Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has summoned elections for May 3beginning what is expected to be a very close campaign focused on the pressures of the cost of living and a housing crisis in a slow economy.
Albanese is campaigning to become the first Australian leader in more than two decades to win consecutive elections, a symptom of the prolonged political fragmentation that has threatened the precious streak of prosperity of the nation.
In the Australian system, Westminster style, political parties form the government, which means that leaders can change between elections. As a result, since 2004 there have been seven prime ministers and only three changes of government.
Albanese’s opponent, liberal leader Peter Dutton, will try to take advantage of the global reaction against the rulers who caused the fall of governments worldwide in 2024. However, Australia has not dismissed a government in her first term in a century and Dutton – a former Queensland policeman – has to recover a lot of land.
“His decision has never been clearer,” said Albanese, leader of the Labor Party, to the press in Canberra on Friday. “These elections are a choice between the Labor Plan to continue building and Peter Dutton’s promises to cut expenses.”
The global uncertainty generated by President Donald Trump and his plans to impose broad scope tariffs, which will be announced next week, weighs on the campaign. Albanese has accused Dutton of copying foreign policies, a subtle indirect on the similarities between parts of the opposition program and those of the Trump administration.
In his first speech to voters since the election was convened, Dutton echoed Trump when asked if they were better now than three years ago, when the Labor Party was elected.
“We cannot afford three more years like the last three. There is a better way for our country,” Dutton said at a press conference in Brisbane on Friday morning.
The Albanese Center Government has been having difficulties in opinion surveys, with the Prime Minister’s approval index well below his usual level and his Labor Party tied with the coalition of liberal-national center right. Albanese and the Labor Party now have a five -week election campaign to reverse this situation.
When Albanese assumed the position in 2022, ending nine years of opposition from the Labor Party, he promised measures against climate change, the restoration of political integrity and more rights for the Australian indigenous people. However, much of his mandate has been marked by persistently high inflation and high interest rates, as well as a shortage of housing aggravated by the increase in immigration.
Now, their greatest promises for the 2025 campaign revolve around the relief of the cost of living: recently legislated tax cuts and an extension of reimbursements to help protect homes from increasing energy prices.
The Labor Party argues that the worst of the crisis of the cost of living has already happened, and highlights the deceleration of inflation and the decision of the Bank of the reserve last month of cutting the interest rates for the first time in more than four years.
The RBA meets again next week and is expected to keep financing costs this time, Waiting for new evidence that inflation is sustainably returning to its 2-3% target. The monetary markets expect that the Bank meeting of May 19 and 20 will be the next one in which interest rates are cut, which means it will be after the elections.
Few legislators expect Dutton to form their own government after the elections. However, among the members of his party there are hopes that he can recover enough frustrated seats in the suburban areas of Sydney and Melbourne to try to form a minority government.
At least, Dutton will try to force Albanese to form a minority government, with the aim of defeating him in the elections after it.
