CAMERON MILNER: There’s nothing to justify Anthony Albanese’s confidence Labor can govern in own right

Australians are ready for a Federal election. They are baying to pass judgment and show with the power of a ballot the pain they’ve suffered under Anthony Albanese’s cost-of-living crisis.

Dutton and the Liberals know this too, launching a slick 60-second ad nationally which features my favourite cut-away — a framed photo of a young Peter Dutton with John Howard.

Meanwhile Labor keeps rolling out its weakest link — Albanese.

Albo has been everywhere. He can’t be faulted for not leading with his chin in the prize fight that is now overdue to start. Albanese really is Dutton’s none-too-secret weapon.

The fundamental problem for Labor is the more voters see Albanese, the more they aren’t voting Labor. They see him babbling on something unintelligible and simply scroll on.

Even with well over $13 billion of new promises since the start of the year — the proverbial fist full of fifties — this guy can’t buy voters love on the streets of any town.

Albanese went to the National Press Club where he spent more time talking about Dutton than he did naming achievements of his first term Government. Albo is obsessed with Dutton.

The Albanistas are deeply perplexed that the guy they convinced themselves was un-electable 33 months ago is now leading in every major poll.

It speaks to hubris and arrogance among Albo’s closest supporters. His office is now referred to as Godfrey’s — the shop that famously only sold vacuum cleaners!

Dire inexperience like that seen from his head of miscommunications, Katharine Murphy, aka Murpharoo — an ex-Guardian scribe from the press gallery — is already a sight to behold. The actual campaign will be a train wreck.

You can see her fingerprints all over Albo’s recent lines that his courage can be measured by the number of press conferences he’s done, or that his fiancee Jodie Haydon is to blame for the $4.3 million clifftop retirement villa purchase.

The best howler came in Andrew Clennell’s long form interview, in which Albanese said providing cost-of-living relief was harder than landing a 747 on a helipad! Albo sure isn’t a latter day Scully.

Next Albo will tell voters they’ve never had it so good.

Across all of this past month there hasn’t been one mea culpa, one note of empathy for voters doing it tough. Not one apology or acknowledgement of just how poorly this Government has dealt with inflation or its practical effects on the young, families and the elderly all in equal measure.

Add to this the out of control anti-Semitism, fanned by Labor’s own acquiescence and ambivalence under Albanese, Penny Wong and Tony Burke. Its a bushfire entirely of Labor’s making.

This isn’t just an attack on Jewish Australians, but an attack on us all. Albanese’s weakness and misjudgement has been laid bare for all Australians to see on a nightly basis.

While synagogues, cars, homes and now a childcare centre burn, the Prime Minister fiddles.

Albo has talked up his belief he alone wants to form majority government. But between the idea and the action falls Albo.

He’s got some chutzpah to think voters aren’t screaming from the rafters and telling pollsters consistently just how bad his Government has been.

His personal numbers are appalling. Labor’s primary vote is lower than its worst result at the last election while the Coalition’s has risen significantly. The number of voters saying we are on the wrong track as a nation has doubled since 2022. The Liberals lead on a two-party preferred basis, and Dutton as preferred PM.

There is not one single polling figure left to justify Albanese’s assertion he can govern in his own right.

His only pathway to retaining the Lodge and Kirribilli is to govern with the extreme Greens.

If you thought mainstream Australia was alarmed at Albo’s weakness on anti-Semitism, then the idea of the Greens in the driving seat will be all that’s needed by Dutton to seal the deal with voters.

Voters don’t consciously elect minority governments. Recall Gillard’s 2010 minority deal with Oakeshott and Windsor after Swan had collapsed Labor’s economic credentials?

This wasn’t morning after regrets from what seemed like a good call at 2.15am. Voters were contemplating amputation of the arm 7 minutes into Oakeshott’s 17 minute monologue.

Australians in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis aren’t going to consciously vote for chaos.

Voters also in a crisis don’t vote for weak leaders.

Albanese’s self-belief is nothing more than self-delusion.

The tragedy for Labor is all the usual stabilisers have failed to engage. No other Labor leader has been allowed to stay while accelerating towards an electoral cliff.

The union movement has lost its voice and the Labor caucus is split and fractured into petty fiefdoms rather than factions. This has allowed Albanese to play the back room game — the only game he plays well — to perfection.

Traditional rivals haven’t been able to come up with the numbers. Leadership hopefuls like Chalmers can’t yet get the NSW Right on board and Plibersek knows Left faction hatreds run deep, led by Wong and Katy Gallagher.

The result of the Rudd Paradox — that the ALP has such complex leader selection rules — has seen Labor paralysed, frozen from the neck down, able only to watch on as Albanese dooms a first term Labor Government.

The Labor caucus and its once powerful union secretaries seem determined to prove pundits and political analysts wrong.

Labor’s self preservation gene just hasn’t fired this time around.

Instead, voters will get to pass judgment and deliver the justice Albanese so assuredly deserves after a term of office entirely in his likeness.

It’s time for voters to pass their verdict. And based on all available data and in the knowledge the only Liberal Albo could just beat was Morrison, I don’t think the jury will be asking for a time extension.

Voters are more than ready to do their duty, swift fully and with extreme prejudice.