PM in Caribbean as rate pain and poll woes mount
Will Nicholas |
It might be a good week for the prime minister to be in the Caribbean.
Borrowers are expected to be hit with another interest rate hike, putting more focus on Labor’s economic credentials as polls highlight lacklustre support for the government and a bounce for the coalition.
Core support for Labor was at its equal lowest level since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came to power in 2022, according to the latest Newspoll.
Labor’s share of the primary vote was 27 per cent, behind One Nation on 28 per cent but ahead of the coalition on 21 per cent, the poll published in The Australian on Monday revealed.
Support for the Liberal-National opposition has steadily increased since bottoming out in August, with a separate Capital Brief/DemosAU poll putting the coalition’s primary vote at 24 per cent – up four points and just two behind Labor.
Mr Albanese will spend the week in Antigua and Barbuda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, holding talks with King Charles, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Back home, his party will spend much of that time fending off blame for an anticipated fifth cash rate hike for 2026 on Tuesday.
Opponents will pin the expected Reserve Bank move on stubborn inflation fuelled by public spending, while Labor will largely chalk it up to global pressures.
The government is facing pressure to nominate significant savings in December’s budget update as borrowers grapple with higher borrowing costs.
“We’ve improved the bottom line in every budget and every budget update,” Finance Minister Katy Gallagher told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.
“NDIS, health care, aged care, defence spending and interest on government debt … there were all of these issues that we had to deal with.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers recorded the lowest net approval rating among senior government ministers, according to the Newspoll, at 16 per cent, behind only the prime minister at minus 23 per cent.
Questions will also linger over a $6 million grant for the prime minister’s local golf course at Marrickville after Mr Albanese on Tuesday admitted he “was not correct” in saying the money had gone to sewerage upgrades.
The revelation reopened the saga over Labor’s $560 million community infrastructure program, which predominantly funnelled money to its own electorates.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said the scheme was more above-board than past examples of pork-barrelling because Labor had been up-front about the fact it was a non-competitive scheme.
“Sports rorts, the car park rorts, some of the other rorted programs that we saw under the former government, they were supposed to be competitive programs … that’s not what happened here,” he said.
He also hit out at One Nation after its leader Pauline Hanson accused the prime minister of trying to bribe the minor party’s MP, David Farley, with the offer of an extra staffer.
“What we’re seeing from One Nation is that they’re not a normal political party – there’s a huge amount of control that is exerted by unelected, shadowy figures,” he said, mentioning party director James Ashby by name when pressed.
AAP