Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been caught spreading misinformation about cost of living relief in a viral post on X, which was soon given a Community Note added highlighting the misleading claims.
The post from Wednesday evening was an attempted popular culture meme with a caption reading “New album just dropped”, showing an edited version of a So Fresh CD, a popular music compilation series from the 2000s.
The mock album cover was titled “so helpful – cost of living relief – Winter 2024”, with “track names” listing the Albanese government’s supposed achievements.
They included paid prac for students, a pay rise for 2.6 million award wage workers, increased rent assistance, cheaper medicine, tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer, $300 off power bills, $3 billion of student debt wiped and more paid parental leave.
New album just dropped. pic.twitter.com/hE4boYWMiP
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) August 7, 2024
But the post was soon been given Community Note, a fact-checking measure introduced after Elon Musk bought then-Twitter. Community Notes allow X users to add context and provide sources to posts which contain misinformation or false claims, are designed to be unbiased and helpful to a wide range of users, and require agreement between note contributors.
The note clarified that many of the listed policies don’t come into effect until much later than “Winter of 2024”. Paid prac for students doesn’t start until July 2025, more paid parental leave will be phased in by 2026, a full two years later than advertised, and only $75 of the $300 power bill relief will be paid by the end of the season.
The post comes one week after the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed underlying inflation fell just 0.1% while overall inflation rose from 3.6% to 3.8% in July.
Mr Albanese’s post was also criticised by his X followers, with one reply reading: “This is some of the most infantile trash I have ever read from a sitting PM. You don’t take the PM role seriously!
“People are losing their homes because of you and what’s your response? This idiotic self-congratulatory boasting about achieving essentially nothing. Beyond belief. Your advisors must be all quota fillers from the Koomarri school?”
One popular response read: “You really don’t get it. Do you?”
Another comment asked: “You are kidding right? Just when we thought it wasn’t possible for you to be any more idiotic… you equate your imbecilic policies to ‘dropping an album’. You are delusional beyond comprehension.”
The Prime Minister’s approval rating has also dropped to a new low.
Recent polling by The Guardian of more than a thousand Australians has found that Mr Albanese’s approval rating had dropped nine percentage points, the lowest it has been since he became Prime Minister in May 2022. 49% of respondents disapproved of him being Prime Minister.
This high disapproval rating has risen three points from June, and only 40% of people polled approved of the job he’s doing, a drop of three points.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s approval rating has also fallen slightly, with 42% of respondents disapproving of his job as opposition leader, and 41% of people approving.
Also included in the poll was a question asking Australians if they think the country is going in the right or wrong direction. Those who said “heading in the wrong direction” increased by five points from June to 54%, and those thinking Australian is going in the right direction dropped 4 points to 30%.
Mr Albanese is pushing for new laws criminalising the spreading of misinformation, but with exemptions for the government.
