Australians have been given their first glimpse of the federal government's campaign as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese kicked off 2025 with an election-style tour.
Albanese began his blitz in the key state of Queensland, announcing $7.2 billion in funding to upgrade the 1,600km-long Bruce Highway.
Used by almost two in every three Queenslanders, , recording more than 40 fatalities in 2024 and another two deaths since Wednesday.
"Today's announcement ... will save lives," Albanese said in Gympie on Monday.
It's the biggest single investment any government has made to fix the Bruce Highway and signals the forward-facing nature of Labor's latest round of messaging.
"The 2025 election will be a clear choice: Labor building Australia's future, or a Coalition determined to turn Australia backwards," Albanese said.
He is expected to journey through far-north Queensland before chasing votes in knife-edge electorates across the Northern Territory and Western Australia later in the week.
'A national embarrassment'
The multibillion-dollar promise was popular with Queensland LNP Premier David Crisafulli, who said: "The Bruce Highway is a national embarrassment."
"It is a death trap and this is a step towards resuming what should always be the case: that is the federal government carrying the lion's share of the money and the Queensland government getting on and delivering it."
But Crisafulli's federal counterparts criticised the funding pledge, with Senator Susan McDonald calling it a "farce".
"Labor at all levels has shown scant regard for Queensland's regional roads and it's sad that the only time Anthony Albanese cares about it is when there's an election looming," she said.
Politicians usually return to work closer to Australia Day but with an election due by 17 May, Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton have continued to show their faces.
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie said the "campaigning" was bizarre.
"You never see anybody running around campaigning during the Christmas period," she told ABC News.
"I'm not sure how that's going to go down with Australians but, quite frankly, the worst time to do it is the three weeks over Christmas."
Cost of living a key election issue
The cost of living has chipped away at the government's favourability, with the December Newspoll showing two-party-preferred support dropped to 50-50 as Labor lost key demographics.
With several marginal seats in play, Queensland is crucial.
An LNP win at the state's election in October helped shore up support for the federal Opposition.
But recent polling shows both major parties have lost ground in Queensland, with the coalition's primary vote dropping two points to 41 per cent and Labor's falling one point to 29 per cent.
Albanese will try to win back public opinion in the coming days by vowing to take pressure off families with investments in health, child care and housing.
But his government will need help from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to convince voters and there are only — and provide much-needed financial relief — before 17 May.
Mortgage holders and the government hope a weaker consumer price index (CPI) will bolster the case for an interest rate cut at RBA's first meeting of the year in February.
While the CPI for November, to be released on Wednesday, will contain important details, RBA usually puts more emphasis on the comprehensive quarterly release, due later in January.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers remains optimistic the data will show the government has made strides.
"The monthly numbers can bounce around, but anything with a two in front of it in this week's data will show inflation is much less than half of what we inherited from the Liberals," he said.
"Inflation was higher and rising under the Liberals and it's much lower and has been falling under Labor."
A 2.8 per cent rise in the September-quarter CPI marked the first time in years that inflation returned to RBA's target range of 2 to 3 per cent.
Market expectations for headline inflation are between 2.1 per cent and 2.7 per cent for the year to November, though monthly figures are often volatile.
