Since Australia’s general election was called by Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese at the end of March, the contest for the 3 May poll has been an uninspiring one. Voters must choose between a mediocre Labor government that overpromised and woefully underdelivered since coming to office in 2022, and an underprepared and underpowered conservative opposition.
Just two months ago, it seemed the electorate’s anger with Labor was going to do what has not happened in Australia since the height of the Great Depression: turf out a first-term federal government. Liberal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, effectively had set the national agenda since Dutton opposed Albanese’s 2023 divisive referendum to give Aboriginal Australians a constitutionally-guaranteed ‘voice’ in governing the country, while Albanese’s government floundered on cost-of-living and border security. He also fanatically pursued its near-irrational obsession to make Australia a ‘renewable energy superpower’, despite its impact on energy prices and threatening the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Australians dependent on the country’s abundant coal and gas resources.
But from early February, the Liberal-National party coalition has gone from almost unbackable favourite to likely losers.
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