While cost-of-living pressures dominate headlines, deeper shifts are reshaping Australian politics \u2013 with Labor consolidating the centre and the Coalition struggling to respond.<\/p>\n
Strange things have been happening in Australia while I\u2019ve been off for a few months, taking it easy and having fun\u00a0<\/p>\n
in a hospital bed<\/a>. The most obvious is that we remain terribly unhappy about the cost of living, with the Iran war\u2019s effect on petrol prices giving our money worries an almighty boost.<\/p>\n I read that\u00a0<\/p>\n consumer confidence is at its lowest<\/a>\u00a0since we started measuring it.<\/p>\n Sorry, but I\u2019m not too worried about the cost of living. Strangely, it\u2019s a sign of how well we\u2019re doing. If you follow the polling on what people regard as our biggest problems, you\u2019ll know that living costs are always high on the list.<\/p>\n They\u2019re our default setting. If prices are always rising \u2013 even if not by much \u2013 they\u2019re always something to grumble about. If they\u2019re at the top of the list, it\u2019s a sign we don\u2019t have anything worse to concern us.<\/p>\n For instance, not many people are worried they might be at risk of losing their job. Which matters more \u2013 rising prices or having a job so you can pay those prices? Actually, the proportion of Australians who have a paying job has never been higher. The rate of unemployment hasn\u2019t been lower for almost all the time I\u2019ve been an economics journalist.<\/p>\n If prices are rising, it\u2019s pretty safe that wages are too. You shouldn\u2019t need to be an economist to see that what matters more is whether wages are rising at least as fast as prices.<\/p>\n It\u2019s characteristic of human nature to focus on what\u2019s going wrong and take for granted all that\u2019s going right. That\u2019s actually how the human race has survived and prospered: we keep the focus on overcoming our difficulties.<\/p>\n So I think the more interesting developments in recent times have been the parlous state of the Liberal Party and the resurrection of Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation.<\/p>\n The shift of\u00a0<\/p>\n voter support to One Nation<\/a>\u00a0fits with something we\u2019ve been watching for years: the voters\u2019 growing disenchantment with the two major parties and hence the rise in first preferences going to independents and smaller parties. What\u2019s become apparent in recent days, however, is that this is a much greater threat to the Liberals than to Labor.<\/p>\n Particularly since its sweeping victory at the federal election in May last year, Labor is towering over the Coalition. And Labor is in power in all the states bar Queensland and Tasmania.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to see Labor\u2019s dominance declining any time soon. Depending on how bad the fuel crisis gets, it\u2019s possible to see voters turning against Anthony Albanese at the election due in 2028.<\/p>\n But that would be a strange reaction. The problem\u2019s been foisted on us \u2013 and the entire globe \u2013 by America\u2019s dubious decision to attack Iran. Albanese and his government will surely be judged on their ability to manage and minimise the adverse effects on us. So far, they\u2019ve been doing as well as you might expect.<\/p>\n On the other hand, it\u2019s hard to see the federal Liberals coming out of their dive. Their big problem, I think, is that Labor under Albanese has stolen the middle ground \u2013 the sensible centre \u2013 that the Libs occupied for so long.<\/p>\n Change may be inevitable, but nobody likes it. The Libs have long pursued a policy of keeping the economy rolling along and making only those changes that have become unavoidable. Labor, by contrast, was long a party of \u201cprogressives\u201d who could see a thousand things that needed reforming.<\/p>\n Often, the Coalition\u2019s most persuasive argument at elections was: vote for us if you want to keep out those incessantly meddling Labor people. But that no longer describes the Labor Party Albo leads. His stated goal is to take the Coalition\u2019s position as the \u201cnatural party of government\u201d. He\u2019s doing that by governing competently and making as few changes as possible.<\/p>\n Where pressure from people on his own side requires him to stop ignoring problems and do something \u2013 on\u00a0<\/p>\n