The timing of a federal election is ultimately up to the prime minister to determine and Gartrell’s message announcing the appointment of Epstein to the new position indicates the prime minister’s office is gearing up for the federal poll.

Comment has been sought from the prime minister’s office.

Epstein’s appointment follows a shake-up of Albanese’s media team triggered by the exit of his media chief,Liz Fitch,at the end of last year.

Fitch has been replaced in the media office by formerGuardianpolitical editor Katharine Murphy and Fiona Sugden,another veteran political staffer who worked for Rudd when he was prime minister and for Albanese when he was opposition leader.

Those appointments and the elevation of former SBS journalist Brett Mason to lead an expanded media team has triggered speculation among federal Labor staff that further changes could be looming in the prime minister’s office as the election approaches.

A second Labor source,who asked not to be named so they could discuss the changes in Albanese’s office,said:“Some very senior people have been brought in now and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a couple more exits.”

The federal government ended last year in the political doldrums after the defeat of the Voice to parliament and a political stoush over High Court-ordered release into the community of asylum seekers,with theprime minister’s personal support falling in the Resolve Political Monitor published at the start of December and people feeling the cost of living pinch.

A Freshwater Strategy poll published byThe Australian Financial Review this week showed Laborhad a 51-49 two-party-preferred lead over the Coalition,three weeks after breaking a political promise and announcing a major re-design of the Morrison government’s stage 3 tax cuts.

An election this year could clash with the Queensland and ACT state and territory elections in late October.

The May federal budget is likely to contain more household-friendly measures to tackle the cost-of-living crunch and will be put together with one eye on the possibility of an election later in the year or early next.

The result of the Dunkley byelection on March 2 – a seat Labor is desperate to hold – and the possibility of interest rate cuts late in the year will also be critical factors in determining the timing of the next poll.

Epstein was Kevin Rudd’s first chief of staff when Rudd became prime minister,served in the same role for Kim Beazley when he was opposition leader and worked for Hawke-Keating education minister John Dawkins.

The veteran political staffer also ran that government’s National Media Liaison Service – which was nicknamed the “aNiMaLS” – which managed whole-of-government media strategy and did opposition research. Since leaving the Rudd government he has worked for Qantas,BHP and Optus and been executive director of Labor think-tank the Chifley Research Centre.

The second senior Labor source said that Epstein was “what the office has been lacking – as long as he is given the freedom to punch people in the nose”.

“That’s not Anthony’s style,he is very much like ‘my office doesn’t run the government’.”

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