A betting giant has given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese longer odds of beating Peter Dutton at the next federal election.
Sportsbet has Labor at $2.20 while the Coalition is at $1.66 in a further blow for Mr Albanese after three separate polls showed his party slipping behind the Opposition.
The expectation Mr Albanese will lose the election comes despite hopes the tide could change after a decline in inflation was announced on Wednesday and raised the prospect of interest rate cuts happening as early as February 18.
The consumer price index fell to 2.4 per cent in the December quarter – the lowest headline inflation level since March 2021.
The CPI has been inside the RBA’s two to three per cent target since the September quarter of last year, demonstrating the worst of the cost-of-living crisis is over.
The Commonwealth Bank and now Westpac are both forecasting rate cuts next month, followed by three more cuts by Christmas.
Underlying inflation, without volatile price items, is now at a three-year low of 3.2 per cent.
But easing inflationary pressures have failed to help Labor politically with multiple opinion polls since last year putting the Coalition in front, making Liberal leader Peter Dutton the favourite to become the next prime minister.
A betting giant has given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese longer odds of beating Peter Dutton at the next federal election
A Roy Morgan poll of 1,567 voters, taken during the Australia Day long weekend, had the Coalition leading Labor 52 to 48 per cent, after preferences.
Should a four per cent swing against the government materialise on election day, Labor would lose 13 seats, seeing its House of Representatives tally fall from 78 to 65.
The Coalition would have 70 seats, up from 57, and be better placed to form a minority government with six crossbenchers, including teal or conservative independents.
The Albanese Government would be the first one-term administration since Depression-era Labor PM James Scullin lost the 1931 election in a landslide.
A Newspoll published this week in The Australian had a majority of surveyed voters expecting the Coalition to win the next election.
A Resolve Political Monitor poll, published last week in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, had Mr Dutton as the preferred prime minister with 39 per cent support compared with 34 per cent for Mr Albanese.
While Australians have missed out on relief as rates have fallen overseas, Canadian borrowers have had not one but five rate cuts since last year.
The Bank of Canada’s policy rate of 3.25 per cent is also significantly lower than Australia’s equivalent cash rate of 4.35 per cent.
So is Canada’s headline inflation rate of 1.8 per cent.
But this still failed to help Justin Trudeau, who resigned as Canadian Prime Minister on January 6 so his centre-left Liberal Party could choose a new leader, with polls there showing a landslide win for the Opposition Conservative Party led by Pierre Poilievre.
Like his Australian counterpart, Mr Trudeau had also presided over high immigration that made housing even more expensive, giving voters little reason to forgive him as inflation moderated from the worst levels in decades.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers hailed the lower inflation as a vindication of Labor’s policies, but is now making less mention of the $300 electricity rebates.
‘If you look at the big drivers of this moderation in inflation, the big drivers were construction costs, rents, and insurance, and that, I think, is quite an encouraging sign that inflation is moderating more quickly than anticipated,’ he told reporters in Melbourne.
Labor is also arguing inflation has fallen without a big rise in unemployment, and is now trying to paint the Opposition as an enemy of cost-of-living help.
‘If we look at the impact of the cost-of-living measures over recent years on the pressures that people face right around Australia, it’s worth reminding people that Peter Dutton did not support cost-of-living help for Australians doing it tough,’ Dr Chalmers said.
