Albo Has the Fight of His Life on His Hands After Victorian By-Elections
Shock results in two Victorian by-elections, in suburban Prahran and the outer metropolitan Labor stronghold of Werribee, have put a bomb under Anthony Albanese’s prospects of winning the forthcoming federal election.
While counting of postal votes is still continuing, the Liberals have secured over a 10 per cent swing in Werribee and over 12 per cent in Prahran. The Liberals have taken Prahran from the Greens and, at the time of writing, the seat of Werribee was on a knife-edge.
By-elections offer voters an opportunity to vote against incumbent governments, so a swing against the state Labor government was expected. What was not anticipated, however, was the massive size of the swings. The swings reflect recent national opinion polls that put the Coalition ahead of Labor, and Peter Dutton ahead of Albanese as preferred prime minister.
Crisis Point
The dominant issues in the two by-elections also reflect national concerns: inflation as measured in supermarket prices and the cost of insurance and other services, the soaring cost of housing, and crime.
While the Labor Government has put in place power subsidies to relieve the cost of living crisis, it is clearly seen as inadequate.
Further, part of its solution to the housing crisis is a promise to build two million additional houses before 2029, a target which is already well beyond the Government’s reach. In the first year of the plan, Labor fell about 100,000 behind its target, and this is certain to continue with low approval levels for homes that are still to be built.
A second leg of its housing policy, to take an equity stake in home buying, will make little impact on current prices, and is problematic for many home buyers who are uncomfortable with governments having equity in their homes.
Immigration
The Albanese Government has failed to acknowledge that its policy of virtually uncontrolled immigration from 2022 to 2025, which allowed a net increase of around 500,000 immigrants a year, created the acute housing shortage being experienced around the country.
Attempts by Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher to blame the preceding Liberal governments for the housing crisis do not pass the pub test, given that federal Labor has been in government for almost three years, and the housing shortage has only worsened in that time.
There are things that might help Labor over the next couple of months. First, Labor is expected to win comfortably the forthcoming WA state election, where the Liberals have been in disarray for some years.
Second, the Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to begin the long-delayed reduction in official interest rates at its next meeting, giving the Government the opportunity to claim that its policies have laid the groundwork for a fall in home loan repayments over the next year.
Whether the electorate buys this argument is an open question.
Certainly, the Albanese Government seems to have a tin ear to the public’s main concerns. It has done nothing to tackle the increasing concern about the emergence of crime gangs, often based on ethnic nationalities, that have terrorised suburban neighbourhoods, and seems to be connected with the huge number of attacks on tobacco stores across the country, and the rise of anti-Semitism following the Hamas atrocities in Israel.
Wrong Priorities
On the other hand, it has just announced what amounts to a $573 million subsidy for menopausal hormone therapy and contraceptive pills, euphemistically called “women’s health”, when thousands of Australians are living on the streets.
The announcement in February, just before the 2025 election is due to be called, seems to indicate that the Government is more concerned with placating the feminist lobby than dealing with the concerns of ordinary Australians.
The Victorian by-elections also contain lessons for the Liberals. In both seats, most of the decline in the Labor vote went to small parties rather than to the Liberals. Nevertheless, the bad news was felt mainly by Labor and the Greens, who lost a seat they had held for a decade.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Labor MPs told The Australian after the by-elections that they were unsurprised by the massive swing against Labor, and feared that the State Labor Government’s poor standing would adversely affect Labor in the federal election.
Another sign of Labor’s woes came when Jennie George, former ACTU president and Labor MP, wrote an article in The Australian of February 8 – the latest of several such articles by her – in which she criticised Labor’s renewable energy policy, saying it could never deliver affordable and reliable power.
Labor’s troubles are mounting as the 2025 election looms.
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Republished with thanks to News Weekly. Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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I like the prospect of a change of Government, especially if minority parties with Christian ethics and policies hold the balance of power.
The Labor Govt has, in my opinion, not ruled for the benefit of Australia + Australians. The size of our Woke Armed Forces is a joke ! Our native population is homeless because of Labor’s policy to provide accommodation for the masses it is importing! Instead of subsidised Dental Care for the Elderly it gives away Childcare subsidies to the children of the rich ! Probably because so many politicians own a stake in Childcare Centres !Another waste is the money being allocated for Hormone Replacemen tfor menopausal women . What a bunch of sooks who can’t cope with the bodies’changes without medication. Neither myself, my mother or grandmothers ever used it We just put up with the symptoms .There are natural alternatives to alleviate unpleasant symptoms . We don’t need more money allocated to contraception when we have below Replacement Births! As for the national School Curriculum +attacks on Freedom of Speech by both Labor + Liberal, they have shown that they are tyrants who plan to implement the UN’s anti-God Agenda in full , that we are on the road to becoming another UK with a 2- tiered (In) Justice System . I hope the small Parties :- Rennick’s , Clive Palmer’s , etc hold the Balance of Power or this country is finished + will become the Islamic Marxist – Country of Australia ! Lord, God, help us !
‘ Labor is expected to win comfortably the forthcoming WA state election’
They may win.. But comfortably?
The press here in WA would rather talk about anything than the election. They put up a few pro-Labor articles earlier in the year but they’re not saying too much about the election now.
Two points to remember:
When Masky bolted from parliament in 2023 the swing against Labor in the by election was 22%. Not enough to prevent Labor keeping Rockingham. But that swing, if it carried across the state, would cut their majority to one.
The Labor woman who won the affluent and formerly rock solid Liberal seat of Nedlands in 2021 isn’t standing for re-election. She’s aiming for a seat in the upper house this time around.
And a third point:
The Liberals have had as many battles with each other as with Labor recently, but disaffected party members aren’t sticking around and hoping for change. The Libertarians are offering ex-Liberal members a discount on a new membership – and reportedly the response has been very enthusiastic.
I totally agree with Ian. We have to also reduce immigration from Muslim and North African countries.
Infrastructure is a dirty word. How do North African criminals contribute to our society?
Our safety is under threat, Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population in the world, if they unite with the Russians and Chinese, bye bye our little resource rich island and the people who defended it in the past.