Albanese government has failed to grasp the depth of cost of living worries

The question is whether it is now the beginning of the end of the government’s honeymoon.

Jim Chalmers has missed the middle-ground target with the Albanese government’s second budget.

With cost of living the central political issue, the Treasurer has undershot the mark with a failure to convince voters that the $14.6bn spending package will do much to ease their pain.

This will only serve to confirm that the Coalition’s class identification of a “working poor” as the new political battleground may have been well-founded. However, with the cost-of-living squeeze as it is, the problem should be helping the ­Coalition. At the moment it isn’t. Labor’s electoral dominance remains unchallenged. Chalmers’ underlying principle of the budget, the lens through which policy was developed, was inflation.

Yet voters remain unconvinced of his claim that the cost-of-living measures would apply the necessary fiscal brake to the driving force behind the erosion of living standards.

Only 13 per cent of all voters believe his claim that the budget would be deflationary.

This would appear to reveal a failure of the government to grasp the depth of concern in the electorate over cost of living and for borrowers, the potential for further interest rate rises.

Labor’s claims that the budget, whether through energy bill subsidies, bulk-billing reforms, wages growth or childcare, was aimed at middle Australia have not resonated.

Only 33 per cent of voters believe that the budget will be good for the economy overall. This is higher than the 29 per cent who said the same of the ­October budget, but on par with the Morrison government’s last budget. These are the lowest levels of confidence in economic management of a budget since Newspoll began ­asking the question in 1999.

In Chalmers’ favour is that only 28 per cent believed it would be bad for the economy, compared with, for example, the 48 per cent who thought the 2014 Coalition budget was bad.

The point is that Chalmers hasn’t persuaded a pessimistic electorate that he has the answers to fix the problems people are facing. This will be of concern for Chalmers and Anthony Albanese.

There are divided views in the community based on age.

Only 8 per cent of voters aged between 50 and 64 believe they will be better off financially.

Of those aged between 35 and 49, it was 23 per cent, and 17 per cent of voters aged over 65. Younger voters were more likely to feel it helped them.

This isn’t an endorsement from middle Australia, who may feel that the social welfare-skewed spending program missed them completely. If the strategy of the budget was to reassert Labor’s economic credentials, it has served to ensure the government now has a task ahead to ensure it can maintain confidence.

If the Newspoll findings are being mirrored in Labor’s own research, showing cost-of-living concerns are biting, Chalmers will be ­disappointed that the budget may have missed the mark. The best that could be said is that voters are divided on the inflation question, but underwhelmed by the cost-of-living measures.

The question is whether it is now the beginning of the end of the government’s honeymoon. Labor remains in a dominant position with a primary vote of 38 per cent. But with the only movement in the underlying numbers going the Coalition’s way – albeit by only a point – Peter Dutton will be encouraged that he may have identified the first potential chink in the Albanese government’s armour.