’s hopes have been lifted. Luck is, so far, running Morrison’s way. The polls are turning. Unemployment remained steady at 4 per cent. This, along with Albanese’s stumbles, feeds into Morrison’s key message that the Coalition is better able to manage the economy and boost jobs.
It was not all upside for Morrison, though, with his broken promise not to establish an integrity commission up in lights. Sure, Labor won’t support the Coalition’s anti-corruption model. But a promise is a promise and he broke it. This is a big issue for the teal independents targeting moderate Liberal seats.
Hostilities cease for a few days over Easter. But Albanese has some homework to do over the break.
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