EDITORIAL: Cost of living highest priority for voters, but Albanese appears disconnected from mortgage life

There is only one issue on the minds of Australian voters.

Cost of living.

It’s the topic that dominated conversation around Christmas lunch tables and as we draw closer to the Federal election, that chatter is set to intensify into a roar.

It is the No.1 issue for Australians.

As Redbridge pollster Kos Samaras said, so all-consuming is the focus that it’s also the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth issue too.

If you’re a politician and you’re not talking about the cost of living — and your party’s plan to get it under control — then you’re not really talking.

For many Australian families, this Christmas was a tough one.

Household savings balances have been eroded by three years of high inflation.

And high interest rates — which were supposed to be cure which would get inflation under control — have proved to be almost as bad as the disease.

The annual cost to service the average mortgage has increased by tens of thousands of dollars since the first of the 13 rate hikes back in early 2022.

That’s in addition to increases in the cost of just about everything.

It’s little wonder voters are angry.

And they’re preparing to give the Government an almighty whack at next year’s election as retribution for its perceived failure to tackle the crisis.

Disillusioned 35 to 49-year-olds are leading the charge against Labor. It’s this cohort — with the biggest mortgage balances and the cost burdens associated with raising families to contend with — who are most feeling the pinch.

Labor’s primary vote among this group slid from 35 per cent in Newspoll’s April-June period to 33 per cent in the July-September survey. It has since dropped to 31 per cent in the October-December period.

That erosion of support has now put the Government neck and neck with the Coalition among these voters.

It should be sobering reading for Labor members, who will be fighting to save their seats in just a few months.

But there’s not a lot of good news in it for the Coalition either.

Voters may be angry with the Government, but that doesn’t mean that they think the other mob are much better.

A significant factor in Labor’s woes is the perception that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is disconnected from the day-to-day realities of life for mortgage-belt families struggling to make ends meet.

He may have been one of them once, but Mr Albanese’s public housing days are now long behind him.

All voters see are the multi-million dollar home purchases and the appetite for business class travel.

Add to that the preoccupation with side issues and trivialities, and you’ve got a Government voters view as uncaring and out of touch.

The election of Donald Trump at the expense of Kamala Harris’s presidential aspirations should serve as a warning to any politician not taking cost of living seriously enough.

Labor has work to do in convincing voters they’re up to the challenge, or risk suffering the same fate.