Labor-red billboards, a crowd of supporters, and a childcare policy announcement worth roughly $1.5 billion – this was a campaign event without an election date.
That could be as far as five months away, but federal politicians are clearly readying themselves.
Albanese announced candidates for two Tasmanian seats in early November, before a flurry of Senate activity on the final sitting day of the year that saw a number of key government policies, including the social media ban for under-16s, Reserve Bank reforms, and two housing and three migration bills, become law.
The prime minister lauded that as his government doing more to help out Australian families, but those families haven’t been returning the love.
Like Albanese, he’s also been gearing up for the election with a flurry of media appearances in December, attacking the government over antisemitism and cost-of-living pressures.
The latter topic has seen him take a leaf out of the Trump playbook.
“Part of the problem in the United States was that people didn’t believe that the government was listening to them when they couldn’t pay their bills… they just felt a real disconnect, seems to be some of the analysis,” Dutton said after the US election.
“To be honest, there’s an eerie parallel with what’s happening here in Australia, in that sense.”
Sure enough, he’s been asking the same questions of voters that Trump did of Americans before storming back to the White House.
“Ask yourself this question; are you better off today than you were two and a half years ago?” Dutton said in late December.
“Heaven knows how bad it will be in three years’ time.”
Dutton, however, has maintained his Coalition is the underdog for next year’s vote.
Part of that comes down to simple electoral maths.
The opposition would need to gain 21 seats to govern in its own right – history says parties just don’t make up that much ground one term after being voted out.
Dutton has also been extremely effective in campaigning against the government’s policies, but has offered few of his own.
There’s a commitment to reduce migration beyond the government’s targets, but an exact number won’t come until after the election.
There had been a suggestion that stage 3 tax cuts would be reworked, but that was walked back in November.
When other policies are announced, that will give the government a chance to attack the opposition, just as it has over the Coalition’s commitment to wind back some of the workplace laws introduced this term.
Albanese’s unofficial campaign speech was significant not just for the childcare announcement, but for some attack lines he rolled out – just as Dutton has relentlessly criticised the government over the cost of living, the prime minister returned the favour.
“Every Australian would have been worse off if Peter Dutton had blocked our tax cuts, cut people’s wages, stopped energy bill relief and made it harder and more expensive for people to see a doctor,” he said.
Expect to hear a lot more of that in the new year, even if the election date remains a mystery.
