Advertisement
September 3, 2026 — 5:00am
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
Remove items from your saved list to add more.
The midterm blues that have gripped Anthony Albanese and his government have been induced by a host of factors, mainly the economy but also a bad dose of meloncholia.
Despite furious peddling, spending, dealmaking and spinning, the dial has barely shifted for months. One Nation is untouchable, the opposition so far remains unelectable, and Labor is increasingly unloved.
It would help if for once in his life Donald Trump lived up to his words and ended the Ukraine and Iran wars. But he can’t, so cost of living will continue to erode Labor’s support. If interest rates rise again – more likely now thanks to Wednesday’s stronger than expected growth numbers – and stay high, they could consume the government, turning to dust the prospect of it holding on to majority government in 2028, a given not so long ago.
Another reason for Labor’s decline and One Nation’s rise is the silly, avoidable, unforgettable stuff that detracts from whatever positive news there might be and which provides people with even more incentive, as if they need it, to turn off the major parties.
Advertisement
Albanese can still come good, assuming he accepts his competitors either inside or outside the party are not easybeats, that the 2025 election did not render him invincible and that acts of self harm can destroy leaders. Think Scott Morrison.
The Liberals are in much worse shape, paying the price for acting as if the 2022 election and every electoral contest since was an aberration. Their task appears insurmountable.
Labor still hopes for a silver lining out of an inevitable loss at the Victorian state election in November. Senior figures theorise that One Nation will effectively wipe out National Party MPs (as a prelude to eliminating them across the country), forcing Victorian Liberal leader Jess Wilson to govern with the support of One Nation, and that the resulting chaos and dysfunction will damage both the Liberals and One Nation federally.
But what if the chaos and dysfunction is no worse than what people are already witnessing? Or if there is a breakdown and it doesn’t arrive in time for the 2028 election? Or that voters decide a procession of dud One Nation candidates present no greater threat to democracy than the alleged corruption revealed almost daily inside Victorian Labor and the NSW Liberals?
Advertisement
Or that voters looking for people to trust or craving certainty see only broken promises and leaders treating them like mugs.
It took six weeks and the scandal involving the Sydney Swans for Albanese to fully admit his error in indulging in a podcast – which according to my information he decided to do, then told his staff – where he disrespected the Japanese prime minister, his wife and women generally. By failing to fix it immediately with a comprehensive apology, he left his colleagues, including the most senior women, with no choice but to defend the indefensible.
His reluctance to admit a mistake or to take advice led one senior colleague who despaired at his decision to agree to the interview in the first place to describe him as a “stubborn bastard”.
Albanese convinced himself that segments of the interview, now folklore and not in a good way, were innocuous or inoffensive. Earth to Albo: your radar malfunctioned. Again.
Who cares if Hanson didn’t know the name of the Japanese prime minister, or that she might struggle to pursue Australia’s interests in the region, when the Australian prime minister, on being asked to nominate the most crap gift he had received from a foreign leader responded, without pausing, that the weirdest was the melons from Sanae Takaichi. That was before the hand gestures.
Advertisement
Who cares if Hanson can’t explain her party’s immigration policy? Tony Burke had to cancel his National Press Club appearance because he could not secure the support of the expenditure review committee and cabinet for his proposed changes to migration categories. Then Albanese had to step in to guarantee continued funding for the 20,000 refugee intake.
Meanwhile, the Coalition has been floundering for months, unable or unwilling to say how or where they would get numbers down.
Memo to the major parties. Do right by the economy and the community, not what you think will placate Hanson. Trying to outbid her on anything – including a discount war with the mafia on tobacco excise – will not work.
Not even doubling down on the promise of giving WA an extra $6.6 billion in GST money in 2026-27 (supported by the Coalition) could induce voters in the state electorate of Secret Harbour to stick with Labor in Saturday’s byelection.
Advertisement
The primary vote for One Nation in the Farrer byelection in May was 39.5 per cent and in Secret Harbour 39, numbers the major parties can only dream of. Labor’s private polling in the West had One Nation’s primary vote slightly higher, its own around 30 per cent and the Liberals at 10 per cent. Access to truckloads of money will enable One Nation to improve its party infrastructure and to buy the expertise essential for vetting candidates and running professional campaigns.
By the end of the year, if Labor’s vote continues to deteriorate, if Victorian Liberals can’t smash a decrepit outfit to win government in their own right, MPs will inevitably focus on leadership and who would be best placed to demolish the One Nation beast they have all helped create, which now threatens to devour them.
Angus Taylor is much more vulnerable than Albanese. Andrew Hastie, whose seat of Canning encompasses Secret Harbour, is the obvious replacement. Hastie, who fought in Afghanistan, still lives by the SAS motto “Who dares wins.” He will not bow and he won’t be silenced.
The question is whether the Liberals’ last best hope will be driven out, blocked or destroyed by One Nation with the support of billionaires, cut-lunch commandos campaigning against him from the safety of TV studios after dark, or Liberal Party headquarters, just because he stood up in court to say what he believed to be the truth.
Niki Savva is a regular columnist. Her most recent book, Earthquake, details the inside story of the 2025 election.
The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
Remove items from your saved list to add more.
More:
Niki Savva is an award-winning political commentator and author. She was a staffer to former prime minister John Howard and former treasurer Peter Costello, and is a member of the board of Old Parliament House.AdvertisementAdvertisement