EDITORIAL: Anthony Albanese’s team is in a slump and optics aren’t getting better

In politics, problems can unfold in waves which compound on one another.

The Albanese Government is in a period of ongoing malaise.

Its woes began with its insipid initial response to the Bondi massacre.

Then the broken-promises Budget came down and the twists and turns and backflips began as problems continued to emerge.

The result has been a picture of a Government reeling from one headache to another.

The week behind us saw a trio of examples.

Amid deepening speculation about tension between Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer Jim Chalmers, and the future of Dr Chalmers, there was an extraordinary intervention from senior minister Murray Watt.

Asked whether he’d “like to see an end to the undermining and leaking against your Treasurer?”, he responded: “Yes, I would.”

Senator Watt was pressed on if he was confirming that the Treasurer was being undermined by his own side. “It’s pretty obvious that there are all sorts of people making all sorts of comments,” he said. “Whether you’re a member of the Government as a backbencher or as a minister, your responsibility is to work together.”

Then we saw statistics that made a mockery of the Government’s claims about helping first-homebuyers into the market with its capital gains and negative gearing changes.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil told Channel 7’s Sunrise. “We have as a Government a pretty unapologetic focus in getting more Australians into home ownership. And the data that’s been released since the Budget actually shows us that we are having real success on that”.

Then new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on housing in the September quarter 2026 were released.

The total number of new loan commitments for dwellings fell 15 per cent. The number of new owner-occupier loan commitments fell 5.3 per cent. The number of new investor loan commitments fell 30.6 per cent.

And, crucially, the number of new owner-occupier first-homebuyer loan commitments fell 8.6 per cent after a 4.4 per cent fall in the June quarter.

The week drew to a close with the Government’s spending on its climate change conference role under scrutiny.

Mr Albanese and Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change, had gone to Turkey for the COP31 climate talks with a 192-strong official delegation.

It was reported that $2.26 million would be used to support the delegation including more than $1m for the Australian pavilion, $873,000 for hotels, and $32,000 for a coffee contract to supply free pick-me-ups.

The costs are reportedly mostly from the $147.8m over three years set aside to pay for Australia’s role in COP31 and the Pacific pre-COP.

At a time when Australians are scraping together every cent to pay for their shopping, rent, home loan repayments and petrol, this was a bad look.

Mr Albanese has more travel ahead this month to attend summits and leaders’ meetings.

The optics are not going to get any better.

Digging itself out of the hole it is in will require the Government to do some very heavy lifting.

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

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