Could Albanese be a one-and-done prime minister? If he doesn’t change, he will be

Do prime ministers get second chances these days? It’s a question Anthony Albanese and his 103 caucus colleagues should contemplate during their looming summer break.

The last PM who turned around their fortunes during a first-term slump and went on to win a second successive election was John Howard. That was 25 years ago, when Australia was quite a different place.

The last PM who turned around their fortunes during a first-term slump was John Howard.Credit: Dionne Gain

Since Howard left the scene, six prime ministers have been sworn in: Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, and Albanese. We don’t know Albanese’s fate yet but the other five led their parties to just one election win each. All were subsequently turfed out either by the voters or their party room.

Down they went, one after the other, when their polling numbers headed south or deficiencies in their management skills – political or practical or both – were exposed. Every prime minister has started out amid heady expectations. We’ve looked on as they’ve found their own special way to sour their initial promise. Morrison didn’t come with advanced notice as a great thinker or statesman, but his political antennae were always up. Near the end he was nothing but antennae.

Albanese won office by promising not to be like Morrison. Not for him, a modus operandi of reflexively politicising every issue. Nor any inspiring bouts of rhetoric about Labor’s mission and the state of the country. He’s taken this passive, piecemeal approach so far that it’s driving his poll numbers, and the Labor Party’s, into the ground. Now it’s his turn to face the moment of truth that’s confronted every new prime minister elected in this century.

The Albanese government’s first full calendar year has produced policy gains on a range of issues including industrial relations, China, energy, and budget management. However, it’s been a period of serious political failure. Labor’s coalition of support in the community – a blend of the well-educated, new entrants to the country, and people on low incomes – was already fraying, but the Voice referendum and its aftermath have accelerated its decay. In September, I wrote how a steady drop in voters’ confidence in Labor’s handling of the economy and the cost of living accompanied the government’s prosecution of the Yes case in the lead-up to the referendum.

But Labor’s current predicament has actually been years in the making. Since Albanese took over as leader after the 2019 election defeat, the caucus’ lack of policy ambition and its unwillingness to engage in robust argument with the leadership when necessary has left the party adrift. Adjacent to that, Albanese’s failure to put together and relentlessly deliver a coherent and comprehensive explanation of the government’s reason for being, without a squeak of protest from the cabinet, is an even bigger problem. There’s little for wavering supporters to hang on to.

The extent of Labor’s electoral challenge grows every day. Last year, Labor’s Andrew Giles won Scullin, in Melbourne’s outer north, with a two-party preferred vote of 65.6 per cent. The Yes vote in Scullin last month was 38.1 per cent, 27.5 per cent down on the election result. What all the latest polls suggest is that more than a few previous Labor supporters were rejecting not just the Voice proposal but Albanese too.

Look at it their way: they thought he would devote himself to reducing their cost of living pressures because that’s what he promised. Instead, after a year of rising mortgage pressures and price increases, he made them go out on October 14 to vote against something most people weren’t interested in. Albanese, who’s never far away from reminding them of his hardscrabble upbringing, seemed deaf to their first-order concerns, so they rebuffed him. Worse, once the referendum was done, he seemed to be hobnobbing overseas all the time.

So what does the government do now? A ministerial reshuffle either side of the summer break would be a conventional way of signalling a fresh approach. Does the government spend the first half of 2024 coming up with a bunch of goodies targeted at young mortgage holders and renters, bolstered by a vision of Australia’s future that pulls it together, and then bring the next election forward to the second half of the year before something else goes wrong? That’s how John Howard rolled when things went awry in his first full year as PM. He went large, vowing to remake the tax system. Twelve months later, his treasurer, Peter Costello, revealed a package that included a GST, big income tax cuts and the removal of many state taxes. Howard immediately called an election five months ahead of schedule, which he won.

Whether Albanese, after having everything his way as leader, will have the humility to admit that he’s in trouble and must change is an open question: how do you stop being flat-footed when you’ve built it into your act? And will voters who’ve turned off him be interested in listening to him again?

If Albanese just keeps doing what he’s been doing, he’s set to join the 21st century prime ministerial one-and-done club.

Shaun Carney is a regular columnist.

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