Support for Australia’s center-left Labor government has slumped to the lowest level since it was elected 18 months ago as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese grapples with mounting challenges on both the economic and political fronts.
A Newspoll survey released by The Australian newspaper found the government and opposition were neck-and-neck at 50% on a two-party preferred basis for the first time since the May 2022 ballot that brought Albanese to power.
According to Newspoll, the ruling Labor party’s primary vote fell to 31% from 35%, while the Liberal-National coalition’s support edged up to 38% from 37%. Albanese’s net approval rating is now tied with opposition leader Peter Dutton at minus-13, although Albanese still leads Dutton as preferred prime minister.
While the result is far from the worst for a first-term Australian government, it will be a wake-up call for Albanese and his ministers at the half-way point of their term. The poll is the latest in a series of poor results for the government.
Its approval ratings dropped sharply over the past six weeks after the defeat of Albanese’s signature Indigenous rights referendum. The government is also grappling with high inflation and rising interest rates, as well as immigration issues and questions over ties with key trading partner China.
The Reserve Bank of Australia three weeks ago hiked rates to a 12-year high of 4.35% after inflation came in hotter than expected. Rising prices are partly fueled by increased housing costs amid very high immigration, as well as elevated gasoline prices driven by jitters in the Middle East.
At the same time, the Albanese government was recently forced to release dozens of asylum seekers — some of whom had criminal convictions — after a decision by the High Court. Following a week of confusion over how to deal with the ruling, the government struck a deal with Dutton’s opposition to put in place strict new visa conditions on the released detainees.
The recent revelation of a confrontation between the Australian and Chinese navies in Japan’s exclusive economic zone also left Albanese damaged politically. It came less than a month after his historic trip to Beijing and shortly after meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of APEC.
Albanese has refused to say under sustained questioning whether he had raised the incident with Xi.
