Today, both campaigns were impatiently watching the point-heads at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). At 2.30pm, RBA governor Philip Lowe announced interest rates would rise 25 basis points to 0.35%, a decision all but inevitable since last week’s runaway inflation numbers.
Yet again, the defining political story of the day happened away from the campaign trail, beyond the control of either the government or Labor opposition.
But it’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison who has the most to fear from the RBA’s move. Firstly, there’s the obvious symbolism. Rates haven’t increased in more than a decade. The last time they went up during an election campaign, John Howard’s 11-year-old government was wiped away in an electoral landslide two weeks later. Howard, and some Liberals, have never forgiven the bank. Labor hopes today’s announcement is equally portentous.
But what’s more worrying for the government is how the decision, which will heap more cost-of-living pressures on mortgage holders at a time when inflation is at its highest in decades, challenges their narrative of steady, superior economic management.
It’s also who the rate rise affects most that should worry the government. The tightening will be felt most keenly in the suburban mortgage belt, the rump of aspirational “quiet Australians” to whom Morrison owes his present (and any future) prime ministership.
Sure, it’s Labor seats in the suburbs that rank highest for mortgage stress, but there are plenty of swing voters in places like Cowan, Pearce, Macquarie, Lindsay, McEwen and Longman — outer-suburban growth areas, targeted by both parties, who will feel the pinch.
Suburbs and regional centres are so key to Morrison’s campaign that the prime minister has seemingly abandoned many voters in other areas with other concerns. This morning, a new poll (admittedly from the left-leaning Australia Institute) showed Liberal MP Tim Wilson on track to lose the blue-ribbon seat of Goldstein to teal independent Zoe Daniel.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is under pressure in Kooyong, while Dave Sharma could lose Wentworth. But Morrison — visiting marginal Chisholm yet again today — hasn’t once campaigned in any of the “leafy” Liberal seats under serious threat from independents.
The Liberal prime minister who won the unloseable election is, extraordinarily, an electoral liability in at-risk Liberal heartland. Wealthy voters, described derisively by one Liberal as the “post-material intellectual class who don’t care about the economy”, are animated about stuff like climate and integrity, largely ignored by the Coalition during the campaign.
This morning, Finance Minister Simon Birmingham continued the government’s attacks on the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), as Morrison remained under fire over his own shelved plans on integrity.
The government hopes enough wealthy voters in these seats are sufficiently worried about the “chaos” of a hung Parliament to stick with the Liberals, despite their personal dislike of the PM.
And if they don’t, any losses will need to be offset in seats like Parramatta, McEwen, Gilmore and Macquarie. The government’s ever-narrowing path relies on Morrison continuing to find quiet Australians willing to give him another chance.
His messaging today, in anticipation of the RBA’s rate rise, was that Australians were ready for higher prices, and an untried Labor government would only make things worse. In a few weeks, we’ll know whether voters in the suburbs are buying it.
Liberal vulnerability, now a possibility as Minister after Minister encounter pending nadir? But lest we forget, National Ministerial seats often overlooked. Yet so often, it is the National Party that has led denial of Climate Change, fed fuel to fires and destroyed trust within government? Liberal Moderates may wrest back from more extreme members of ‘their’ Party but; Nationals more merciless across the regions? Do you remember the Murray Darling destruction over three States?
So, interest rates were put on emergency settings in 2008 because if the GFC. They were then reduced further because of the Covid crisis. Scotty claims those reductions as evidence of his good stewardship…. Despite coming to power in 2018. Now, interest rates go up on his watch, but that’s not his responsibility either? Good news is his. Bad news is everybody else’s. Two year old behave that way. We deserve honesty in government.
I find the term “quiet Australians” (a term so often used by the COALition) to be quite deceptive. I think the group they’re actually referring to are better described as “cognitively impaired Australians”.
Well if a Liberal calls their constituents in wealthy electorates members of the post-material class who don’t care about the economy, it only shows their ignorance and how far they have fallen. These constituents are post-material but still very materialistic and it is this that is driving their growing support for “teal” candidates. The Libs denial of climate change is a clear and present danger to their assets, their liquidity, their income and their lifestyle. Not that there is anything wrong with that but let’s be clear, they are not post-materialist in attitude or disposition. If they were they would vote for Green, Labor or a plethora of single issue candidates which they don’t.
The Libs only have fear and smear to auction.
I personally thought the minority government of Gillard was one of the best post-war. It got through an NDIS, Dental plan for children, an NBN, regular wage rises INXS of CPI. And had there been a Federal ICAC or higher ministerial standards then we would not have seen the like of Craig Thompson and Belinda Neal wreaking havoc on the party and parliament.
I know of and work with idiots in my workplace who’s only idea of getting ahead is to kiss arse and beg for continuous shift work. These people I know, some of whom had failed relationships and have sick/disabled children to small degree, are paying off half a million-dollar mortgages and vote for the Libs. The same ones that took away all our allowances and gave us a pay rise of 1% per year for the last 8 years. Now they are going to be paying more in interest on their mortgages going forward, a situation they are going to face for several years at least before they go down. Obviously there are other factors at work than just class based ones. Or is this just false consciousness. How to explain it? I look forward to hearing and seeing their pain if only from a distance as I won’t be around long enough to ask them how they are going. This is about my only regret leaving work. Sometimes you have to be tough and not give people, including Murdoch journos, respect they don’t deserve.