Why Albanese's Political Failures Are a Risk for Labor

Anthony Albanese has presided over 94 of the 150 seats in Federal Parliament. He has faced an opposition that handed him every advantage. Yet a growing body of evidence suggests the Prime Minister is not very good at the core task of his job: being a politician. Michael Pascoe makes that argument in a recent piece for Independent Australia.

Pascoe scores Albanese's performance across five major tests as five failures. The tests include AUKUS, the Voice referendum, housing policy, tax reform, and the handling of offshore gas windfall profits. Each, Pascoe argues, reveals a leader who can manage incremental change but cannot persuade and influence on the scale required of a first-rate politician.

AUKUS: The Submarine Deal That Keeps Shifting

Before the 2022 election, Albanese was politically smart not to be wedged on the AUKUS submarine deal. Pascoe says the failure came after: not taking the chance to review and escape the deal when the US was reviewing it, when the UK was reviewing it, when the US backtracked, and when the cost of renovating the Collins-class subs became clear. The result is a commitment to second-hand submarines that Australia may never receive.

The Voice: A Referendum That Set Back Reconciliation

Pascoe draws on Don Watson's analysis in The Monthly to describe the Voice referendum as a failure of political courage. Albanese, he writes, needed the courage to tell advocates like Pat Dodson, Noel Pearson, and Marcia Langton that the path they were on would lead over a cliff. Instead, he backed them in, setting up a defeat that has set back reconciliation by decades. The other two legs of the Uluru Statement from the Heart – Treaty and Truth – have been filed in the "Too Hard" basket.

Housing: More Demolished Than Built

On housing, Pascoe argues Labor is barely maintaining the status quo of a central disaster: the lack of public and social housing. Data from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute shows more public housing has been demolished than built. The Commonwealth Rent Assistance bill – effectively a subsidy to private landlords – has ballooned from $4.7 billion in 2021-22 to $7.4 billion in the new financial year. For the quintile of Australians who will never become first home buyers, there has been no improvement.

Tax Reform: The Backflip That Stuck

Albanese promised not to change tax policy, then attempted a backflip that was blindsided by a ferocious media campaign. The label "liar" stuck. Pascoe contrasts this with the 2011 tax summit, where Julia Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan gathered business, unions, academia, and the social sector for three days of public debate. That summit made the case for reform, even if the politics of the time prevented it from going further. Albanese, Pascoe argues, could have used a similar process to build consensus before changing his position. He did not.

Offshore Gas: The Levy That Wasn't

The popular reform of capturing some of the windfall profits from offshore gas sales was reduced to a minimal tickle. Treasurer Jim Chalmers brought forward PRRT revenue instead of increasing the rate. Pascoe says it did not have to be the full 25% levy that gained traction when left to other people to make the running. It just had to be more than what was delivered.

The Totality of Failures

Pascoe argues these failures contribute to the electorate's sourness, the desire to "kick Canberra in the arse." A SM Age report on Labor's polling dive noted the party's primary vote is the lowest since its 25% result in February 2025, when the then Peter Dutton-led Coalition was riding high with a primary vote of 39% before suffering a crushing defeat at the May election. That was just three months ago.

Pauline Hanson is now riding the wave of political dissatisfaction. Pascoe says that is the best thing going for Albanese. Yet it will still need leadership – someone really good at politics – to defuse the nation's sourness. That, decreasingly, looks like the politician presently playing Prime Minister.

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