As I wrote recently, the 2025 Australian federal election campaign is one of the worst, certainly the most frustrating, I have ever endured. Also one of the hardest to call (an aspect of punditry I usually avoid on principle, anyway).
Frustrating, because everyone knows what the single biggest issue is – cost of living – and we know why. But, if polls are to be believe, voters are sleepwalking into inflicting more of the same on themselves.
Given that the essential responsibility of government is to make life better, not worse, a government that’s presided over an eight per cent decline in disposable incomes, the worst in the developed world; two successive years of declining GDP per person and productivity declining to 2016 levels, should not be re-elected.
A PM who can’t even admit, let alone apologise for, his lie about lowering power prices by $275 per household per year, based on dodgy modelling that was out of date almost as soon as it was released, should have forfeited any claim on a second term.
Yet, if polls are to be believed, that’s exactly where we’re headed. In fact, for something far worse: a weak minority Labor government that will be herded off the far-left, anti-Semitic cliff by the odious Greens.
How this is even possible, given the reality around us every day, is a staggering indictment?
Recently a chicken parmigiana and a pint sat next to one another in a neighbourhood pub beer garden...
Their combined cost: $47.
Across Australia, there is a creeping sense that, to borrow modern phraseology, the math isn’t mathing.
What might once have fallen into the category of acceptable middle-class consumption now feels closer to luxury.
Again, we know what the problem is.
Two-thirds of the country approach this federal election with concerns about the cost of living, double that of 10 years ago, according to IPSOS monitoring.
Among the 254,376 respondents to the ABC’s Vote Compass, the cost of living ranked as the most important issue.
At the same time, pubs, cafes and restaurants, facing the same inflationary pressures, grapple with how to pass rising costs onward to financially stressed customers.
If you’re going to grumble about a $33 parmi, then how about you stump up the costs of making it: the labour, but most importantly the taxes and the energy costs. All that adds up to just two dollars’ worth of profit on the $33 parmi. Complain all you want, you’re paying, as publicans teetering on insolvency point out for “the energy prices… the gas prices, the labour costs”.
The other hot button issue is immigration. It’s far too high and everyone knows it. Even recent immigrants.
It wasn’t that long ago that Melton was a sleepy country town far from Melbourne’s western fringe. Just a few decades later, it’s another overcrowded hell hole in Melbourne’s cancerous suburban sprawl.
The mayor of Melton, Steve Abboushi, said the area was “carrying the load” for the state of Victoria […]
“We’re building 5,500 homes every year, and in fact, our revised housing target is 109,000 homes by 2051 … we can’t build fast enough.”
Can anyone see what is wrong with that picture?
A number of participants wrote into ABC Your Say blaming immigration levels for Australia’s housing crisis.
Experts say it is a complicated picture – with many factors driving Australia housing availability and affordability problems.
When ‘experts’ say ‘it’s complicated’, what they really mean is that the plebs are right, but they don’t want to admit it.
So, how do we arrive at a place where polling indicates that voters admit that the opposition are better placed to deal with the big issues of our time (the economy, and defence), yet the government is pulling a slim lead?
With the coalition failing to improve on last week’s primary vote of 35 per cent – 0.7 per cent lower than its May 2022 election result – the margin between the two parties on first preference support now marks the tightest race since October 2023 prior to the failed voice referendum, with just one point separating them.
Despite the slight improvement for Labor over the course of the third week of the election campaign, two-party-preferred vote remains unchanged at 52–48 per cent.
This suggests that while Labor could be in a position to retain a slim majority, if these numbers were reflected on election day, the potential for a hung parliament after May 3 still remains the more likely possibility with the Greens remaining unchanged on 12 per cent, level with that of other minor parties and independents.
Are we really so determined to become the Argentina of the 21st century?
