EDITORIAL: Albanese ends year relaxed, but challenges loom

It is a far more relaxed Anthony Albanese heading home to Sydney’s inner-west at the conclusion of this parliamentary year than the previous.

The Prime Minister finished 2024 with his personal popularity in the doldrums and his Government on track to become the first since James Scullin in 1932 to lose office after a single term.

Those dire predictions couldn’t have been further off the mark. Labor romped home with a record 94-seats, making the job of leader Anthony Albanese’s for as long as he wants it.

Voters have warmed to him too. At the end of 2025, he holds a commanding lead over Opposition Leader Sussan Ley as preferred Prime Minister and Australians are equally split between satisfaction and dissatisfaction with his performance.

He has looked more comfortable on the world stage, rescuing what looked like a ruined relationship with US President Donald Trump and signing landmark defence deals with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, without putting China too far offside.

Domestically, reform has been slow-going, as the Prime Minister continues with his softly-softly approach designed not to spook the horses.

An eleventh-hour deal to pass reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act done with the Greens with just hours left in the 2025 sitting calendar will allow Mr Albanese to dodge allegations that his is a do-nothing Government.

Not everyone is happy with how the EPBC reform turned out. The resources industry is furious that coal and gas projects have been shut out from new streamlined assessment processes.

But these are changes that have been five years in the making and Mr Albanese and his Environment Minister Murray Watt will be pleased to have a tangible achievement to point to.

The turnaround in fortunes for this Government within a year has been dramatic, helped by the fact the Opposition has disintegrated into a disorderly rabble too self-obsessed to have any hope of holding them to account.

Mr Albanese has warned his MPs against spending too long patting themselves on the back and told them not to switch off over the summer break.

Call it the Glengarry Glen Ross approach to politics: Always. Be. Campaigning.

And Mr Albanese and his Treasurer Jim Chalmers will need to channel sweary Alec Baldwin’s ruthlessness when it comes to reining in ballooning public spending if they’re any chance of getting a handle on the cost-of-living crisis which is roaring back to life.

Inflation is on the march again. Economists are warning homeowners could be hit with two interest rate rises next year.

Dr Chalmers has instructed department heads to nominate areas that could be cut as he prepares to deliver December’s mid-year Budget update.

Those savings will have to be substantial in order to begin the massive repair job on the Budget’s deepening structural deficit and free up some cash to put towards the Government’s priority areas including the universal childcare plan Mr Albanese hopes will be his legacy.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.