Failure to launch: Why Albanese’s government is in trouble

It wasn’t meant to be like this.

In her 2022 study of Anthony Albanese, Katharine Murphy describes a prime minister who thought he’d be successfully managing an idealistic, collaborative and positive “new politics” that would favor the Teal independents rather than Dutton’s Liberals.

Albanese seemed confident that Labor was destined for an extended period in office. Given he later appointed Murphy to his communications team, he apparently approved of her analysis.

However, even at the time Murphy’s Lone Wolf: Albanese and the New Politics was published, various commentators, including myself, queried the “new politics” scenario. While the Teals may represent a new politics, it is clear that the old Liberal politics — of culture wars and denouncing Labor’s economic and climate change policies — is also still very much with us.

Labor and the Liberals are now neck-and-neck in some polls, with minority government (or worse) potentially looming for Labor. Meanwhile, Gareth Evans and Bill Kelty, key figures from the Hawke/Keating period, have excoriated the Albanese government’s allegedly lackluster performance.

How did it all go so wrong?

Great expectations; modest reality

Some of the reasons can be traced back to difficulties addressing unrealistic expectations in Labor’s 2022 election strategy.

Albanese went to the 2022 election with a “new politics”, collaborative-style agenda that sought to bring all Australians, including business, labour, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, together. It was a small-target strategy based on assumed common interests, kindness and compassion rather than divisiveness.

As a result, Labor successfully countered Scott Morrison’s populist, “us versus them” campaign strategy. However,