We are three months in to a new federal Labor government and things seem to be going well. Poll numbers are good, legislation has been passed through the House of Representatives in the first sitting week. The Opposition struggles to make sense of the new paradigm. Sounds like the textbook honeymoon start. Until you look a little closer.
For decades, Labor’s path to victory always required winning enough seats in our large cities, outer suburbs and across regional Australia to form government. After the 2019 federal election, that route seemed almost impossible to travel down again. Having all but lost the majority of seats in regional Australia, Labor faced a political opponent that had sharpened its skills at making sure that trend was to continue.
On the night of the 2019 election result, everyone was talking about coal miners, mining towns and Australians who rejected Labor’s bold policy to dump negative gearing. Coal miners and mum and dad property investors delivered Bill Shorten’s Opposition a stunning defeat.
It was hard to imagine a world where these same electoral cohorts were not going to have a substantial voice at the next federal election. But that’s exactly what occurred. This time, they were drowned out by Australians concerned about climate change and renters who this time threw the counter punch that knocked Scott Morrison’s government on its back.
The Liberal Party lost critical seats to the Teal independents who rode on top of a climate change wave that swept across the country. Independents like Monique Ryan were supported by a unique electoral coalition; renters, climate change activists and the well-educated. In the suburb of Hawthorn, Ryan doubled the primary vote of her opponent Josh Frydenberg. Hawthorn is young and heavily populated by highly educated renters. Well over 60 percent of residents in this suburb live in flats or apartments, the majority renting.
The Liberal Party lost seven seats to the Labor Party, Teal Independents or Greens. These seats are amongst the top 20 seats containing the highest number of renters across the country. If we exclude the special circumstances that drove the anti-Scott Morrison sentiment in Western Australia, nearly half of all the seats the Coalition lost on the east coast of Australia are dominated by renters.
Dr Shaun Ratcliff, Director of Data Science at YouGov and RedBridge’s own analysis, have concluded that the Coalition vote is now mainly made up of older Australians who own property. The working poor and the highly educated rental class largely voted for either the Australian Labor Party, the ‘Teal’ Independents or the Greens.
So where does this leave the Coalition? Will they be consigned to the political wilderness Labor inhabited for nearly a decade? Is there even a pathway to victory in 2025? Well, one group of Australians did not feature much in the results at this year’s federal election. Mortgagors. Before May, 1.2 million of them never experienced an interest rate rise. Yet, within several months, they have been battered by what appears to be the start of an endless wave of interest rate rises.
A survey by Canstar identified over 50 percent of the 2300 Australians it surveyed thought that they could not afford further interest rate rises. That was just before the most recent RBA decision to further bump up the rates.
By 2025, we can expect many of these Australians to end up in severe financial hardship. If the new Albanese government does not take drastic steps to support the mortgaged stressed, we may indeed see a different cohort shake up our electoral system, this time within our large cities mortgage belts.
Labor currently holds 10 of the top 20 mortgage-stressed seats in the country. That number explodes to many more once we broaden the field to the top 30 mortgage stressed seats.
It’s here where the next federal election may be won or lost. The newly minted federal Labor government will have to do more than just sending tough love messages to these voters if it stands any chance of holding its 2022 gains at the next election.
Three Liberal prime ministers have seen how quickly public opinion (and polling) can turn against them. Now, as Anthony Albanese rolls up his sleeves to get on with governing, voters across Australia who already feeling the effects of soaring mortgage, energy and living costs are bracing themselves for an economic tsunami many haven’t seen in their lifetime.
Whatever brief respite the Albanese Federal Government is enjoying, it’s certainly not a honeymoon.
The RBA is making sure of that.
Kosmos has over 25 years of experience in campaigns and politics and from 2005 to 2019, Kosmos served as Labor’s Victorian Deputy Campaign Director. He is a regular media commentator on politics.