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theglobeandmail. com
 
April 25, 2025
Early voting under way in Australia for general election dramatically 
reshaped by Trump

People arrive at a polling station as early voting begins in Sydney, 
Australia, on April 22. Mark Baker/The Associated Press

Early voting is under way in Australia as the country heads into a general 
election on May 3, which, like Canadas, has been dramatically reshaped by 
the return to power of U. S. President Donald Trump.

Heading into 2025, things were looking bad for Prime Minister Anthony 
Albaneses Labor Party: inflation, housing and the overall cost of living 
were all up, while an unsuccessful and often bitter referendum to expand 
Indigenous rights had turned off many voters. Mr. Albanese had to call a 
general election by mid-May, and amid a worldwide anti-incumbency wave, it 
seemed the conservative Liberal-National Coalition, which governed 
Australia from 2013 to 2022, would be swept back into office.

Then came Mr. Trump. The chaos wrought by the U. S. President since January 
has upended polls in Australia, with Labor now leading the Coalition in 
most surveys, due in large part to the unpopularity of Liberal Leader Peter 
Dutton, a former police officer who modelled himself as an anti-woke 
Australian Trump, until that became a political liability.

Australians view Trumps agenda as contrary to our interests in many ways, 
said Ryan Neelam, director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program 
at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. We found very high rates of disapproval 
for pretty much all of his policies that we put to Australians. That should 
be a clue for anybody seeking to echo or shadow Trumps agenda that it wont 
go down well with the public.

Recent polling by Lowy found Australians trust in the U. S. has dropped to 
a 20-year low, with 64 per cent of respondents holding a negative view of 
Washington since Mr. Trump took office, compared to 44 per cent last year.

We expected to see some diminution in trust, Mr. Neelam said. But this is 
much larger in terms of magnitude than we predicted.

Labors improved fortunes are not just due to Mr. Trump: recent months have 
seen the economy pick up, while both the Prime Minister and his Treasurer, 
Jim Chalmers, have made a strong case for being better positioned to 
respond to potential U. S. tariffs than the Coalition.

But if the election was being fought purely on kitchen-table issues, Labor 
would likely be headed to the opposition benches. Most polling has put the 
Coalition ahead when it comes to handling the economy  though this has 
narrowed in the final stretch  and Mr. Dutton has repeatedly blasted the 
government for overseeing what he said was the worst collapse in living 
standards in the developed world, with higher borrowing, inflation and 
utility bills.

There are pretty solid fundamentals for why a government might expect to be 
tossed out, said Mark Kenny, director of the Canberra-based Australian 
Studies Institute.

Even as polls show Mr. Albanese is poised to be the first Australian leader 
to lead his party to back-to-back election victories in more than two 
decades, the Prime Minister said he is certainly not getting ahead of 
myself, acknowledging Labor still faced a mountain to climb to stay in 
power.

Having Mr. Dutton as his foil has made things easier however, and Mr. 
Albanese has at times appeared to relish sticking the boot into his gaffe-
prone opponent, who has repeatedly made negative headlines over the 
campaign and struggled to reinvent himself in voters eyes.

After Mr. Dutton appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price  a controversial 
Indigenous senator who spearheaded the No campaign in the 2023 referendum  
as shadow minister for government efficiency, a role clearly modelled on 
Mr. Trump and Elon Musks so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. 
Albanese accused him of being policy lazy and said Australians dont have to 
adopt all of Americas policies.

Ms. Price hasnt helped Mr. Duttons efforts to distance himself from the U. 
S. leader by being photographed wearing one of Mr. Trumps signature 
baseball hats and saying in a speech  as Mr. Dutton stood alongside her  
that the Coalition would make Australia great again. (She has since said 
wearing a MAGA hat was a family joke and accused the media of being Trump 
obsessed. )

In an April focus group run by News. com. au, Liberal voters across the 
country were asked their opinion on both the major party leaders, and were 
not complimentary about either, with Mr. Albanese described as weak.

But the results were more damning for Mr. Dutton, with even supporters of 
his party saying the first words that came to mind about him were extreme, 
creepy, aggro, charmless, and too Trumpy.

Prof. Kenny said Mr. Duttons Trumpist-pivot would likely have hurt him even 
without the U. S. Presidents global trade war, as Australias compulsory 
voting system  a rarity in much of the democratic world  tends to benefit 
moderate politicians and hurt those on the extreme.

Indeed, this was the case in the last election, when Labor benefited from 
the so-called teal wave, a shift in many traditionally Liberal seats toward 
more moderate independents, many of whom were critical of the governments 
hard right policies on climate and social issues.

When youve got to get out the vote, the two most important things you can 
do is make people scared or angry or sometimes both, Prof. Kenny said. 
Thats not a system designed to emphasize the middle, whereas Australian 
elections have historically been about the broad middle ground.