Australian PM Albanese faces deteriorating polls even after China success
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A poll this week showed Mr Albanese’s net approval rating turned negative for the first time since he took office 18 months ago.
PHOTO: REUTERS
SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is confronting falling approval ratings midway through his first term, with an increasingly anxious electorate brushing aside his recent run of diplomatic successes and international agreements.
An Essential Media poll this week showed Mr Albanese’s net approval rating turned negative for the first time since he took office 18 months ago.
Some 35 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied with his performance, while 33 per cent approved, for an overall reading of minus 2 per cent.
Three months earlier, more Australians supported Mr Albanese than disapproved – with 37 per cent in favour and 29 per cent against.
Australians are fretting about stubbornly high inflation and interest rates
A poll by Resolve also released this week found the primary vote for the Labor government had dropped to 35 per cent, the lowest level since the election in May 2022.
A Newspoll earlier in November gave the opposition centre-right Liberal National Coalition its best result in more than two years.
Australia is not due to hold an election until at least May 2025.
Speaking in Parliament on Monday, Mr Albanese defended his government’s economic record, saying it is working to bring down inflation and is providing cost-of-living relief for Australians.
“We’ve created 550,000 jobs since we came to office – more jobs have been created on our watch than under any first-term government in Australia’s history,” he said. “And we did something those opposite never did: We turned a A$78 billion (S$68.5 billion) deficit into a A$22 billion surplus.”
The government has been constrained from providing more help to voters by the need to restrain spending in order to avoid adding to inflation pressures.
Mr Albanese’s worsening approval rating contrasts sharply with his high-profile overseas visits in recent weeks.
These saw him feted at the White House, finalise a restoration of relations with China
At home, the Prime Minister suffered a political blow in October when his signature referendum to create an Indigenous advisory body to Parliament was soundly rejected by Australian voters
That prompted the initial criticism that he had been more focused on social reforms than on the economic difficulties of the electorate.
Mr Albanese’s international travel has been turned against him by the opposition, with some lawmakers taunting him as “Airbus Albo”.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton, a former policeman from Queensland, said on Wednesday that Mr Albanese should cancel his trip to Apec in the United States this week to focus on domestic concerns.
“It’s clear to many Australians that the wheels are falling off the government,” Mr Dutton told reporters in Canberra. BLOOMBERG
