Anthony Albanese takes aim at Coalition in boast to his MPs as Government popularity flatlines

Anthony Albanese has assured nervous Government MPs they will be “kicking with the wind” leading into the next election, while claiming Labor’s opponents in the Greens, One Nation and Coalition are now fighting for “the fringes” of politics.

Addressing a caucus meeting in Canberra, the Prime Minister sought to calm jittery members of his team as the Government battles a deteriorating economic outlook and voters react to worsening cost-of-living conditions.

With opinion polls showing Mr Albanese’s popularity falling and support for the Government down from the last election, the PM again predicted that political momentum would swing Labor’s way when it counted.

“This Liberal Party has abandoned any pretence of being a centre-right party, they withdrew the Liberal Party from the mainstream,” he told colleagues while referring to Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s weekend speech to the conservative CPAC event.

The PM told Labor MPs that the Greens had also made a factional decision to go to the fringes while the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation were fighting for the right-wing fringes.

“We keep our focus on jobs and the economy… as some caucus members who were here in 2019 will have heard me say before, ‘we will be kicking with the wind in the fourth quarter’,” he assured the meeting.

When first elected opposition leader after 2019, Mr Albanese also used the Australian rules football analogy of “kicking with the wind” to describe Labor’s strategy of building momentum towards election day.

He also assured Labor MPs that the Government’s various policies addressing cost of living were also aimed at “long-term investment for the future”, including free TAFE, cheaper medicines and childcare reforms which improve productivity.

“We’ve done all this while creating a million jobs and setting ourselves up with industry policy for long-term jobs growth,” Mr Albanese told Labor MPs.

During a subsequent interview with the ABC in which the Prime Minister was asked whether he was experiencing a mid-term slump, Mr Albanese said the Government had to be focused on the needs of Australians.

“We need to make sure we address immediate issues such as cost-of-living pressures, which are out there, such as the need to get inflation down but do so in a way that builds strength in our economy,” Mr Albanese said.

Pressed on whether his comments to caucus on Tuesday were aimed at allaying internal concerns over Labor’s poor polling, the PM rejected the assertion and instead took another swipe at the Government’s opponents.

“We are now the only mainstream political party in Australia seeking to govern in our own right in the national interest,” he said.

“They (the Coalition) are in a race to the bottom with Pauline Hanson. And now you have Josh Frydenberg, the shadow opposition leader, out there stalking Angus Taylor, very openly.”

Mr Albanese also denied some of Government MPs elected to Parliament for the first time as part of Labor’s massive 2025 victory were now worried they would lose their seats at the next contest.

“No, they are doing their work in their electorates. They’re making a difference,” the PM insisted.

On Tuesday, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson stepped up her attacks on the Albanese Government’s economic record, claiming a series of recent policy backdowns had hurt the business community.

“Just look at what this Labor Government has done in the last month,” Senator Hanson told an Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry conference in Canberra.

“First Labor banned business from passing on card fees and then expected them to absorb them. Then Labor let the ATO stop taking tax payments by credit card.”

“When a customer pays late, the tax bill for a business still falls due. For plenty of businesses, a credit card is what gets them through that gap. It helps to manage their cashflow.”

“The tax doesn’t go away. Neither does the problem of finding the money on the day it is due. After the outcry, the government deferred the decision until the end of June next year. Why did it take an outcry?

“Australian businesses should not have to explain cash flow to their own government,” she told the ACCI audience.