Majority rules
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese finds himself in a surprisingly dominant position as the clock winds down on the year in parliament.
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese strode into his first parliamentary sitting week of 2025, few could have imagined the situation he would face in his last.
In February, Labor’s most confident staffers would say the government should be able to hold its three-seat majority, despite trailing the Coalition 51-49 in that month’s Newspoll.
Peter Dutton was expected by staffers on both sides — and by us — to carry three years of disciplined messaging through to election day. A hung parliament looked possible, but even a narrow Labor win would likely have left Dutton, who was always running a two-term strategy, in the chair.
Instead, Dutton’s disastrous performance from March onwards, combined with a sharply executed Labor campaign, produced a very different reality.
