CAMERON MILNER: Regardless of the Federal election result, Anthony Albanese is finished as PM

Albo’s got this! Polls in all the major dailies confirm he is up and Dutton is down.

Election done, wedding in September with Penny Wong as best man locked in.

Whaddaya mean there’s another 30 days of democracy to endure before Anthony Albanese’s double is confirmed — making him the first leader since John Howard to survive a full term and go on to win a second.

After all that’s about all Albo has said he wants to achieve with this election.

If not for Cyclone Alfred, we’d already be pre-polling and the election would be Saturday week.

No pesky Budget. No second chance for a distracted Dutton to have another crack.

The only impediment to Labor winning on May 3 is now Albanese himself.

And this is what’s keeping Labor awake at night. These polls show Albanese might well be suffering from a case of premature election, peaking too early with so long yet to go in this campaign.

Labor’s other challenge with these polls is that fear campaigns only really work if the other bloke is seen as having a chance, otherwise it’s all just pissing into the wind.

Having personally been in the room when Labor cooked up Mediscare 1.0 off the back of one IT outsourcing contract, I know it only worked because Malcolm Turnbull at the time was seen as likely to win.

So, if Dutton isn’t seen as a likely threat of winning, voters will be far less fearful.

It’s still early days and let’s not forget Albo’s best campaign week in 2022 was when he had COVID, and only the company of Toto and an excuse not to be a nightly reminder to voters that they detest his presence.

The Federal election isn’t the Lightning Stakes, but rather a full Melbourne Cup over 16 furlongs.

There’s still so much time for the currently effervescent Albanese to forget his lines and read from a briefing note like he did in 2022. Plenty of time to repeat $285 off power bills and “cheaper electricity” as part of a stumblebum small target campaign.

There’s also so much time for Albanese to repeat his Voice effort and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and have his arse handed to him in a basket by the voting public.

But credit where credit is due. He started with the cheeky made-for-media-commentary move of staging his first campaign event in Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson. Dutton retorted he’d be happy for Albanese to meet as many of his constituents as possible, so they could personally tell the PM what they thought of him.

Labor is trying though to show he has possible gains to offset the swathe of likely losses.

Despite sending Keith Pitt to the Vatican as Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See, Albanese’s hubristic next stop in the former National’s old seat of Hinkler showed how weak and unfocused his campaign team actually is.

Every campaign starts with an incumbency benefit for the first week. Voters aren’t that focused and don’t want to admit how they voted last time was the wrong call. Albanese isn’t seeing a Mark Carney-like turnaround in his numbers post-Trump’s weirdness though and all the polls are still pointing to a very close race and a likely hung parliament.

The polls however have showed momentum is shifting back to Labor as the election comes into view. Michele Bullock gifted Labor a win on interest rates and Mark Butler should be credited with a stroke of policy genius with the Medicare boost to deliver near-universal bulk billing once more.

I really hope for Labor’s sake that Albanese doesn’t condemn the party to being a one-term wonder through his self-harming actions — his Voice disaster, the Copacabana retirement purchase, Qantas upgrades and son Nathan’s Chairman’s Lounge membership. Or mark Labor down due through his insipid weakness in government on everything from Beijing to Trump and actually fighting the cost-of-living crisis.

Albanese’s second term will be just like his first — handing out leave passes to Coles and Woolies to continue to game their long suffering consumers, kowtowing to China, handing out taxpayer grants to Ed Husic’s mates, all while turning a blind eye to home grown jihadis and a shocking rise in Anti-semitism.

The Labor Party deserves a second term and shouldn’t be judged by their leader alone. If Labor wins, it can neck Albanese in less than a year. That’s when once again, under his weak-as-water leadership, Labor will again be in the poll doldrums.

Labor can be so much better and would be with either Tanya Plibersek or Jim Chalmers as PM.

Labor doesn’t like losers like Albanese any more than the rest of us. If given the chance to govern once again, Labor can be trusted to do its national duty and select a new centrist leader from its talented front bench pool. Sorry Tony Burke, you’re an extremist, that list doesn’t include you.

Without the dead weight of Albanese, Labor would actually be a really good government, especially in these uncertain global times and as we finally slay the inflation dragon and return Australia to a prosperous renewables-only and green hydrogen fuelled future.

The party shouldn’t be judged on Albanese’s failure or weakness of character alone.

Voters can trust that Albanese’s survival has been a rare aberration of Labor Party judgment and that it will return to the tradition of Rudd-Gillard-Rudd. Just as soon as this election is over.

Labor without Albanese could show voters what a real Labor government looks like, rather than the pale imitation we’re getting under Albanese.