The five-week campaign announced by the Prime Minister last Friday sounds short but there is plenty of time for mistakes, gaffes and critical errors that can turn the polls sharply in either direction for Albanese and Peter Dutton.
A few days into the campaign trail, Albanese’s campaign persona has shed the timid and indecisive style that voters observed in recent years. If there is one thing Albanese lives and breathes for, it is cold, calculated, savage politics. As a party official, staffer and politician, it is all he knows.
The ruthlessness was on display on Sunday when Albanese walked away from RepuTex modelling that Labor commissioned for the 2022 election and which the party based its promises to cut power bills by $275 from this year and reduce emissions by 43 per cent. Dumping the modelling means Labor’s promise to reduce energy bills by $378 in 2030 is dead and buried.
On the other side, the Opposition Leader enters the contest from a weakening position.
Dutton’s fuel excise announcement to temporarily drive down petrol costs was a clear sign the election campaign will be dominated by populist policies geared at winning votes rather than meaningful structural economic reform. Albanese’s supermarket price gouging policy is another populist pledge that cynical voters will look at and find hard to believe their groceries will be cheaper.
The campaign is punctuated by school holidays, Easter and Anzac Day public holidays between April 7 and April 29. An early May election ensures a stop-start campaign that restricts Dutton’s ability for clear air and cut-through.
Dutton has a big bag of defence, housing, economic, energy and cultural policies that he has to get out the door quickly. The polls indicate that the clock is ticking for the Coalition.
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