MARK RILEY: Cyclone Alfred blows away election plans as Albanese weighs when to call it

The biggest question in the halls of power in Canberra today is what affect the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Alfred will have on the timing of the Federal election.

The answer is that nobody knows.

At least, nobody will know until the full impact of this potentially devastating weather event becomes clear.

And in politics, a question without an answer is a dangerous thing.

Anthony Albanese insists he isn’t giving it any thought.

His mind, he says, is entirely on the people of Brisbane, the southern Queensland coast and the NSW north coast as they hunker down in anticipation of Alfred’s destructive arrival.

But he must be giving it some passing consideration.

It would be unavoidable.

Journalists aren’t the only people curious about how the cyclone’s arrival might affect his thinking on whether to visit the Governor-General on Sunday or Monday to call an election for April 12.

Two hundred and twenty-six colleagues in the Parliament, their many hundreds of staff, tens of thousands of bureaucrats, thousands of campaign workers and, indeed, a sizeable proportion of the Australian voting public would be asking him the same thing if they had the chance.

The answer depends heavily on how destructive Alfred becomes.

Strategists in both major parties would be furiously war-gaming the possibilities as they wait for the cyclone to make landfall.

If it is as devastating as the forecasters fear, the inclination of Labor’s team should be to delay.

Calling an election while thousands of people are watching their homes and hard-earned possessions literally floating away would be seen as insensitive and uncaring.

It would also ensure the sympathy of the nation would be instantly directed towards Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

Dutton’s Brisbane electorate of Dickson is in the centre of the cyclone’s expected path.

If Alfred hits land with anything like the catastrophic impact meteorologists are predicting, then Dutton would be fully focussed for at least several days on helping his community in the aftermath.

He would be well entitled to refuse to engage in any election campaigning while a rescue and recovery operation was underway.

That would leave Albanese travelling the country on a one-man campaign carnival while Dutton held daily news conferences up to his knees in Alfred’s muddy remnants, ripping into the Prime Minister’s self-obsession and lack of empathy for the victims.

That would be devastating for Labor in the five seats it holds in and around Brisbane.

But not just there.

It would also smash Albanese’s standing more broadly as a leader.

At every stop around the country, he would be asked why he was campaigning for his own future while the people of southern Queensland and Northern NSW were chasing the remnants of their own down the erupting rivers and stormwater drains.

Dutton said on radio on Wednesday that if Albanese were to call an election in those circumstances he would be “tin-eared”.

But he’d be more than that.

He’d be crazy.

And Anthony Albanese isn’t crazy. Or lacking in empathy. He’s well aware of all this. And it would be figuring into whatever thinking he is allowing himself on election timing.

As this column has observed for some time, the Prime Minister has two options for the election.

The first is without a Budget. The second is with one.

This weekend is his last opportunity to flick the switch on the no-Budget option.

With inflation falling, interest rates down, wages up, jobs stable and — according to this week’s national accounts — economic growth recovering, the general political reasons for choosing that option are compelling.

If Alfred reduces to just a bad storm, as all Australia hopes, then that plan is a real possibility.

But if the cyclone explodes with all the ferocity that is feared, then the option of a May election following a March 25 Budget is a good fallback.

The power to decide which options to select has resided solely with Anthony Albanese for the past two years and 10 months since the 2022 election.

Not anymore.

He now shares that power with Alfred.