Running 1700km north from Brisbane, the Bruce Highway takes 18 hours to traverse, crosses 26 rivers and passes most Queensland cities.
The state’s busiest artery is Australia’s deadliest: 41 deaths last year, and five days into the new year, there were two more. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese opened the political year on the Bruce, announcing a A$7.2 billion upgrade effectively launching his re-election campaign, themed “building Australia’s future”.
It was not coincidental that Albanese chose to go to Queensland, where Labor holds just five of that state’s 30 seats in the federal Parliament. The state is also the fortress of Albanese’s rival, Peter Dutton, the former Queensland copper who leads the opposition conservative coalition.
Dutton, an achromatic parliamentary performer who fostered a reputation for ruthlessness when in charge of protecting Australia’s borders in the previous government – he called deported Kiwis “trash” – has got under Albanese’s skin with populist but likely hollow policies. They include slashing migration, pushing to have the Aboriginal flag removed from the Sydney Harbour Bridge and veiled threats against big business.
Faced with the loss of a string of conservative blue-ribbon seats at the last election – including those in Sydney and Melbourne’s wealthiest areas – to independent MPs, Dutton has changed tack and is going after low-income voters in Labor territory. Borrowing from the Donald Trump playbook that the disaffected and resentful in outer suburbia can be his, he asks whether Australians feel better off now than when Albanese triumphantly led Labor into office in May 2022.
It’s working. Since early last year, the opinion poll ratings for Dutton and the conservative coalition have been on the rise. Albanese and Labor have been going backwards and they are now behind their rivals as the phony election campaign begins ahead of the May poll.
Dutton might claim rare political astuteness for succeeding in a role in which most fail – those who take on the opposition leader’s post after their party is defeated usually never make it to the next election. He is an improbable exception. Dutton’s unlikely asset has turned out to be Albanese, who has proved in office not to be the Bob Hawke to whose leadership skills he aspired.
Instead, Albanese wearied the electorate by relying too much on the story of his rise from impoverishment, overestimated the endurance of his charm and made what turned out to be a costly mistake minutes into his election victory speech.
Albanese put reconciliation with Australia’s Aboriginal people at the top of his agenda, promising to hold a referendum on establishing a new body – The Voice – that would represent Aboriginal issues to Parliament.
His government quickly burnt its political capital in trying to secure a “Yes” vote while Dutton led the “No” case.
The referendum was roundly defeated and Labour has since struggled to recover its momentum. Surely, it could have delayed the referendum when it was clear well in advance it would be lost.
It is unlikely the Albanese administration is headed for outright defeat. More probably, he will return as a prime minister leading a minority government, dependent on a raft of mostly progressive independent MPs whose passions are more policy than mere survival.
It is they who could force his government – as the price of their support – to tackle harder Australia’s most pressing big-policy issues – climate change, soaring house prices and the burden of tax on the young.
Promises to fix up roads and staying a small target will no longer cut it.
