Is Albo (Symbolically) Julia Gillard in a High-Vis Vest?

The latest Newspoll has delivered the verdict Australians have been muttering into their petrol receipts for months: Labor's primary vote has slumped to 29 per cent. That is the lowest level since June 2013, when Julia Gillard was still clinging to the Lodge and the party was about to perform one of its more memorable acts of political self-harm. Anthony Albanese's personal numbers sit at a grim net minus 22. One Nation is breathing down his neck on the primary. The Coalition remains a historical curiosity on 18 per cent. And yet the man himself continues to smile for the cameras as if the numbers are merely a seasonal adjustment.

One is forced to ask the obvious question. Has the Prime Minister been replaced by a cleverly disguised Julia Gillard? The evidence is mounting.

Consider the shared aesthetic of governing while the floorboards creak. Gillard specialised in the politics of endurance: keep talking, keep announcing, keep insisting the government is "getting on with the job" while the primary vote haemorrhaged and the public looked away. Albanese has perfected the same technique, only with better lighting and more high-vis. The cost-of-living crisis is "being addressed." Energy prices are "under control." Housing is "a priority." Each phrase is delivered with the serene confidence of someone who has never had to pay a power bill in the last three years.

There is the same studied seriousness about process. Gillard gave us the carbon tax that was never a tax, the mining tax that barely mined any revenue, and the National Disability Insurance Scheme that was both necessary and fiscally radioactive. Albanese has given us the Voice that wasn't, the housing accord that hasn't housed, and an energy transition that treats reliability as an optional extra. Both specialised in policies that sounded progressive in the press release and then collided, hard, with arithmetic and voter patience.

There is the same relationship with the party's Left flank. Gillard spent years managing the Greens and the independents while her own backbench plotted. Albanese manages the same ecology, only now the Greens have grown more ambitious and One Nation has stolen the protest vote that once belonged to whoever was angriest that week. The result is a government that looks permanently like it is governing on sufferance.

And there is the same fatal optimism about time. Gillard believed she could outlast the noise. Albanese appears to believe the winter break would reset the national mood. It did not. The public returned from the break more irritated than when it left. The Newspoll is not a temporary dip. It is the sound of the electorate remembering that governments are meant to make things better, not simply manage the decline with better talking points.

Of course, there are differences. Gillard had to deal with a hung parliament and a rival named Kevin. Albanese has a majority and a rival named Pauline who currently matches him on the primary vote. Gillard's voice was higher. Albanese's is the soothing drone of a man reading the terms and conditions. Yet the underlying political condition feels uncannily familiar: a Labor government that has lost the ability to expand its primary vote, that is living off preferences and inertia, and that treats every bad poll as a communications problem rather than a reality problem.

The disguise, if it is one, is almost perfect. The high-vis has replaced the jackets. The "listening tour" has replaced the "real Julia." The promise of "no one held back, no one left behind" has replaced "moving forward." But the numbers do not lie. When your primary vote is Gillard-era low, the electorate is sending a simple message: we have seen this movie before, and we know how it ends.

Whether the current Prime Minister is an elaborate re-enactment or merely a spiritual successor hardly matters. The script is the same. The audience is restless. And the interval is over.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/newspoll-anthony-albaneses-labor-hits-a-julia-gillardlevel-low-primary-vote-after-winter-break/news-story/ca81774a347a1fd299e48ce0361d1a8a