With just a week until polling day, more than half of Australians can’t name a policy from either major party they believe will improve their lives.
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have spent a month criss-crossing the country, splashing cash in a bid to grab attention and votes.
The prime minister turned his focus to the importance of multiculturalism with a visit to Melbourne’s New Century Chinese Language School on Saturday morning, while the opposition leader more conventionally again addressed the cost-of-living crisis in Cairns.
Despite the campaign frenzy, 62 per cent of their audience can’t think of a policy they believe would improve their lot, polling commissioned by AAP and modelled by YouGov reveals.
Australians have long been known to tune out of political discussions but there was still a difference between how they saw both major parties, YouGov director of public data Paul Smith said.
“The public perceived one campaign to be doing satisfactorily and one to be doing very badly,” he told AAP.
“And they’re having to choose between them.”
Of the 38 per cent of survey recipients who could name a life-improving policy, most nominated Medicare and bulk-billing followed by energy relief and general cost-of-living measures.
Labor-led promises were getting more traction than the coalition’s offerings, Mr Smith said.
Voters prioritised policies based on their age, with younger Australians more frequently pointing to housing action as a life improvement, while older people chose energy price relief or health-related promises.
But even the most popular commitment was only named by five per cent of those polled.
Australians tended to feel more connected to policies when they felt more real, Mr Smith said, referencing the coalition’s announcement to end work-from-home arrangements.
“People understood really clearly that the coalition were doing this because they wanted to be on the side of employers,” he said.
“It was kind of like, ‘this is going to screw with my life’. It’s not some sort of vague promise that may or may not happen.”
The coalition later walked back the policy but the damage had been done, taking the party from a winning position to a place where it was struggling to hold onto seats it won in 2022, Mr Smith said.
Attitudes in marginal seats across the country could also spell a continued downfall for the opposition.
Boothby in Adelaide, Braddon in Tasmania, the NSW central west seat of Calare and electorates such as Hunter, Gilmore, Lyons, Paterson and Wannon were all within arm’s reach for the opposition two months ago.
But they have all slipped through the coalition’s fingers and will go to Labor or independents, according to YouGov’s modelled polling.
“Working class, provincial and outer-suburban Australians have moved decisively away from the coalition,” Mr Smith said.
“These seats they were going to win in February – most of them – they’re not going to win now.”
The YouGov poll of 2483 people was conducted last week, with a 3.1 per cent margin of error.
Visiting the Liberal-held electorate of Leichhardt early on Saturday, where he addressed the party faithful at a breakfast with local candidate Jeremy Neal, Mr Dutton was adamant and defiant.
“I believe that over the next week, this election will be decided in the suburbs, in the cities, right across the country,” he said.
“We’re about winning every seat that we can.”
Mr Albanese, meanwhile, promised $25 million for 600 community schools if re-elected on May 3.
The language school he visited on Saturday is in the east Melbourne electorate of Chisholm, currently held by Labor on a 3.3 per cent margin.
Labor will also earmark $5 million to fund Asian language learning and help students of any background become more fluent.
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