In politics, cost of living beats fascist toilets every day of the week

The hard left is obsessing over Palestine and trans issues while ordinary voters just want politicians to do something about the cost of groceries, fuel, and electricity, Joe Hildebrand writes.

Of all the potential answers to the question, “tell me you’re a Marxist without telling me you’re a Marxist”, the phrase, “fascist graves are gender neutral toilets” would have to be among the strongest responses.

And indeed this phrase was sported by protesters from a group called “Trans Queer Solidarity” in Melbourne over the weekend — as was, of course, the obligatory Palestinian flag.

The group were protesting against a so-called women’s rights demonstration they accused of being anti-trans. Eggs and water balloons were thrown at speakers — as in human beings who were speaking — and one woman from Brunswick was arrested for allegedly assaulting police.

So far, so meh. Just another typical day in the People’s Republic of Victoria. But it is revealing of just how disrupting and damaging the far-left’s obsessions are for the Albanese government’s efforts at re-election.

The number one issue for almost every Australian at the moment is cost-of-living. Poll after poll shows this but you don’t need a poll. Just ask anyone you know.

Transgender Liberation held a counter-protest against an anti-trans "women will speak" event in Melbourne. Picture: NewsWire/Tamati Smith.

Even for young people — typically the most radical and ideologically obsessed types — cost-of-living is first and daylight second.

A poll conducted last year by the NSW Office of the Advocate for Children and Young People found cost of living was the most important issue for the first time among those aged 10-24 and more than a third of the respondents — 35 per cent — mentioned the issue unprompted, something previously unheard of.

Poll after poll shows ordinary Australians are primarily concerned with the cost of living. Picture: Patrick Woods.

By way of comparison this was more than quadruple the mere eight per cent who raised the issue just two years previously.

So if you want to know what’s really troubling the youth of today — and which crisis is ballooning in their worries — it’s cost-of-living.

But no one’s throwing any eggs over it.

By contrast trans issues are something that are obviously incredibly important to a small number of people but issues that the vast majority of Australians would have little or no direct experience of.

Yet it is this that is shaping up as the biggest culture war touchstone of today, something the right can constantly rely upon to bait the left and draw out its lunatic fringes for all to see.

Scrawled placards about fascists dying in gender neutral toilets are proof enough of that and I’m not quite sure how it is supposed to make people more sympathetic to trans rights. Perhaps they were relying on the Palestinian flag to do that.

Speaking of which, The Australian’s John Ferguson did a most revealing analysis on Albanese’s election prospects there with the assistance of Redbridge pollster and former top Labor strategist Kos Samaras.

Looking at Bob Hawke’s former seat of Wills, they note Labor is under attack on two fronts — cost-of-living and Gaza — now that the seat extends further into hip inner city suburbs and is being seriously challenged by the Greens.

“After the redistribution, which is still being finalised, Wills’ borders spill deep into progressive voting land in inner-city Carlton and Fitzroy, with only four lower socio-economic suburbs where cost of living will dominate,” Ferguson writes.

Or in other words, “tell me you’re a rich white progressive obsessed with Gaza without telling me you’re a rich white progressives obsessed with Gaza”.

Labor is under attack on two fronts — cost-of-living and Gaza. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw.

In Sydney, ironically, it is a different story. In the Western and Southwest Sydney electorates with the highest Muslim populations the Greens are about as popular as headlice.

And so the anti-Labor campaign is being run under the banner of “Muslim Votes”.

The catch here is that these are also overwhelmingly working-class seats, and so while they have far stronger faith, family and community ties to Palestine than the freedom fighting hipsters of North Fitzroy, they are less likely to prioritise it above the day-to-day economic struggles they face.

This of course also makes them far smarter than the freedom fighting hipsters of North Fitzroy, because cost-of-living in Australia is something the Australian government can actually do something about.

And for all the tragedy in the Holy Lands, the number one geopolitical challenge for Australia isn’t Gaza, it’s China. Yet strangely you don’t tend to see too many Taiwanese flags at trans rallies.

Actually the one thing that the Gaza and trans issues have in common is that they are highly complex and — to use the adjective du jour — nuanced. Reducing either to simplistic chants and slogans does nothing to resolve them or improve the lives of those with most at stake.

Still, people have the right to chant whatever they want. The problem with all the noise around the pet issues of the left is that it drags the government into places it does not want to be and wars it does not want to fight.

And this in turn makes it an easier target for Peter Dutton, as we have seen with his new hard line on Gazan refugees that may well resonate with voters.

Or to put it another way, “Tell me you’re a Trot helping the Libs without telling me you’re a Trot helping the Libs.”

Listen to The Real Story with Joe Hildebrand wherever you get your podcasts.

Originally published as In politics, cost of living beats fascist toilets every day of the week