SYDNEY (Dispatches) --
Living costs climbed to the top of the national worry list during 2022 as rising interest rates and the highest inflation in decades squeezed household budgets in Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Saturday.
Opinion surveys that probe the public mood began to detect heightened anxiety about financial pressures early this year, and it has since become entrenched as our number one concern, the paper said.
High petrol prices in 2022 have added to cost of living worries.
The Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for this masthead, shows the share of voters ranking “keeping the cost of living low” as the top government policy priority rose from 16 percent in January to 32 percent in December, by far the highest of any issue. Next was “the environment and climate change” on 13 percent.
In January, amid the disruptions caused by the Omicron wave, the top policy priority for voters was “handling the COVID situation” (21 percent) but it has fallen sharply since then.
Resolve director Jim Reed said public concern had shifted from COVID-19 and job security during 2020 and 2021 to the cost of living and wages.
“This has been the year of living costs – it started as an important issue at the beginning of 2022 and has only risen from there to become dominant,” Reed said.
“Some people, especially those on fixed incomes, are now telling us that they are having to make tough choices about what essentials to spend their money on, like food or utilities.”
A separate poll called the Ipsos Issues Monitor, which asks a representative sample of the population to identify the three top challenges facing the nation, shows four of the top five public worries in December were financially related.
The cost of living was ranked a top concern by 58 percent of respondents, the highest share of any issue in the 12-year history of the survey. The economy (33 percent),
housing (31 percent) and petrol prices (22 percent) were also among the biggest worries.
Concern about housing costs remains high despite a significant fall in house prices during 2022. In NSW housing has been the second top concern on the Issues Monitor throughout the year.
Petrol prices jumped up the worry list after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February disrupted oil supplies and sent prices rocketing. In July, almost one in three rated petrol prices among their biggest worries, although the share has tailed off since.
Public anxiety about financial pressures follows months of high inflation and a spate of interest rate increases. The consumer price index hit 7.3 per in the year to September, the highest since 1990. The Reserve Bank has sought to curb the inflation surge with eight consecutive interest rate hikes since May, which lifted the official cash rate to a 10-year high of 3.1 percent.
“Governments are cognizant of these voter concerns, and have implemented things like fuel subsidies and price caps, but it’s doing little to help people right now,” Reed said.
While the cost of living tops the national worry list, opinion polls show the environment and climate change is also entrenched as a public concern.
The Resolve Political Monitor shows the environment and climate change has been the second top government policy priority for voters during most of 2022. The environment has rated between the fourth and sixth-highest concern on the Ipsos Issues Monitor during the past two years.
In late 2019, as bushfires raged and smoke enveloped cities and towns, the environment became the number one concern on the Issues Monitor for the first time, but was subsequently surpassed by healthcare and economic concerns after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.