CAMERON MILNER: Albanese is roasting Minns’ chance at a second term

The only thing stopping Chris Minns from winning a second term as NSW Premier is Anthony Albanese’s Trump style mid-term slump.

To rescue Minns’ Government, the NSW Right needs to stand up.

Trump and Albanese have both shredded voters’ trust and while their own reckoning won’t come until 2028, white hot angry punters are exacting revenge where they can.

In Victoria, Ben Carroll‘s chances of hanging on as Premier are being cremated by Albanese, having already been dead and buried by Dan Andrews and his little helper Jacinta Allan.

A loss in Victoria will be spun and pushed aside as being caused by “State issues” by the Albanistas in a typical fit of gross self-delusion.

However, no amount of sycophantic wishful thinking will ever Make Albo Great Again nor explain away a Minns loss in March.

Labor losing NSW would be the equivalent of Donald Trump losing Kanas and Texas to the blue tsunami driven by voters’ hatred of being lied to.

Trump says his name wasn’t on the ballot paper and you can see Albanese already practising the same lines.

But voters are beyond caring. They will use all means possible to express their anger and disappointment in leaders such as Trump and Albo.

Both are leaders who promised change, lied and lied again, delivering exactly what they had campaigned against.

Trump promised no more forever wars. Albanese promised no new taxes. Both lied.

Both preside over electorates being crushed by cost of living. Voters are furious with both for their failure to manage the economy.

The challenge for Albanese will be to explain away the collapse of the Labor vote in NSW and the orange tsunami of One Nation voters as having nothing to do with him.

That will be hard given Minns has led an exemplary centre-of-the-road Government since his election in 2023.

He has governed with clear-eyed leadership and has the courage and personal integrity to apologise to voters when needed and say he could be doing better.

His honesty is refreshing given the constant stream of spin of mis- and disinformation that flows from the PMO and Albanese’s own mouth.

Minns was sound even as the Sydney Opera House was being desecrated by a foul mob of Jew haters in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 atrocity in Israel. His leadership since the Bondi massacre last year has given Jewish Australians hope that the party of Bob Hawke hadn’t completely abandoned them — despite the worst efforts of Federal ministers Tony Burke and Penny Wong.

Unlike the strained relationship Albanese has with Jim Chalmers, Chris Minns has a loyal and strong one with NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey.

Mookhey has been at pains to show he’s nothing like Chalmers. He’s presided over hard savings, a Budget with surpluses as soon as next year and a public service that isn’t bloated.

He’s also had a simple game plan for NSW to implement Minn’s promises and deliver economic results for the State.

Minns has never thrown one of his ministers under the bus the way Albanese does on an almost weekly basis.

It was only yesterday, after a week in the Caribbean as the guest of His Majesty, Albo took time out from undermining his Treasurer to give Deputy PM Richard Marles the full Chalmers treatment.

Marles has been spruiking the sale of defence silverware in the form of some of the country’s most well known bases as Albanese was nowhere to be seen. Having last week demanded camera operators stop filming him — at a media event to which they were invited — Albanese returned to be snide to journalists as he announced that Victoria Barracks would remain in public hands.

Another day, another backflip from a leader who voters have simply had enough of.

Albanese will spend the next few weeks jetting across the world, including catching up with Trump to compare notes on how to shred your party’s vote while personally staying in office.

Both Albanese and Trump share the same total tone deafness and self-delusion that somewhere there are still supporters. Instead, they are despised and simply just not trusted by voters any longer.

The trouble for Minns is the stench of Albanese is stronger than an leaky sewer at the Marrickville Golf Club. Albanese is total brand damage for Labor and his drag on NSW Labor has stuck like the proverbial to a blanket.

Minns has openly said his challenge is One Nation. The vote is being driven by angry voters who want Labor out of office but don’t trust the Liberals to be any better.

The question for the once mighty NSW Right is are they simply going to let Albo smash Minns and deliver One Nation the keys to Macquarie Street?

Graham Richardson wouldn’t have. John Ducker before him definitely not. Nor would parliamentary leaders including Paul Keating, Michael Costa, Neville Wran and Morris Iemma have stood idly by and let Albanese trash the joint.

While Albanese hides behind the Rudd rules which make it harder to knife a leader, the harder heads will know they still have the means to roll Albo if they wanted. They have no excuse not to act to save Minns.

All it would take is the NSW Right calling for change within Federal caucus, beginning with an end to Albanese and Chalmers’ reckless spending. That would be all that was needed to spark a fight for the future of the Labor Party.

Clearly there’s already agitation for a major ministerial re-shuffle soon. But that alone might not be enough to save Minns. Even dumping Chalmers to foreign affairs will look like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Just like Trump, Albo’s mid-term slump is coming for Minns. The question is whether the NSW Right will move to save him.

Cameron Milner is a former Queensland Labor State secretary