Budgeting Compassion

RedBridge Group's Director of Research and Reputation, Simon Welsh, discusses the budget through the lens of voter sentiment.

It was around the end of 2021 that, in our research, two themes really started to define voters’ expectations of government: empathy/compassion and vision with a plan for the future.  Indeed, it was the perceived absence of these two features that marked the dying days of the Morrison Government.  

Fueled by a future characterised by uncertainty and a present characterised by financial anxiety, the expectations around empathy and vision have persisted – if not strengthened – over time.  A government displaying empathy + vision = a government giving hope.  These are the windows through which voters will be assessing the Albanese Government’s budget.

We shall focus here on the empathy dimension.  Empathy is the currency of politics at the moment, particularly among persuadable voters in key ‘pathway to government’ seats. So, the key political question is: can the government sell this as an empathy budget?

Voters are looking for a budget that responds to the current cost of living crisis, but they are also more receptive than perhaps ever before for increasing supports to vulnerable Australians that they might not personally benefit from.  

On Labor’s left flank, voters will be asking themselves does this budget go far enough in providing those supports (e.g. the increases on JobSeeker and rental assistance, eligibility changes on single parent payments, bulk billing increases)?  This is a question we will be monitoring over the coming weeks as the budget and the government’s budget narrative washes through.  The answer will have significant ramifications in those inner-city Labor-Greens contest seats.

Back in the centre ground (i.e. the typical persuadable voter in Labor-Liberal battlegrounds), the combination of those supports mentioned above will likely do enough to tick the empathy box – assuming the government can clearly, consistently and repeatedly communicate it as a package framed by empathy.  If they can do this, the budget creates a potential trap for the Opposition.  If they attack the budget on the grounds of providing too much support for vulnerable Australians, they are on slippery ground.  There is no appetite from the middle ground for kicking down.  Indeed, they would sooner see corporate taxation increased to fund supports for themselves than take money away from those already hanging on by their fingernails.

But there are two risks here.

Firstly, is the budget seen to do enough for “middle Australia” – who feel that they are also struggling and in a way that many would never have experienced before?  A sense of ‘it’s genuinely great you helped these really vulnerable people, but I’m feeling pretty vulnerable myself at the moment’.   Critical here will be the contrasts of who/what is receiving money ahead of “me”.  Again, those two frames of empathy and vision apply.  Good spending is money spent on things that a) help vulnerable and everyday Aussies get through this crisis and b) support a vision or long economic plan for the country … while these voters are acutely conscious of money going to those who aren’t struggling (e.g. stage three tax cuts) or for things that they don’t see as genuinely nation building (e.g. AUKUS subs).  These latter two points, stage three and subs, continue to come up unprompted in focus groups … and not in a good way.  How the government can reconcile them with an empathy frame is, shall we say, challenging.

Secondly, does the narrative around the budget get caught up on the idea of “surplus”?  Surplus for surplus sake has no political capital right now, if it ever did.  Voters in our research – having seen through COVID what government can do when it has to – are looking for interventions and investments to help them through this period of uncertainty and financial anxiety.  Indeed, there is an argument that a dollar held back now could cost us more in the future, if the economic situation worsens (as many in our focus groups expect it to) and we see more job losses, mental health problems and family break-downs. 

But this is not to suggest that voters are awarding government a blank cheque.  There are concerns about debt … and who will pick up the tab for it in the long term.  Again, good spending is spending that helps the vulnerable and supports a long-term vision/plan.  The two together matter – that’s what builds hope.  Indeed, even in the space of ‘helping the vulnerable’, the ‘long-term vision’ idea creates caveats.  For example, one-off hand-outs or subsidies are not much liked in the sense that they do nothing to address the underlying problems/causes that will still be there long after that money has been spent.  Yes, people will take it if you offer it, but don’t expect it to change a single vote.  What will win votes is meaningfully addressing the underlying causes around job insecurity, wage stagnation, housing unaffordability, and poverty.  There is an appetite for such reforms and a willingness to spend money to achieve them.  Empathy is part of vision, and vision is part of empathy.  That’s the marriage this budget needs to pull off.