Woke frippery giving way to economic realities of life

Tough economic times force people to concentrate on what matters most. Woke frippery quickly falls by the wayside for households and business when real choices have to be made about putting food on the table and company survival. Cost of living dominates the minds of voters, and companies watch on as the number of insolvencies continues to rise. It should be of little surprise then that analysis of the recent trends in Newspoll shows voter sentiment is moving firmly back to the centre. Labor has lost electoral territory in key demographics as well as in the two most populous states, NSW and Victoria. The Greens, far from the boasts of socialist leader Adam Bandt, are losing support among the young. The Coalition is now neck and neck with Labor in NSW and Victoria, and has recaptured the support of female voters. Peter Dutton has won over the Middle Australia mortgage belt demographic, the 35-49-year-olds, considered the key group to swing election outcomes. The Coalition either leads or is level with Labor in all the age demographics with the exception of younger voters. It leads Labor 62-38 among those over 65.

With a federal election due within months it all adds up to a difficult task for a government that faces a disconnect between its narrative on economic management and the judgment of the Reserve Bank and senior economists. Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers will be grasping at comments from the RBA in recent days that easing wage pressures might open the way for an interest rate cut in the new year. Working against this is the continued high level of government spending, particularly on the less-productive public sector. Big business is more concerned that new laws to criminalise underpayment of wages will further tip the scales in favour of the union movement. Together with increased regulation and less workplace flexibility across the board due to changes to industrial relations laws, the wage theft crackdown is seen as another sop to strengthen the arm of trade unions.

The Newspoll figures reflect an electorate that is awake to what is going on. And the danger for Labor is that it has again underestimated the electorate’s conservative instincts. The beneficiary, at this point, has been Mr Dutton, whom Labor was quick to dismiss as electorally unappealing based on its own prejudices and a big dose of confirmation bias. As editor-at-large Paul Kelly has written, another Labor government has underestimated an initially unpopular conservative Liberal Party leader. The same mistake was made with John Howard, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. “Unpopular conservative leaders have a conspicuous record of electoral success,” Kelly wrote.

While Labor has lost its way mirroring the irrational position of the Greens following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Mr Dutton has been busy rebuilding support among the aspirational voters in outer suburbs doing it tough under Labor. The perception is of a federal government focused on trade unions and public sector workers at the expense of small business and tradies. The danger for Labor is that Middle Australia will conclude the government has lost control of the economy. As Tom Dusevic has observed, how do you square a near 50-year-low jobless rate that screams the economy is operating beyond its capacity and underlying inflation still at large in the no-go zone, with federal and provincial budgets that keep pumping in more borrowed money? Plainly, you can’t. Dusevic says Dr Chalmers has abandoned any credible claim that his taxing and spending are helping the RBA in the inflation fight; year by year, he’s making it harder for the central bank.

As the trends in Newspoll demonstrate, this is not an academic point. Mr Albanese must demonstrate that he has a plan that involves more than spending increasing amounts of borrowed money on recurrent public sector wages and an energy transition that is not going anywhere fast.