Mon Mar 23

Risk-averse voters want caution and visible reform. Can Albanese deliver both?

Written by: Intifar Chowdhury, Lecturer in Government, Jeff Bleich Centre for Democracy and Disruptive Technologies, Flinders University

As citizens, we decide whether governments deserve to be rewarded, punished or replaced – often with imperfect information. The First Albanese Government ^[1] offers a clear‑eyed account, as Labor proceeds through its second term, of its first: the reforms, missteps and limits.

As a political scientist, I am – by training and instinct – in the business of criticising political parties. That usually means cataloguing failure, inconsistency and over-promising. But this book pushed me to realise how narrow the space for governing has become within a single term.

Review: The First Albanese Government: Governing in an Age of Disruption and Division, 2022–2025, edited by John Hawkins, Michelle Grattan and John Halligan (New South)

Chief political correspondent at The Conversation, Michelle Grattan, asks in her essay: how hard is it to govern ^[2]? Contemporary governments face extraordinary changes and complexities.

The recent surge of populism – reflected in support for One Nation ^[3] – is one. Then there’s our fragmented public square, pressure for instant answers in a fast-moving news cycle, and communication technologies such as social media, which facilitate governing but industrialise misinformation and intimidation.

Add in Australia’s short federal terms and the logic of permanent campaigning, reinforced by constant polling and media churn, and it’s easy to see why ministers can become burdened by performance at the expense of deep policy work. The electorate’s increasing share ^[4] of young voters, I think, adds to these challenges. Younger voters are often more willing to shop around beyond the major parties – sometimes across ideologically strange combinations – and more willing to punish than to commit.

Given these challenges, how did the first Albanese government perform, and what can we expect from its second term? Albo’s first take This book’s greatest contribution is its careful evidence and disciplined judgement. It assesses the changing composition of Australia’s parliaments, evaluates the government’s performance across key policy areas, and considers where reform might head next.

Finally, it places the government in historical perspective. Labor won the 2022 election with the lowest share ^[5] of the primary vote since the 1930s, amid deep disillusionment with political parties and a surge in support for independents – especially the high‑profile women known as the “teals”. It inherited a long to‑do list, including restoring Australia’s reputation on gender equality and climate change, and repairing relationships with global partners, particularly China.

It all unfolded against a volatile global backdrop, including wars in Ukraine and Israel–Gaza. At home, high inflation, a cost‑of‑living crisis, declining housing and rental affordability – and a large post‑COVID immigration intake – placed intense pressure on the government.

Cautious, timid – or even boring?

The contributors consistently characterise Albanese’s first term as cautious. For some, it borders on timidity. Albanese is repeatedly described as a pair of “safe hands in uncertain times”, governing through small, incremental adjustments – rather than pursuing bold, transformative reform.

While the book’s tone is not uniform, there is a clear undercurrent of frustration. Several contributors suggest the government shied away from major structural change even when political conditions may have allowed more ambition. On immigration, for example, demographer Liz Allen notes the government “missed some significant opportunities […] to show leadership in reframing the populist population panic”.

I am sympathetic to this assessment, but the government’s caution could well be learned behaviour. Australian voters are wary of radical changes.

Labor’s recent history looms large here. The Rudd government’s election loss, after trying and failing to introduce the resources super profits tax, is a powerful cautionary tale. So is Bill Shorten’s 2019 election defeat after proposing an ambitious tax reform agenda that included ^[6] action on negative gearing and reducing capital gains tax discounts.

Political researcher Brendan McCaffrie calls Albanese’s government “boring compared to recent predecessors”: so much so that “a leadership challenge never felt likely”.

Limited housing reform

The consequences of Albanese’s caution are most evident in housing policy. His government had a modest agenda on social housing investment and offered more support to vulnerable renters. But the incremental approach and hesitant rollout of these policies limited their immediate impact on Australians’ lives.

The record is mixed elsewhere, too. Public health reforms were uneven, aged care was largely deferred to a second term, and aside from childcare, there was no immediate, agenda‑setting education reform.

Several contributors, including environmental experts Evan Hamman and Jacki Schirmer, attribute this pattern to the way three‑year electoral cycles inhibit long‑term policy development and implementation. Have Australia’s term limits become a constraint on governing ambition?

The consequences of Albanese’s caution are most evident in housing policy. AAP

The Voice referendum stands out as the exception. It was a bold gamble – and its failure was devastating. As Indigenous studies lecturer Bartholomew Stanford notes, the referendum agenda had a massive hole in it, and its failure felt like an election loss. Paradoxically, this moment of ambition only sharpened perceptions of caution elsewhere.

What emerges most clearly is the opportunity presented by the second term. Its political capital secured, the government may finally move beyond promising and begin governing more boldly, argue many contributors.

This includes revisiting politically sensitive reforms such as negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. Treasury is in fact considering ^[7] both for the May budget.

Generational change

I think this book circles a blunt political reality: Labor’s second-term win was not a straightforward endorsement of major-party politics, so much as a verdict on the available alternatives.

The book’s contributors frankly say the Coalition’s collapse in credibility mattered. “The Opposition had run what many believed the worst federal campaign in memory,” writes Grattan. This reframes the competition. A government can win office, even win again, while still governing an electorate whose attachment to the party system is loosening.

I think the book is thinner on the demographic tide beneath this development. It nods to the weakening of major-party loyalties, but there is little on generational replacement and the politics it brings.

Young voters’ wariness of major parties has consequences for Labor’s identity. As the party has moved away from its traditional base of blue-collar workers, it has come to rely more on educated, city-based progressive voters, who can and do find alternatives in the Greens and independents.

Those alternatives frequently push expansive social and climate agendas. But Labor, as a party of government, must compromise across a broader coalition of voters.

In my view, the changing demographic tides and how they shape government action deserved a chapter of their own.

Can Labor do better?

This electoral environment, I believe, is the real answer to the book’s question of whether governing is harder today. I think it is: not only due to complex problems, but because the evaluation of the government is relentless.

Voters are not short of information, but that information is constantly contested, framed and weaponised. Historian Frank Bongiorno warns “the uncertainties of the global economic and strategic environment may make voters even more risk-averse than they have been in the past”. To me, that lands.

Risk-averse electorates reward caution. At the same time, they demand visible impact. This is a hard circle to square.

Looking ahead, I argue the unresolved question is not just whether Labor can govern competently. It is whether it can build a durable constituency in a low-loyalty electorate – and whether it can articulate distinctly Labor ideas in an era where risk aversion pushes it toward caution, and grievance punishes it for just that.

That is why the second term matters. It will decide whether Labor remains a government that wins by default, or becomes one that wins by persuasion.