Invisible Australians – stressed Australia, declining Australia. The minefield that the Voice and many future campaigns will stumble onto and from which they will never return.
If there is one message that political strategists and decision-makers should take from the Voice result, it’s this – pay attention to the people you do not socialise with. Those who are invisible to you.
There are two guarantees about our democracy. The first is the Westminster system. It’s the concrete slab, the wooden frame, the roof tiles, and the insulation for a house that protects and stabilises our democracy.
The second guarantee is that stability does not extend to political parties. Change is always around the corner, even if it takes a while.=
Political parties are akin to the tenants occupying this Westminster house. The first tenants arrived around the turn of the 20th century. The Freedom Party and the Protectionists were the first to try out the new home, freshly built after the federation. They were not allowed to stay long, evicted by Labor, who were more akin to home invaders than tenants. They only lasted months. Many more were to follow, and it was only in the post-World War II economic boom that we started to see the formation of the two-party system that we are more familiar with today.
The decades that followed were a spectacular aberration. Much of the world was devastated by five long years of conflict. There were no Asian Tigers, Europe was one large bomb crater, and the United Kingdom crawled over the finish line. However, the United States and countries like Australia were left relatively unscathed. They soon became major exporters of manufactured goods, including cars, food, and toys. Unemployment was low, debt levels were unheard of, and the Australian dream was a reality.
This period was not normal. Suppose you want to understand better what our democracy may look like in the coming decades. In that case, one should closely study the period between the federation and the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. It was politically volatile, coalitions were far more common, and political parties had to evolve, rebrand, and adjust to a hostile and unpredictable electorate. Change and chaos were the norm.
Fast forward to 2023, and the economic and political landscape looks awfully similar to the pre-WWII period. Our post-war manufacturing advantage is long gone. Change and chaos are again the norm, but Australia is vastly more complex this time. We are a country of many small tribes with significantly differing views and economic challenges.
For example, Victoria and Queensland’s political and cultural differences are the greatest they have ever been. Although, in Brisbane, there are interesting developments within the federal seats the Greens currently hold.
The same can be said about the entire country. In 2000, 80 per cent of Australians spoke only English at home; by 2023, that number had declined to 72 per cent. Likewise, it’s now 67 per cent in both NSW and Victoria. In the city of Greater Melbourne, it’s down to 64 per cent. In 2021, outside of English, Italian was the top language spoken at home. Today, it’s Mandarin.
This shift has coincided with increased urbanisation, especially in large states like NSW and Victoria, where household debt has exploded to notorious levels. Both cities now regularly make the infamous top five global list of the most unfordable cities when it comes to housing. Hence, for an increasing number of the mortgaged and rental-stressed residents living in the outer western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, a full-time job is sometimes not enough to prevent a visit to a local food bank.
The flip side of this dynamic is a declining part of Australia where the jobs and most of the youth disappeared. Small-town Australia absorbed the full brunt of this country losing that unique manufacturing advantage present after WWII, as globalisation was embraced and making ‘stuff’ in Stawell or Orange was simply unaffordable.
Communities across regional Australia are in decline, and Tasmania is ground zero. Tasmania’s median age has gone from 26 in 1971 to 42 in 2021. Tasmania’s tourism industry may be doing well, but most residents outside Hobart are not. It’s where two-thirds of Tasmania’s population live and where the most dramatic political changes are present in this country. In just over 10 years, Labor’s federal primary vote in the seats of Bass, Braddon and Lyons has fallen through the floor. In Bass, support for Labor has gone from 43 per cent in 2010 to 29 per cent in 2022. In Braddon, 49 per cent is down to 23 per cent, and Lyons, 49 per cent is down to 29 per cent.
The demographic and political picture is similar in regional Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and even South Australia. There is nothing new here. At the 2022 federal election, both major parties recorded the lowest combined vote since voting became compulsory. Labor secured government via a historically low primary vote, and the Coalition was almost pushed out of this country’s large cities. The Greens picked up three seats in Brisbane, a historically renowned city for its conservatism.
The political landscape is rapidly transforming, upended and reshaped by stressed and declining Australians showing little tolerance for the political leaders whom they perceive as disconnected from their community and lived experience. When surveyed, these Australians repeatedly report high levels of mistrust towards governments, corporations and the small part of Australia that is succeeding.
The disconnect was recently on display. Governments, corporations, and successful Australians wrapped their arms around a Voice campaign that culturally connected to them but completely ignored a part of Australia that is invisible to mainstream politics.
The result shocked many, but I hold little hope that it will change how politics in this country conducts itself and pivot to a more volatile electorate. Two weeks after the result, Foodbank Australia reported that 3.7 million households experienced some form of food insecurity over the last 12 months. That’s more households than Melbourne and Sydney combined. The reaction? It was hardly reported on. After all, it only impacts invisible Australians.
Kosmos Samaras is an Australian lobbyist, pollster, and former Victorian Labor strategist. He helped run Labor’s state election campaigns for 14 years before departing in 2019 to found RedBridge, a political consultancy firm, which has become influential in Victorian politics