Albanese’s staff nearly broke the cardinal rule of campaigning

Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Brett Worthington gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.

There’s one rule that outranks all others for political staff on the campaign trail — the leader cannot be seen under exit signs. 

Tony Abbott’s broad grin beaming underneath the first two words of The Reject Shop in 2015 is the thing of political infamy. 

In the last campaign, Scott Morrison’s staff even found themselves having to use a hi-vis vest to cover a sign that read: if you mess up, fess up.

For a time today, it looked like Anthony Albanese could fall victim to advancing going wrong. 

As images of a looming prime ministerial press conference were beamed to newsrooms back in Canberra, journalists watched on aghast, transfixed by what they were seeing. 

Leaning on a cane, a waving Where’s Wally was positioned perfectly to greet Albanese. 

For a man who the opposition accuses of being all too often missing in action, the Where’s Albo headlines would have written themselves.

News of the looming faux pas seemingly made its way to the scene, with staff suddenly appearing in front of Wally, blocking his view of the cameras. It was much like a pantomime. All that was needed was shouts of “HE’S BEHIND YOU”.

With time, a third person would arrive. What looked like an image on a phone was shown and within seconds an arm went behind the red and white stripped character and he was swiftly marched out of the shot. 

The relief was immediate on the now grinning faces of the staff that had triumphantly robbed the evenings news of a Where’s Wally appearance. 

Flippant as it may seem, there’s a reason staffers are so transfixed by the images. 

Albanese and his government have entered a period of governing that requires laser focus. They’re out of time for distractions and blunders. They don’t want people seeing Where’s Wally. 

They want them to see a PM tackling the nation’s biggest issues. 

Trailing in many opinion polls, Labor is desperately seeking to convince voters it has handled crippling inflation as well as any government could. 

Labor’s big chance

On Wednesday it was handed just that. 

Treasurer Jim Chalmers found himself desperately suppressing any sign of a grin as inflation data for December increased the odds of a Reserve Bank interest rate cut next month. 

Chalmers, while acknowledging he was all too aware how tough people were doing it, had plenty to crow about. Inflation is easing but not at the expense of rising unemployment. 

Within Labor, the prospect of a rate cut is tantalising for a government party desperately seeking a circuit breaker having languished in the polls for more than a year. 

Compounding Labor’s woes has been the difficulty it’s faced getting a protracted period of good news for the government. 

Wednesday looked to break that trend.

That was until late in the afternoon, when it emerged that not only was the presumed dead Oscar Jenkins, an Australian foreign fighter in Russian captivity, reportedly still alive but that separately, NSW Police had discovered a caravan stocked with explosives that they feared might have been planned for an antisemitic attack. 

Both robbed Labor of leading the evening news bulletins in Sydney and Melbourne, two crucial cities for the government’s fortunes.

Wednesday also provided a reminder of the battle ahead. Try as Labor might to keep the focus on the economy, the rise of antisemitic attacks continues to drown out the government’s economic messaging and that’s without Wally making an unwanted appearance.

Where the election will be determined

It’s easy to see why Labor has so much sweating on a rate cut. 

Analysis of polls and conversations with senior party officials this week helped the ABC map the electorates that will shape who will be PM after the next election. 

While Labor only holds a two-seat majority, the Coalition needs 19 seats to govern in its own right. 

Current polling suggests neither party is on track to govern outright. 

To get anywhere near 19 seats, the Coalition will need to deliver big gains in Victoria and NSW — namely eastern Melbourne, western Sydney and the Hunter. 

It’s not that these are Labor’s most marginal electorates, but they are among the most vulnerable. 

Electorates in Melbourne’s east are home to some of the highest proportions of mortgages in the country. 

It’s little wonder Albanese found himself in the eastern Melbourne seat of Aston for that Where’s Wally press conference.

Having defied history and won the seat at a by-election in 2023, most political hardheads expect Labor will struggle to retain the previously safe Liberal seat. 

Dutton sets Price on government efficiency

It wasn’t that long ago that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was using a Friday within a fortnight of Christmas to announce his long-awaited $331 billion nuclear power plan. 

The end of the week is when politicians announce decisions that they hope can escape scrutiny.

It’s perhaps surprising then that the opposition leader, who polls suggest is struggling to win over women, would return to that playbook in announcing his latest reshuffle on Saturday afternoon.

Dutton had to reshuffle his team to replace the retiring shadow cabinet members Simon Birmingham and Paul Fletcher. 

It makes for unedifying viewing watching politicians try to make their claim on the foreign affairs portfolio — chief among them Sussan Ley, Dan Tehan and James Paterson. Ultimately, all missed out, with Dutton opting for the lesser-known David Coleman for the job.

Going unmentioned in the press release announcing the reshuffle was any mention of the milestone the Coalition had achieved.

In adding Melissa McIntosh and Claire Chandler to the shadow cabinet, it took female representation to a record height of 11, one shy of the number of men — a far cry from the days of Julie Bishop being the only woman at Tony Abbott’s cabinet table.

It also saw Jacinta Nampijinpa Price add to her responsibilities with a newly created portfolio of “government efficiency”, mirroring a similar role Elon Musk has taken in Donald Trump’s government.

Awkwardly, it means there are now two people on Dutton’s frontbench tasked with tackling “government waste” and “government efficiency”, which sounds rather, well, inefficient. 

Becoming PM without winning a seat

There are no shortage of Labor supporters who would love nothing more than their candidate Ali France to go third-time lucky and defeat Dutton in his Queensland seat of Dickson at this year’s election.

But if this was Canada, losing his seat wouldn’t be enough to stop Dutton becoming PM if the Coalition was to win.

In that country, candidates from the governing Liberal party are vying to replace the retiring PM Justin Trudeau, months out from a national election.

Among them is the former central banker Mark Carney, who doesn’t hold a seat in the Canadian parliament, but would become prime minister if the party elects him as leader.

In Australia, to be prime minister, you must be an elected member of the House of Representatives or Senate. 

Astoundingly, if Carney did become PM, he wouldn’t even be the first Canadian leader to not have a seat in the parliament. 

When Justin Trudeau’s father Pierre resigned as Liberal leader and Canadian PM, he was replaced by John Turner. Arriving at Parliament after his victory, he had to take his seat in the visitor’s gallery. 

He sent Canadians to a federal election soon after, in an election where he won a seat but his party lost power.

With Trudeau junior’s Liberals flagging in the polls, should Carney win the leadership, he might just find himself replicating Turner’s fate.