THE FRONT DORE: Outrageous, shameless, deceitful. Brilliant. The Albanese election campaign playbook

Thank you for joining us and welcome to this special Leadership Matters morning with the Prime Minister.

I would particularly like to extend a warm welcome to the travelling Canberra bubble up the back there, and The Australian Financial Review in particular. Your bizarre take on the Leadership Matters breakfast with Peter Dutton a couple of weeks ago couldn’t have been a better showcase of why you don’t sell any newspapers in Perth anymore.

Great to see you back in the real world, even if it is only for a couple of hours.

Of course, Welcome Mr Prime Minister.

Now I’ve lost count, but I’m sure you will remind us shortly just how many times you have visited WA since becoming PM – is it 31?

It is a great measure of success that has always left me wondering why didn’t Mike and Mal Leyland – those intrepid TV explorers from the 80s - ever run for politics.

Those blokes got around the joint, and unlike Albo and Dutto who do their best to never answer a question, they seemed to embrace their motto – ask the Leyland Brothers.

For anyone under 40 who has no clue what I’m talking about … YouTube them.

But here we are, 2025, and Mr Albanese is hoping to make history by breaking that prime ministerial hoodoo.

Seven elections in 20 years - and not one PM has successfully contested a second and won.

And Mr Dutton likewise is trying to make history by being the first Queenslander, since Kevin Rudd, to snatch certain defeat from the jaws of victory.

It is, unfortunately, not unfair to say this has - until now at least - been a lacklustre campaign.

Mr Albanese, you will be shocked to hear that some people with us this morning thought I was a bit mean to Mr Dutton when he joined us here at Leadership Matters.

On that day, I pointed out that you are conducting a masterful campaign, a masterclass really built on the Graham Richardson whatever-it-takes approach to victory.

Dabbling in deceit. Recycling spin.

Unrelenting, uncompromising - at times utterly outrageous.

But brilliant campaigning. You didn’t invent it. But you are perfecting it.

On the other side, Mr Dutton has been stuck in quicksand and in danger of becoming an asterisk in history.

The contrast between your campaign and his couldn’t be greater.

You are prepared - you never leave home without your Medicare card.

You are confident - so much so that you let Chris Bowen speak publicly.

And you are shameless.

You want to win. And you are acting like it.

This is a West event, this is our town, and you, more than anyone, will appreciate that we are unapologetically parochial.

While many media outlets have lost their way, we strongly believe that in a democracy as robust as ours, the role of newspapers like The West and websites like ours – thewest.com.au and The Nightly - is to test and tease and torment politicians.

Not for the sake of it. But because if we don’t, who else does?

It’s not that we don’t always believe you in politics, we want to, it’s just that sometimes you make it hard to.

The media are not here to cheer-lead for one side over the other.

We are here to advocate for our readers and demand more of our leaders.

It’s not our role to be blinded by courtesy or corrupted by fashionable causes.

It will also come as a shock to many in the room Mr Albanese, that we go back a long way.

While you apparently don’t even know the name of the Greens candidate against you this time around, it wasn’t always the way.

If it were not for the SAVE OUR ALBO campaign we ran in 2016, while I was editor of The Daily Telegraph in your hometown, you would have most likely lost your seat in Parliament - to a Green opponent!

You were very generous at the time, sending me a case of Albo Lager or was it Albo Ale … very average beer … to thank us for helping you get over the line.

To this day, Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek have never forgiven me.

It is not an exaggeration to state that neither Mr Albanese nor Mr Dutton have managed to capture the imagination of Australian voters.

Australians are a cynical lot, that is true.

But the reality is voters are not exactly rushing to polling booths enthusiastically brandishing their tiny pencils desperate to return you to the Lodge.

Neither major party is engaging middle Australia.

At least 65 per cent of voters - 2 out of 3 - will not vote 1 for either of you on May 3.

And you both probably need to think about how to correct that.

Being an honourable loser is not the answer, you can’t do anything if you’re not winning.

But finding a way to bring the country together, to percolate ideas and persuade the population in the way say Bob Hawke did, and as - albeit very briefly – Kevin Rudd did … surely has to be worth a crack.

Maybe those days are lost. And we will be forever left with debates like we had the other night, a contest of ideas that really spoke to the teenagers, unfortunately, not the ones old enough to vote.

“You’re a liar! No you’re a liar! No you are!”

Inspiring stuff. Maybe we should hand out crayons at polling booths instead of pencils.

Beyond the major parties, we have the frauds and the false prophets – the Teals and the Greens.

The Greens are dangerous and divisive and the Teals gormless.

The Prime Minister insists they will play no role in a second Albanese Government.

Which means over the next 9 days, he will have to get around the country like he is a long-lost Leyland Brother to convince enough voters in enough marginal seats not to lose faith.

This morning, the message Mr Albanese has for West Australians who delivered him power in 2022, will go a long way in determining what role this state plays in 2025.

Has WA forgiven Mr Albanese for the Voice debacle?

Is there confidence he will not unleash another round of unscripted and unnecessary environmental and industrial relations policies that will further undermine our standard of living and way of life?

Many in this room are not convinced that a re-elected Albanese Government will not turn its back on the companies - and the jobs that go with them – that make WA so resilient and our state such a reliable wealth creator for the rest of the country.

Elections come and go. Prime ministers fall, grow into groaning ghosts and tiresome turncoats … even the great ones.

Every living PM once dominated the public stage.

Keating transformed and modernised our economy, elevated public debate and changed the country.

Howard brought stability, managed a booming economy and navigated us through uncertain years of terrorism.

Rudd. Gillard. Abbott. Turnbull. Morrison.

Reformers. Dreamers. Communicators. Titans of politics through wars, a global financial crisis and a global health crisis.

Each of them one termers.

One and done.

Today they could not be more irrelevant.

Once powerful. Now apocryphal.

Anthony Albanese stands on the verge of making history, ushering in a new era, an unheard-of extended term in office.

Is he up to it?

What’s he going to do for the next 3 years?

What will be his legacy?

Well, hopefully today, we will find out a little bit more.

Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore spoke before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at The West Australian Leadership Matters breakfast in Perth on Thursday April 24.