Labor is talking up an economic success story, but why is it not cutting through?

Tax cuts for every taxpayer, lower inflation, higher wages, low unemployment, energy bill relief — the Treasurer had already flown through the Government’s best hits in four media interviews and a press conference before Australians could reach for their 9am coffee on Thursday.

But Labor’s pre-election economic “success story” message, and its warnings the cost-of-living would go backwards under a Coalition government, are apparently not cutting through.

A new poll by Resolve Strategic showed 46 per cent of voters expect their real wages to fall this year while 50 per cent expect inflation to get worse in the near future, refusing to believe Government’s assurances that price pressures are reducing.

The gulf between economic milestones, optimistic financial projections, and public perceptions on the health of their household purse is one Jim Chalmers acknowledged on his way to the office.

Doorstepped by reporters at Parliament House, Dr Chalmers was asked three times why the Government’s economic wins had become lost in translation.

“Overall, we acknowledge that some of these numbers we’re seeing are a reflection of the very real and genuine cost of living pressures that people are under. And we do more that acknowledge that, we’re helping people with the cost of living,” he said.

“We know even as we make quite remarkable progress in the economy overall … that doesn’t always translate into how people are feeling and faring.”

So will the Government “keep saying the same thing in the hope that the message sinks in to voters?” quipped one reporter.

It’s a question that cuts to the heart of Labor’s electoral narrative and one that could swing the pendulum towards success or failure.

Dr Andrew Hughes, a political communications and marketing expert at the Australian National University said Labor’s message was missing the mark because there was “no real-world impact,” for individual voters.

“There’s no cut-through at our level on our cost of living. We’re still finding ourselves short of money. We can’t go on the holidays we’d like to. We can’t buy the things we need to or like to when we want to. There’s a sense that we’re just stuck in a rut,” he said.

High interest rates and the absence of relief guarantees on the horizon were a major factor.

“Most of my friends are under mortgage stress, a lot of them have taken on second jobs,” said Dr Hughes. “These are people with full time jobs. They’re not blowing money on the horses or wild nights out on a weekend. They’re struggling just to get through life.”

Any current government would have faced the brunt of post-COVID economic impact, he acknowledged – a factor that has kicked incumbents in the US, UK and New Zealand out of office.

Labor is not struggling so much with policy, but struggling with the fact that cost-of-living is easily the number one issue.

But Labor could have avoided unpopular calls like hiking the price of a passport to $412 on January 1 – now the most expensive travel document in the world, said Dr Hughes.

“It’s a little thing, but at the same time, it adds up in people’s minds,” he said.

“Passports are linked into aspirational items, which is travel. Travel is our way to escape what we’re going through in life, to go somewhere nice and forget about everything for two weeks,” he said. “And you suddenly now want to tax that as well, in a way, and that’s where it hurts.”

By contrast, the Coalition was tapping into aspirational desires with its own strategy, telling voters that “wealth is good,” that they deserve steak in the fridge and “the nice bottle of wine instead of the $6 special,” he said.

“That’s what Trump did so well in America - the way he talked up economic aspiration and hope.”

The Treasurer on Thursday rejected the Coalition’s latest economic plan to offer tax deductions for small businesses claiming work-related entertainment expenses up to $20,000 as an “utter farce,” challenging the Opposition to reveal how much it would cost the national budget.

But the Government must grapple with short-termism among voters who want to indulge in escapism and the promise of a better life.

Mr Dutton was taking a leaf from President Trump’s playbook, even it put him on a risky limb, said Dr Hughes.

“There’s been no real depth to where that money’s coming from, which is very Trumpian, which is basically ‘all I care about is the narrative, all I care about is the momentum behind me’,” he said.

Economist Greg Jericho from the Australia Institute said both major parties seemed “pretty lost” in their economic messaging, but the biggest difference was that Labor had policies on the table while the Coalition had nothing.

He said the Coalition appeared to be running a campaign of attack, rather than offering any real alternative – a tactic they’ve seen work in the United States.

“I think if the Liberal Party have learned anything from the US election it’s that you can be very effective at just blaming, without having to propose any concrete solutions,” he told The Nightly.

“Peter Dutton is hoping to tap into the real pain that many households are under because of the interest rate rises… It’s a very easy attack, but one would hope that as we get closer to the election, there will be a need for the Liberal Party to come up with some actual alternative policies.”

Coalition sources have flagged concern among some MPs that failing to take any policies to the election could stymie them should they win.

But there is also a feeling that because Labor is the one struggling to convince voters they’ve got cost-of-living under control, the best the Coalition can do is attack.

John Roskam, a senior fellow at conservative think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs, said the Coalition didn’t appear to feel an imperative to give voters alternative policy.

“The Coalition is doing a lot of discussion about cost-of-living but telling us nothing about how to do it except for cutting ‘wasteful’ government spending, which at best could be 10 or 20 million here or there,” he told The Nightly.

“They’re all a bit stuck. So it’s easier for Peter Dutton to talk about Australia Day, the flag, or anti-Semitism – which is a very real live issue – because MPs say ‘we’re winning, why would we take the risk of talking about the economy’.”

Even with the raft of policies Labor has rolled out, groceries are expensive, interest rates are biting, and the bills keep piling up.

“Labor is not struggling so much with policy, but struggling with the fact that cost-of-living is easily the number one issue, and it’s hard to convince people that although inflation is effectively back under control, that things are better, because people care more about the actual price of things,” Mr Jericho said.

“Labor is in a very tricky spot, but at least their policies have coherency.”