Dumping Jacinta Allan would make sense if the Coalition was the real threat to Labor. It isn’t

June 11, 2026 — 5:00am

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There are two ways in which Australian politics is starting to resemble the final seasons of Game of Thrones.

The first is watching familiar characters – what’s left of them – struggling to adjust to the reality that Pauline Hanson’s army of the dead is real, on the march and coming for them all.

This week, we’ve had an acknowledgment from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that economic resentment, rather than ideological adherence, is turning ordinary people into blue-eyed grievance zombies as well as an offer from Liberal Party president Tony Abbott to keep directing preferences to One Nation while it devours what remains of his party’s vote.

The second is an uneasy feeling that the national conversation, like the later instalments of the GOT TV series that had outpaced the writings of George RR Martin, doesn’t have much of a script to show where things are heading from one episode to the next.

Spoiler alert: the Trumpification of middle America, rise of Reform UK and stunning electoral results of hard-right, populist parties in Italy, France and Germany provide a clue. So do this week’s riots in Belfast after graphic images of a horrific attempted murder by a Sudanese asylum seeker were passed around by anti-immigration agitators.

In our little play here in Victoria, a familiar story is unfolding........

© The Age