Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will kick off his bid for a third term with a promise of more cost-of-living cuts to tackle the financial problems fueling One Nation’s rise while expanding a program to pay health workers while they study.
However, Labor ministers are playing down the prospect of a pre-war gas sales tax at its national conference on a popular proposal, signaling tension in Labor ranks over how Albanians are following populist causes.
In a speech to the Labor faithful on Thursday that Albanians will use to prepare battle lines for the election, the prime minister will draw on 135 years of Labor tradition on practical responses to raise workers’ living standards rather than “opposing the system … without a plan to fix it”.
Albanians will say that “people have been given every reason to feel like the economy is not working for them” as he seeks to boost the political status of the government and meet pessimistic voters where they are.
“That goes beyond emotion – it’s a reality that people are protesting,” he will say, according to an early transcript of his speech, noting that he was running on “turbulent seas” after a series of economic crises and an oil crisis caused by the Middle East war.
Read more: The Prime Minister sets the battle lines for the election with One Nation, and promises the relief of life
