Of all the problems facing Anthony Albanese, and there are many, only one will determine the Labor government’s fate.
And there is one number that singularly explains why the Prime Minister is in serious trouble; 60 per cent of 35 to 49-year-olds now feel worse off financially than they did two years ago.
This is middle Australia, the voters who decide elections.
They won Scott Morrison the 2019 election only to abandon him three years later, returning Labor to office in the belief that Albanese would fulfil his promise of safe change.
They certainly didn’t vote Labor in the hope that they would be financially worse off.
But this is now a group of voters who are fast becoming the grumpiest cohort thanks to rising rents and the relentless interest rate hammer blows from the Reserve Bank over the past 18 months.
This is bad news for Albanese and Jim Chalmers.
It should come as no surprise that a majority is feeling worse off now in the peak of an inflation crisis, but those who are feeling it the most, according to a special Newspoll conducted for The Australian, are those Albanese can least afford to alienate. Yet this is what appears to be happening.
Labor’s rapid collapse in primary vote support in the latest Newspoll is likely to have been largely delivered courtesy of this swinging class.
Its little wonder that the Treasurer is now starting to feel the heat. Absent of ripping billions of dollars out of the economy through spending cuts – which would elicit electoral problems of a different kind – there isn’t a lot he can do about the RBA’s relentless pursuit of cutting inflation by punishing mortgage borrowers.
This is where the electoral pinch is coming.
The 35 to 49-year-old demographic is the least likely to own homes outright. This means these people are either paying down big mortgages or forking out on high rents to house their families.
While older age groups are also complaining, their mortgages are generally not as great and many own their home.
At the younger end of the scale, it’s not a problem that many are yet burdened with.
Politically, the younger voters tend to veer to the left and the older voters skew conservative.
This brings the problem squarely back to the 35-49 year olds, who are now barking the loudest about the cost-of-living squeeze. And they are the ones the government appears to be tone deaf to.
None of this is rocket science. What Albanese and Chalmers can do about it is the greater question.
The latest Newspoll showing Labor’s primary vote tipping to below its election result – which was already at a historically low point – should start to ring alarm bells, if they are not sounding already.
The confirmation that it is middle Australia feeling the financial squeeze more than others reveals why.
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