If the Albanese government wants to cheat the populist death spiral, it needs to go to the barricades with the rest of us | Peter Lewis

This is a difficult time to govern. Chaos reigns. The government needs to recast itself as the champion of change rather than the defenders of a status quo so many are rejecting Midway through its second term, the Albanese government is teetering on the verge of a populist death spiral that is sweeping the globe. To avoid being sucked in will take all its political nerve and skill. One Nation’s rapid rise has focused attention on the risks to the rapidly fracturing Coalition, but Labor is not immune from the chaos torpedoing the binary two-party contest that has underpinned Australian politics since the resolution of “the split” , which kept Labor from power until the mid-1970s.