Anthony Albanese has assured nervous Government MPs that Labor will be “kicking with the wind in the fourth quarter” ahead of the next election, claiming their political opponents in the Greens, One Nation and Coalition are now fighting for “the fringes”.
Addressing a caucus meeting in Canberra, the Prime Minister also mocked Josh Frydenberg’s recent string of media interviews promoting his new book, describing the former Liberal Treasurer as the “Shadow Opposition Leader”.
With opinion polls showing Mr Albanese’s popularity continuing to decline amid a growing cost of living crisis and backlash to budget broken promises, the PM moved to assure his colleagues that political momentum would soon swing their way.
“This Liberal Party has abandoned any pretence of being a centre-right party, they withdrew the Liberal Party from the mainstream,” he told colleagues while referring to Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s weekend speech to the conservative CPAC event.
The PM also told Labor MPs that the Greens had made a factional decision to go to the fringes while the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation were fighting for the right-wing fringes.
“We keep our focus on jobs and the economy . . . as some caucus members who were here in 2019 will have heard me say before, ‘we will be kicking with the wind in the fourth quarter’,” he assured the caucus meeting.
Labor figures say since becoming leader after the party’s 2019 election loss Mr Albanese has regularly used the football “fourth quarter” analogy, and reminded colleagues of it after securing victories in 2022 and 2025.
Inside the meeting, Mr Albanese also took aim at former Liberal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg who in recent days has criticised his own party’s recent poor electoral performance and called for controversial policy ideas such as increasing the GST.
“The shadow opposition leader has never lacked confidence in his own capacity, but when he had an opportunity to act, he never delivered an energy policy, and as treasurer, he never delivered a surplus,” the PM said of Mr Frydenberg.
Mr Albanese also assured Labor MPs that the Government’s various policies addressing Australia’s rising cost of living were also aimed at “long-term investment for the future”, including free TAFE, cheaper medicines and childcare reforms which improve productivity.
“We’ve done all this while creating a million jobs and setting ourselves up with industry policy for long-term jobs growth,” Mr Albanese told Labor MPs.