Tom Minear: Albo’s copycat cost-of-living strategy falls short against Trump

Anthony Albanese pinched his cost of living measures from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Tom Minear suggests he might need his own strategy to avoid the same fate.

We know Anthony Albanese wanted the Democrats to keep the White House because he has been copying their policies for his own re-election effort.

New laws to stop price gouging, banning hidden fees, cracking down on shrinkflation, wiping student loan debts – every single one of these moves was pinched from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s playbook.

The Prime Minister has even taken to mirroring the President’s social media strategy, appearing in videos where he responds to clips of Peter Dutton he watches on his phone.

Is it the best idea to try and reach young voters by following the lead of the oldest president in history? Probably not.

US President Joe Biden bids farewell to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the end of the Quadrilateral Summit at the Archmere Academy in Wilmington, Delaware, on September 21, 2024. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Mr Albanese’s bigger problem, however, is that Ms Harris’s defeat at the hands of Donald Trump exposes the shortcomings of their shared inflation-busting efforts.

These policies, as sensible and popular as they are, do not restore prices to what they were before the cost of living spiralled out of control.

And more than anything else, it is the sticker shock at the supermarket and the petrol station and the pub that has voters feeling fed up.

What should alarm Labor ahead of next year’s federal election is that Mr Trump did not even offer carefully crafted alternatives. He promised unfunded tax cuts and loosely boasted that he would halve power bills within a year. The central element of his economic agenda – massive new tariffs on foreign imports – is in fact expected to drive up the cost of living.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks alongside US Vice President Kamala Harris during a State Luncheon hosted by at the State Department in Washington, DC, in October 2023. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

Americans swung towards Mr Trump because he is a businessman, because they believed they were better off under him four years ago, and because they simply wanted change.

That said, Mr Dutton and the Coalition would be foolish to assume they could coast to power on the same anti-inflation wave that has been wiping out incumbent governments worldwide.

It is a huge advantage, of course. But what has been overlooked in Mr Trump’s victory is that his biggest swings came in Democratic strongholds that neither candidate was contesting.

In the battleground states, Ms Harris’s campaign hammered away on her economic plan – not the social issues some have mistakenly claimed cost her the election – and Mr Trump’s margins were far smaller there.

Indeed, had about 130,000 voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin flipped Ms Harris’s way, she would have narrowly won the White House.

Can Mr Albanese hang on? Possibly. But he might want to come up with his own strategy.

Originally published as Tom Minear: Albo’s copycat cost-of-living strategy falls short against Trump