Voters reveal big issues influencing their decision ahead of Victoria’s 2022 election
Voters have revealed the key issues influencing their decision as they prepare to head to the polls later this month.
State Election
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The cost of living remains the most important issue for Victorians as they begin to vote ahead of the November 26 election.
A statewide RedBridge poll of 1189 voters, commissioned by the Herald Sun, found 71 per cent of respondents reported being affected financially or mentally by cost-of-living pressures.
Voters aged 18 to 39 reported being the most affected, followed by people earning $80,000 to $120,000, and the unemployed.
The cost of living ranked highest of 10 key election issues, receiving more than double the responses of any other issue including health, climate change and state debt.
Increasing grocery prices were the biggest concern, followed by electricity and gas prices, and petrol prices.
The poll also found more than a third of voters had been late paying accounts in the past year, and half of all respondents had experienced mortgage or rental stress.
A further 46 per cent said the believed the Australian dream of home ownership was now unattainable.
RedBridge senior consultant Tony Barry said cost-of-living pressures and its relationship to housing affordability was “the new political fault line” in Australia.
“Pervasive concerns about cost-of-living pressures dominates the personal issues agenda in Victoria and those wide and deep anxieties have been turbocharged by government forecasts that energy prices will increase by 56 per cent in the next two years,” Mr Barry said.
“This is where Daniel Andrews remains electorally vulnerable because voters rarely reward governments when they feel poorer and colder.”
Labor has promised to reinstate the publicly owned State Electricity Commission in a bid to drive down energy prices and open up thousands of job opportunities.
The government has also promised free car registration for apprentices and a $9.20 a day cap on V/Line fares under a $1bn regional rail package.
Meanwhile, the Coalition has pledged to slash metropolitan public transport fares to $2 a day – or $1 for concession card holders – as well as to halve V/Line fares.
The Coalition has also promised to provide free healthy lunches to every Victorian public school student under a $300m plan, introduce a “bill buster” policy to drive down the cost of power bills, and promised to save households up to $100 a year on their water bills.
RedBridge director Kos Samaras said: “The one cost-of -living policy that has cut through in all our Victorian-based research has been Labor’s SEC policy.”
The poll found overwhelming support for the initiative, with 64 per cent of people in favour.
But Victorian Council of Social Service policy director Deborah Fewster said not enough was being done for those who most needed help.
“Victorians are sending the politicians a clear message,” she said.
“Cost of living is a huge issue, it’s affecting their wellbeing, and it will influence their vote.
“The big parties have made lots of broad cost-of-living pledges, but announced few measures targeted only to those in the most need.
“VCOSS hopes to see more tailored and targeted cost of living policies announced before polling day.
“Targeting assistance at those who really need it means the parties can be more generous, or fund more things.”
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