CAMERON MILNER: It’s time for SA Premier Peter Malinauskas to step up and save Labor from Anthony Albanese

Labor needs to draft South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas to be its next PM.

Malinauskas needs to do a Burnham and run in a by-election now, not wait until the general election.

The moment in politics has also arrived for Steve Georganas MP.

Who? Good question. He’s 67, a backbencher and holds the federal seat of Adelaide by a whopping 19.6 percent margin.

Georganas needs to realise after all Labor has done for him, it’s his time to repay the debt to the party and allow Malinauskas to run.

Labor needs saving and simply can’t wait for Albo to wreck it further or One Nation to keep rising and rising.

The so called leadership pretenders in the current Federal caucus are either too weak or lazy to do what must be done to save Labor.

If you can’t roll Albo after the last few months you really don’t deserve to be considered leadership material.

He’s a liar, weak and openly loathed by Aussies.

Post Bondi and the Budget, Albo is just done with voters and can’t mount a come back.

Melongate and the tone deaf acceptance of a global citizen award from a bunch of elites just shows he’s no longer up for the job, if he ever was.

The party needs a plan for a post Albo rebuild before it’s simply too late to recover their vote.

While the Canberra chattering class keep telling themselves that the next election isn’t until 2028 and ‘anything can happen’, the reality is change is already upon Labor.

One Nation’s rise and now primary lead in crucial states like Queensland and New South Wales is crisis time for Labor.

Labor should be absolutely crushing it in the polls. Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard could only dream of facing down these Liberals.

Instead, Labor is so bad it’s only neck and neck with a rag tag Right lead by One Nation.

Albo’s only defence is “I’m still preferred PM”, but what the rest of the Labor Party should recognise is that’s against Taylor or Pauline.

It shouldn’t even be a contest, but Albo’s so bad he’s actually managed to make it one.

Malinauskas by contrast is accomplished, won a landslide and crucially speaks from the centre of Australian politics.

He clearly wants to be on the national stage with recent speeches on issues far beyond his state remit.

Labor is now in deep electoral trouble, being over run by One Nation in poll after poll.

The state by state breakdown of the data shows it now ahead of Labor on primary in Queensland and NSW.

For the Labor hard heads it’s no longer a question of whether Albo needs to go, but simply when.

It now can’t be allowed to get any worse before Labor collectively needs to act.

There’s a smell now to Albo and it simply can’t be wished any longer.

He’s seen as an imposter in the Lodge, a bounce back boyfriend that’s best forgotten.

Albo is being questioned whether he’s fraud and the butt of a joke circulating widely — ‘How do you know when Albo is lying, his lips are moving’.

He’s had his time, now it’s time to save the Labor project.

That requires real leadership and if the current Federal Caucus can’t muster the courage, then Labor needs to give them a leader who can.

Georganas is an Albanista foot soldier who can credibly claim health concerns for needing to leave Parliament immediately.

His one and only memorable act for Labor should be his last as he resigns and clears the path for the South Australian Premier to become Labor’s next Prime Minister.

Albo will no doubt try a Starmer and use the National Executive to frustrate the move, but even Starmer couldn’t deny the inevitable.

The UK reality was, even with a massive historical parliamentary majority, the polls spoke to the current crisis facing UK Labour.

The parallels for Australian Labor are the same.

The late, great AWU boss Bill Ludwig used to have a saying about Premiers and PMs: “No one is bigger than the show”.

That moment has come for Federal Labor. It’s not the Albanese Labor Party, it’s the Australian Labor Party and it needs to return to serving Australians, not be a vanity project for Albo.

Malinauskas is a great servant of the Labor Party, now it’s his time to once again serve the party in its hour of need and lead federally.

Georganas needs to break his factional shackles and also serve the Labor Party that has given him so much.

Albo has served his time, kept the seat warm, but the challenges facing our nation and the ALP are now too great for any more complacency.

It’s said cometh the hour, cometh the man.

That time has now come and for Labor that man is Malinauskas.

Cameron Milner is a former Queensland Labor State secretary