Albanese government facing ‘issue’ with progressive women voters

labor has an emerging female voter problem the latest research from Redbridge groups seems to suggest younger Progressive women are more likely to turn their backs on labor and it's because of key issues like climate handling of visas for Palestinians fing Gaza for more analysis I'm joined by Redbridge group director Simon Welsh Simon good to see you so take us through this this research what are people telling you in these focus groups yeah thanks Laura yeah as you say we're seeing this real issue for the albanesi government particularly with younger Progressive women um it's also there with a bit a bit of the men but really with the with Progressive women whose views of the government are really framed by two two issues they're framed by climate and they're framed by Gaza cost of living housing that's all sort of there you know background radiation um but when they think about this government specifically what's happening is is their views Are Being Framed by those two issues isues uh and we recently we recently ran a poll um and got some data around you know whether people support or oppose the the Visa uh visas being offered to to Palestinians fleeing Gaza and what we found was in the overall sense it's quite a contested idea you had about 30 and a little bit people uh percent of people in support which is the blue bars you can see there on your screen you had about 40 and a bit percent people opposition to that to that policy and about a quarter of people under decided but you as we know now in Australian politics overall headline figures mean nothing you got to look at what's happening beneath the surface there and you can see here on this graph the the the swing that occurs the real age uh based sort of division really in in public opinion around this with with younger CS particularly those under the age of 34 being far more likely to to be in be in favor of the uh of the support for the Palestinian refugees and then when you put a political over that and you look at what's happening uh conservative versus Progressive voters and what we see is amongst labor voters there is strong support for for offering the Visas but amongst greens voters there is incredibly strong support around 70% of greens voters in favor of offering Palestinian uh refugees Visas so a couple things going on there one is I think the greens are offering a home to to people that that are disenchanted with Labor uh and I think the grens are very successfully elev the issue for for their voters as so what we're seeing then when you get into the groups and you sort of talk to people you know what's the story behind these numbers and we find as I say particularly with the young women real empathetic compassionate response to the gazer issue that that's framing this government in opposite terms of that you know uncompassionate and and uh and uncaring um and they're disenchanted and and they pile that on with the climate they link it in a sense to their own economic disempowerment which is where the cost of living and the housing stuff starts to come back to B and you know there's a sense of almost like solidarity of of people that are you know that are experiencing hardship vulnerability they they see a bit of themselves uh in in in these refugees that are trying to flee a war zone and and it's really creating a very big problem for for labor on that Progressive female vote that was so important to them in 22 okay so how do you extrapolate this out Simon as if it's you know widespread and across the board what about the concentration of these views in you know vulnerable swing seats how can you see this women problem for labor actually translating in the electorate yeah that's a really good point so what I think we'll see is as you mentioned it's across the board you know we're not just talking about the the Brunswick and the inner cities of suburbs of of our major cities we're seeing in the regions we're seeing it in the other suburbs I think what you'll see a lot of is I think we'll see decent swings to the greens in a whole bunch of seats um where they're running uh but AR enough do you think where do you think I'm I'm thinking seats like um probably Lily in Brisbane might be one of those because there's a high proportion of renters younger people is that are they the kinds of seats you you're you're looking at the greens or are they more obvious that's the ones where you know they will pose a real risk to label where you see that sort of Confluence of young people high proportion of renters those sorts of those sorts of things Brisbane we know is becoming the greens Capital uh you know they're doing very well in Brisbane we expect that to continue they have a high profile State I think it's I mean it's generational it's gentrification it's I think in Brisbane it's just those voters are a little bit more concentrated than they are in the other cities where they tend to spread out a bit and and Sydney Sydney's probably a good good counter example where you have bio Quantum of course you're going to have a higher number of those voters it's a bigger city but the nature of Sydney with its property prices tends to spread out those voters a little bit more so it becomes a bit more diffused we Brisbane is probably the you know the most concentrated Melbourne sort of in between the two and Sydney Sydney's is going because of that diffusion effect so I think yeah looking to Brisbane looking to Melbourne um those seats and I think what we because what we're seeing is this across the board kind of uh sentiment particularly amongst these young women is seats like for example like wils where you always had the north sort of balancing the south of the seat the north quite strong labor the South quite strong greens this sentiment towards the government is creeping into that middle ground and I think seats like that um uh where lab were sort of relying on a balance of demography to to get it over the line they're the ones that I'd be really worried about okay back to cost of living just briefly interesting that we've seen the government at least try to separate itself a little bit from the RBA so in this cost of living crisis they said you know inflation's coming down the RBA is saying this this and this this week um you know and I think Jim Charmers have made these comments before but timing is everything he wants the RBA to basically be SL for the blame of what people are feeling right now right is that working there's an interesting thing going on so so one thing that is coming up in the groups a lot is people are saying we want the government to stand up to the RBA so there is this sort of recognition that the RBA is separate for government but there's still you're the government you're in charge um you should be laying down the policies and setting the setting the um train lines you know it's we shouldn't be our life shouldn't be so dictated to by some independent body that no one seems to have control over so yeah I think there's this there's this thing in political thinking that if you know if we Outsource something to an independent body that that Al alleviates the political pain it absolutely doesn't you're still the government you're still in charge there still an expectation that you will do something about the pain and the hurt that's being inflicted on people what do you what's your prediction Simon then for for the election or for interest rates ah election I wouldn't ask you on interest rates that's good that's good that's good it's uh I think they're both a difficult prediction I think yeah look I I still think we're looking at messy I think we're looking at minority labor government you know how I feel about predictions but based on the data right now I think we're looking at minority labor government I think the question is whether it's a shallow minority government where you're relying on one or two sort of Independence to get you over the line or whether it's a deep minority government where you might be lying on relying on half a dozen maybe even greens to sort of get you over the line I can't see in the numbers yet the libs the Coalition getting there um getting into a position to be able to form government so I think I think we're looking at a messy minority it's just a question of how deep it is I think you're right Simon always good to talk to you we'll see you soon thanks Laura