‘Insipid and weak’: What voters think of Anthony Albanese

From Schwartz Media.

I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. Get a bunch of people into a room and ask them what they think of the Prime minister. That's what posters have been doing all year, and hundreds of groups have spoken to thousands of people. And the picture that has emerged of what the public thinks of Anthony Alberesi isn't pretty, with approval ratings approaching to Lowe's Scott Morrison had before being

Jace, thanks for joining us, Daniel, it's great to be with you.

So Anthony Albertezi has been relentlessly focused group this year. What's been the top line assessment?

So right throughout this year we've seen the government's numbers in the published opinion polls follow a steady declinient. And that's also something that's been reflected in the qualitative research that polling companies do, these so called focus groups. And Coyle Samaras, who's the director of strategy for Redbridge, I spoke to him this week and he told me that his company have done about four hundred and fifty focus

Voters consider Anthony Albanesi to be the weakest prime minister in decades according to the latest News poll out today.

So there's the numbers what a people been saying about him in these focus groups.

I think the message that Caause has been hearing is that the Prime Minister is constantly having to explain himself for things that you know, are slightly difficult for him to explain, things like buying the four point three million dollar house.

Anthony Alberizi is the proud new owner of a Central Coast beach house worth more than four million dollars, but political rivals have hit out at the Prime Minister's purchase in the middle of a housing crisis, having.

To explain his relationship with Alan Joyce.

I recall direct discussions with Alan Joyce over over the flights the Emirates or Quantity.

Anthian Alberenezi has seen to have a close relationship with him and to have accepted upgrades to her Quantus flights over all the years.

That he's been in Parliament.

He's had to explain why his son Nathan has been made a member of the Chairman's lodge.

Aston broke the stories about the Quantus Chairman's club membership for Albaneze's son, the sweetheart deal as Darton calls it, with Quantas over Katar.

These are things that Anthony Albanezi would rather not be talking about. And this is gradually sort of dragged down his kind of popularity with voters, and people are saying that perhaps this Prime Minister is not really focused on solving the problems that really matter to us, where the main problem is housing affordability. So I think that's the main takeout from causes focus groups.

And it sounds like some of the criticism has been quite personal as well.

That's right, people are. You know, they came to see Scott Morrison as too trickier a politician, a politician they couldn't really trust, But there was still this kind of residual respect for the personal side of Scott Morrison. There was nothing about Scott Morrison's personal life that voters really sort of disagreed with.

They thought he was an honorable dad.

I'm here with Lily and we are here to build a cubby house today and here we go.

We've been to Bunnings.

But perhaps you know that's not the case with Anthony Albanezi, that they see him as someone who's buying mansions, getting freebies, and I think that's starting to affect people's voting intentions.

So how does the perception of Anthony Albanezi now compared to when he won the twenty twenty two election.

Well, if you look at the.

Like the averages of all the published opinion polls, what we see now is that there's quite a big gap in the two party preferred vote. The Guardian runs a poll average and they've got the current two party preferred vote for the Coalition at around fifty two and a half point compared to forty seven and a half points for Labor. So that's quite a big gap five points and if that's our people actually voted in the next federal election, then that would be a landslide victory for

How did it go so wrong?

Well, one of the people that I spoke to for this story was Paul Stranger, the emeritus professor of Politics at Monish University. And according to Paul, there's an entrenched view now of Anthony Albanesi as a well intentioned politician, but someone who's also insipid and weak and more a

And even though we had a deli aage of legislation in.

The final week of the parliamentary year, that's really done nothing to fundamentally alter the picture that voters have of of Albanesi.

And he's been in Parliament for a long time. He's elected in nineteen ninety six. Does that ply into his image problems in terms of being seen as part of the political class that has caused a lot of these structural issues for the Australian economy.

I think that's absolutely right.

He's been in parliament so long that it becomes very difficult, I think, to really stay in touch with the needs of ordinary people, and I think you come to believe that your judgment is better than everyone else's, and it becomes very difficult to take advice to listen when people question your judgment.

And I think it's almost certain.

That if he does hang on and remain Prime Minister after the election, it will be in a minority government that he forms with members of the cross Bench. But it's also quite possible that he won't get enough seats to even form a minority government, and that Peter Utton ends up being the one most likely to be able to form a government after the election and become Prime minister.

After the break. Why Peter Dutton isn't as unpopular as you think, So, Jason, we've been talking about how the public views Anthony Albanezi at this moment. Let's just talk a bit more about how voters view Peter Dutton as the alternative prime minister.

Well I spoke to a senior Liberal Party official who has seen a lot of the research that the Liberal Party is doing, and one of the things that is really coming through in the coalition's research is that this idea that Peter Dutton is unelectable is not true anymore if it was ever true and out of step with current voter sentiment. And you know, while Peter Dutton does have that kind of quite severe look when you first look at Peter Dutton, you might think gets it's difficult

Okay, So we have these different perceptions of the leader of the opposition and the Prime minister. Do you have any sense of how this might translate electorally.

Look, I think it's really difficult to project who's going to win the election because elections are always close, the polls always tightened as we get closer to polling day. And this is a government that's still in its first term. And we've never had a one term government since Joseph Scullen was Prime Minister in nineteen thirty one, and it took the Great Depression to toss his government out after one term.

I remember it well, and I don't.

Think anyone thinks that the economy is as bad today as it was in the early nineteen thirties, But we can't rely on historical precedent to say that that's going to guarantee Anthony Albinezi a second term of government. The other thing to remember is that his majority in the House of Representatives is only two seats that when he

And I think, yeah, with that margin.

Of only two seats, it's very difficult to see how it can hang on to majority government. It seems to me that minority government is the most likely outcome, but whether it's a minority government with Anthony Albanesi at the top or Peter Dutton, it's probably too difficult to tell at this point.

So it says so much is actually hanging on the type of campaign Albanesi will run.

What can we.

Expect from the campaign and Albanese's ability to cut through well.

I think that's one of the things that Anthony Albanezi has on his side, Paul Erickson, who is the National Secretary of the ALP, and that the campaign team that he has built around him are very good campaigners. Anthony Albanezi himself is not a great campaigner. We saw that in twenty twenty two when perhaps the best moments of the campaign for Labor was when Anthony Albanezi had to take himself off the field because he got COVID.

Were we ready to rock and roll?

All right?

Well, the boss has got the boat, so you got mate. I just spoke to Albow and he's doing okay. He's also got a pretty strong front bench.

When you look at some of the people who are in the ministry now and you compare that to Peter Dutton's front bench, then you'd probably say that Peter Dutton's team is not quite ready for government yet.

So that's another advantage. I think that the PMAs.

And finally Jason, when it comes to turning that negative approval around. What's Anthony Albanese's biggest challenge now? How can he start to change people's minds.

I think one thing that the government would be hoping for between now and polling day is that the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates. But in terms of what Albanese can do to change voters' perceptions of him, I don't think there really is much that he can do. As we said before, he's been in Parliament for nearly

He did get a lot of legislation through last.

Year which he's going to hope will start to make a difference when it comes to things like the housing crisis. There are other things that the government has done on things like medicare.

So I think the key thing.

For Albanezi and his government is to be able to offer a vision that is more optimistic, more positive than what Peter Dutton will be offering during the election campaign.

Well let's just watch this space. Jason, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Daniel, always great to talk to you.

Also in the news today, the Federal government has announced its offering low interest loans on electric vehicles valued up to fifty five thousand dollars. Loans will be offered at interest rates up to five percentage points lower than standard for workers earning less than one hundred thousand dollars a year, as well as essentil workers such as teachers, nurses and