Treasurer Jim Chalmers says there is a “possibility” the Albanese government could lose power after one term, as polling suggests Labor and the Coalition are neck-and-neck.
Chalmers was asked on ABC Radio National Breakfast on Thursday if he conceded there was a “very real risk” Labor would not win a second term when Australians cast their ballots next year.
“Of course that’s a possibility,” Chalmers said. “We take no outcome of any election for granted and people have got a choice to make.”
Chalmers was also asked about comments from political commentator Niki Savva on Thursday. She wrote in a Nine newspapers column that if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wins the next election and forms majority or minority government, he should step down after a “decent interval” to allow Labor to regenerate.
The next federal election is set to be held in the next five months.
Chalmers was asked if he shared those views.
“One of the things that we’ve shown a capacity to do is regenerate under the same leader,” Chalmers said.
“My expectation and my hope is, if we do win the election next year, that Anthony Albanese serves the full term and runs again, that’s what I would expect to happen.”
Asked by host Particia Karvelas: “What’s wrong with change?”, Chalmers replied: “Well, I think one of the things that we’ll be taking to the Australian people is a sense of stability, a sense that we’ve got an economic plan.
“We’re rolling that out in difficult times, we’re helping people where we can, and that’s a tribute to Anthony’s leadership.”
Chalmers’ remarks came after a Australian National University study of more than 3,500 Australians, released on Wednesday but conducted in October, found trust in the government had declined since it was elected in 2022. Almost half of respondents had little to no trust in the government, up from about 40 per cent two years ago.
But it also found Albanese had a “significantly higher” favourability rating than Opposition leader Peter Dutton.
Separately, pollster Roy Morgan found this week that the Coalition was ahead of Labor 51-49 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, based on a poll on 1,666 voting-age Australians.
In his ABC interview, Chalmers also addressed economic questions after Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Wednesday showed living standards, measured by real disposable income per capita, had fallen more than 10 per cent since Labor took office in May 2022 as inflation and interest rates have eaten into household savings.
The economy grew at its slowest annual rate since the 1990s recession, outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, at just 0.8 per cent.
Without government spending, the economy would have gone backwards for the quarter.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) has a higher favourability rating than Opposition leader Peter Dutton (right), according to a recent Australian National University survey. Source: AAP
Chalmers claimed government cost-of-living measures like energy rebates had helped ease the burden for Australians doing it tough.
“When we came to office, people were already going very substantially backwards,” he told ABC Radio National on Thursday.
“We acknowledge that they’ve got a lot of ground to make up in their household budgets.”
Nationals leader David Littleproud said the government failed to fix the fundamentals behind the sluggish economy, instead throwing money at the problem with
The next federal election is set to be held sometime in the next five months.
Chalmers said he planned to deliver the next federal budget in March.
With reporting by the Australian Associated Press.
