BRISBANE: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a A$7.2bil (US$4.5bil) funding to upgrade a highway in opposition-controlled Queensland, fuelling speculation that national elections may be announced soon.
The funding is “the single-largest investment ever into the Bruce Highway”, which supports around 62% of passengers, freight and tourists across Queensland, Albanese said in a joint media release with Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Infrastructure Minister Catherine King.
Local media reported that the investment is likely the first of a series of announcements this week aimed at critical seats that Albanese’s Labour Party needs to win or retain in this year’s election.
Opinion polls show voters are increasingly frustrated by Australia’s economic conditions with interest rates at a 13-year high and prices still rising.
“The 2025 election will be a clear choice: Labour building Australia’s future, or a coalition determined to return Australia backward and costing more under Peter Dutton”, Albanese later told reporters in Gympie, Queensland yesterday. “That is a choice Australians will have.”
Albanese, who ended 2024 lagging centre-right Liberal Party leader Dutton in the opinion polls, is on a week-long tour through Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. He said the highway upgrade funding in Queensland was not in a “target seat” for the federal elections, to be held by May.
Still, Queensland in October became Australia’s first mainland state to elect a centre-right government in more than 18 months, breaking the Labour Party’s hold on power.
Meanwhile, Western Australia heads to state polls in March, officially kicking off the election season this year.
“It is definitely firming up that the month of April is when most Australians will be heading to the polls,” Kos Samaras, a former Labour strategist and director of political research organisation Redbridge Group told the Australian Broadcasting Corp yesterday.
When asked if the government was planning federal elections in April, Albanese would only say he was “planning a 2025 election”. — Bloomberg
