During the election campaign of 2022, one got the impression that Labor Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, didn’t take winning the election too seriously. When questioned about the Reserve Bank’s interest rate and unemployment rate, Albanese couldn’t answer either; and this was Labor’s Leader campaigning to be Prime Minister.

Elections are said be lost, not won, and this is true of the 2022 election. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s public approval rating had taken a battering since the bushfires of summer 2019, and was hit with a host of internal party problems throughout his last term. Fast-forward to 2023 with new Leader Anthony Albanese and his public approval rating has finally taken a drastic dive.

Albanese’s Vote for a Better Future has not come to fruition. So, let’s break down the year that was for the Albanese government.

The push for Green Energy has given everyone a glimpse of the cost to transition, with green projects slow off the mark, questions of power storage and reliability, and a de-commissioning agenda of coal-fired power stations. In principle good, but the delivery has proven costly and slow. The infrastructure transition from coal energy to green is estimated to be $320 billion by 2050. The question that arises, from initial concept to delivery, is whether some of the technologies we have now will be redundant by the time the scheme is completed.

The public also saw corporate debauchery when the curtain was pulled back on Qantas’ business model. Headlines of a whopping $2.47 billion profit for the carrier was reassuring after Covid, only for complaints to follow that tickets had allegedly been sold for cancelled flights. Nothing to do with Labor! Wait, there’s more. Meanwhile, the Labor government blocked Qatar airways entry into the market, while Albanese’s son was given membership to the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge. The saga ended with the resignation of CEO Alan Joyce.

Aukus was suddenly back on the agenda, but for all the wrong reasons. America had second thoughts about selling off eight of its submarines as it may weaken their strategic capabilities. Labor are now reeling from the possibility of an Aukus rejection and don’t want to look like the party that lost what the Liberal Party had started. Richard Marles has been front and centre talking up even stronger Aukus ties with technology sharing between the countries. All this as China watches from the sidelines.

The Voice to Parliament referendum took up most of Albanese’s time, with the long game proving not to be a good strategy. Albanese placed all his bets on the Voice getting over the line. He and Labor counted on the referendum going his way to propel his popularity and to cement a huge legacy. The only problem is it failed – spectacularly. Concentrating exclusively on one issue damaged his credibility and has left the public questioning whether he has any answers to important domestic issues. His lack of answers was highlighted by the fact that when the going got tough, Albanese left town on a jet to attend meetings that might have been better served by any number of ministers.

Cost of living was not part of the government narrative. No economic plan had cut through the noise. The public has been left with unanswered questions on higher petrol prices, interest rate hikes, housing affordability, loan repayments, shortage of rental properties, electricity prices up by 20 per cent, grocery inflation up almost 5 per cent, and the list goes on.

Meanwhile, Peter Dutton has stepped up his attacks on Albanese’s leadership and on the failures of Labor’s border security. Dutton appears to be more Prime Minister material – than the actual prime minister. Dutton is right now in a position of actually setting the agenda as Labor appear clueless as to what to do next.

If Labor have any chance of winning the next election, there will have to be a change in approach. That change will not only have to be with words, but with actions, hard work and great efforts to bring down inflation, cut power bills, and take care of domestic border policy.

If they fail to do this, there is someone ready and waiting to take Albanese’s place.