Labor primary vote slumps as Albanese attends CHOGM in Caribbean

The federal government has started the week with a poll showing Labor's primary vote at its equal lowest level since Anthony Albanese won the last election. The result came while the prime minister was in the Caribbean for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and with another interest rate rise expected this week.

The poll also had bad news for senior ministers. Voters marked down Treasurer Jim Chalmers heavily, and many Australians did not recognise the acting prime minister.

Nine News chief political editor Charles Croucher discussed the numbers on 4BC Brisbane. He said MPs read the polls because their jobs depend on the next election result. The general view in the Labor caucus, he said, was that this was a mid-term slump. Caucus members also believed the government could recover over the 18 months ahead, because neither the caucus nor the opposition had an obvious alternative leader.

A primary vote with a 2 in front of it still caused concern, Croucher said, because it put MPs' livelihoods at risk and they wanted to know how it would be fixed.

The presenter said he had started hearing rumblings from inside the party, with people leaking material. Croucher agreed that leaks tend to produce more leaks. He said Albanese kept a tight grip on the caucus, but the size of the last election win had left a large number of MPs. He expected frustration to grow next year as first and second-term backbenchers wondered when their promotions would come, and whether older MPs would step aside. Without the shield of good polling, he said, the argument that MPs should stick with the leader to keep winning elections would be harder to make.

The poll also suggested low name recognition for other ministers. The presenter said Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles was not widely known, and Health Minister Mark Butler was in the same position. Croucher said the government's public focus had been on Albanese, Chalmers and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

He pointed to global pressures, including the war in the Middle East, but said responsibility for fixing the economy fell to the treasurer. If interest rates rose, he said, the blame would land on Albanese and Chalmers. He said prime ministers and treasurers tend to rise and fall together, citing Hawke and Keating, Howard and Costello, and Rudd and Swan. That meant, he said, that any hope in the Prime Minister's Office that a lower rating for Chalmers would protect Albanese was misplaced.

Albanese has faced criticism for being in the Caribbean at a time of cost-of-living pressure. Croucher said the prime minister had little choice, as the King had asked leaders to attend. He noted that it was a busy summit season, with the COP summit in Turkey, a Quad summit in the Philippines involving Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, and then APEC in China.