Labor MPs send SOS to Jim Chalmers as Anthony Albanese struggles

Jim Chalmers has launched a pre-election campaign blitz in vulnerable NSW Hunter and central coast seats, as he answers the calls of Labor MPs concerned that surging support for Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese’s unpopularity will cost them their seats.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass

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Jim Chalmers has launched a pre-election campaign blitz in vulnerable NSW Hunter and central coast seats, as he answers the calls of Labor MPs concerned that surging support for Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese’s unpopularity will cost them their seats.

After high-level meetings with senior Trump administration officials in Washington DC, Dr Chalmers arrived directly into Williamtown on Thursday morning to campaign with Hunter MP Dan Repacholi in the coalmining towns of Singleton and Kurri Kurri, before joining Robertson MP Gordon Reid in Somersby.

Amid consternation in Labor ranks over the Prime Minister’s ability to cut through and sell the government’s economic narrative, ALP sources say Dr Chalmers must play a central role in the campaign to help marginal seat-holders stave off Coalition challenges across the country.

With pollsters predicting Mr Dutton is in prime position to form a minority government following the election, Mr Albanese is trying to sandbag seats and stem electoral bleeding ahead of an expected April 12 election. Labor strategists are hoping a successful campaign will win over soft voters and Australians who have not yet engaged.

Writing in The Australian, Dr Chalmers draws parallels between voters “from main street America”, many who backed ­Donald Trump, and people in the “towns of middle Australia like Singleton and Somersby” who Labor are seeking to lock-in on election day.

He writes that Labor wants to “maximise” for those communities the opportunities that come from a strong economic relationship with the US.

ALP figures are particularly concerned about Mr Albanese’s failure to gain any traction from childcare, Medicare, green metals and infrastructure announcements worth tens of billions of dollars, which have been rolled out since the Labor leader launched a pseudo-election campaign in January.

As Labor and Coalition MPs prepare for an election to be called within weeks, there is a push in the ALP for Dr Chalmers and other high-profile Labor ministers to take more prominent roles in selling the party’s economic narrative following last week’s Reserve Bank rate cut.

Seeking to broaden the political fight to national security, the Opposition Leader on Thursday attacked Mr Albanese for being “confused and “flustered” in his response to Chinese warships circumnavigating Australia and holding live-fire exercises.

Dr Chalmers immediately hit the hustings on his return to Australia after meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Mr Trump’s National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett and putting forward the government’s case for tariff exemptions.

In his article in The Australian, Dr Chalmers lays out the opportunity of closer ties with the US and outlined the shared economic success stories for Australia and America.

“The first stop back in Australia for me after a brief but important two days in Washington DC was the Hunter and central coast in NSW. They might be separated by more than 15,000km but the connection between these regions and the US was at the heart of my motivation for travelling to DC,” Dr Chalmers writes. “The economic relationship between Australia and America is full of mutual benefits, shared interests and big opportunities. We want to maximise those opportunities in the interests of the people of our two great countries, from main street America to the towns of middle Australia, like Singleton and Somersby, near Gosford, where I met with local businesses yesterday.”

With Labor MPs under pressure in heartland regional seats over concerns about the speed of the government’s net-zero transition and controversial offshore wind zones, the Coalition is targeting multiple Labor seats in the Hunter and on the central coast including Paterson, Hunter, Shortland, Robertson and Dobell. The top two targets for Mr Dutton are Paterson, held by Meryl Swanson on a margin of 2.6 per cent, and Robertson, held by Dr Reid on a margin of 2.2 per cent.

As Dr Chalmers campaigned in the Hunter, Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley joined Liberal candidate Laurence Antcliff in the neighbouring electorate of Paterson. Ms Ley announced that a Dutton government would deliver a new urgent care clinic in Maitland.

Dr Chalmers, who promoted Labor’s $8.5bn Medicare funding pledge and accused Mr Dutton of wanting to “strangle” the universal health insurance scheme, flagged that voters should “expect us to be talking a lot about urgent care in communities like this one and also around Australia” ahead of polling day.

“At the end of the day, it’s a very simple choice at the election: if you want to strengthen Medicare, you vote for Anthony Albanese,” the Treasurer said.

Asked if he was going to call an election in the coming days, Mr Albanese said on Thursday “it’s my birthday on Sunday”.

Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers, who share a March 2 birthday, turn 62 and 47 on the weekend. “I’ll announce it when I’m ready,” the Prime Minister said. “Three years is too short. I keep saying the same thing. I want fixed terms. Four years is what we should have. That’s what all the state and territory governments have.”

Amid Labor hopes that last week’s RBA rate cut will help convince voters that the economy is turning the corner, Mr Albanese’s re-election pitch will focus on selling the government’s first-term record, including: lowering inflation and debt; delivering back-to-back surpluses and higher wages; keeping unemployment low; rolling out broadened stage-three tax cuts; creating 1.15 million jobs; and providing targeted cost-of-living support.

In his commentary piece, Dr Chalmers writes that his meeting with Mr Bessent and Mr Hassett was among the first that Mr Trump’s top economic officials had held since being sworn-in.

He raised Mr Trump’s potential tariffs on steel and aluminium products and “how an exemption would serve both our economies”. Following the meeting, Mr Bessent said Mr Trump would ultimately make the call on exemptions.

“We were able to continue, but not conclude, the important discussions President Trump and Prime Minister Albanese had around two weeks ago on steel and aluminium,” he writes. “Australia has a lot to gain from markets which are open. We’ve made that point for a long time now and we’ve been a big beneficiary of that in the past. The US has maintained a trade surplus with Australia since 1952, with a two-to-one advantage. We impose zero tariffs on US imports and around half of our exports feed into American industry.”

Dr Chalmers, who is pushing closer collaboration between Australia’s cashed-up superannuation sector and US business, writes “we’re two of the best-­positioned economies in the world right now to capitalise on the opportunities ahead”.

Speaking at Solid Engineering in Kurri Kurri, a business that employs 38 people, Dr Chalmers said the government was “a big supporter of the industries of the Hunter … whether it be mining, whether it be manufacturing, whether it be ag, whether it be tourism”. “This part of Australia makes a massive contribution to our national economy and if we want our national economy to be strong into the future, then regions like the Hunter need to be a big part of the story,” he said.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty in the global economy which is playing out in our own national economy and in local economies like this one.”