Undecided outer suburban voters like these will decide the election

“He’s a good politician; I’ll give him that.”

The character assessments aren’t exactly flattering, and they clearly lay out the problems our political leaders face in winning over swing voters.

Moderator Simon Welsh has asked a group of nine undecided voters for the positives of Anthony Albanese as a leader, to a fairly muted response.

“He’s got a cool name, that’s about it,” says Ned. 

Others think that with the prime minister’s background growing up in public housing, he understands what life is like for everyday Australians. For several, Albanese remains undefined as a leader.

“To be honest I don’t have much information to form an opinion,” says Swati.

“Look he’s personable, he looks approachable,” Linda says. “But do I think he’s a strong leader? No.”

The list of negatives comes easier to the group.

“I’ve heard him speak just randomly but I haven’t found him charismatic or believable I guess,” says Serene. “I have just found him appearing dodgy like most politicians in my opinion.”

Outer suburban voters get honest

These voters met a short time ago outside a meeting room in a town 45 kilometres north of Melbourne’s CBD. They’re getting paid $150 each to share their views on politics over sandwiches, pastries, and instant coffee.

This is the unremarkable setting for one of a political campaign’s secret weapons: a focus group.

Spending 90 minutes talking about politics with eight other strangers sounds like an introvert’s nightmare, but this is an important part of a major party’s campaign strategy. Focus groups are closely guarded affairs, because parties use them to test out new ads and slogans and use what they learn to gain the upper hand on their rivals.

Even candidates and MPs don’t usually get to watch. Their hearts probably wouldn’t be able to take it.

ABC News brought this group together in the federal seat of McEwen, on Melbourne’s outer northern fringes, to better understand the research the political campaigns are conducting. McEwen is a key seat this election, and if the opposition leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition can make inroads here, it will be a sign that their strategy to pursue outer suburban voters has had an impact.

The participants were recruited by RedBridge, a research and political strategy firm, that also conducted the focus group.

With a sample size of nine, no one expects the group to be perfectly representative of the electorate, but the views are consistent with opinion polling and other focus groups conducted by RedBridge.

What about the opposition leader?

After sharing their less-than-enthusiastic views of Anthony Albanese, Simon asks them about Dutton.

There’s a common sentiment expressed by Linda: “I think whether you like him, or you don’t like him, a leader is about standing for what you’re going to do and following through with that.”

Even people who don’t seem to care for all of Dutton’s policies seem to respect him more for his conviction.

“He didn’t want to stand and do a press conference because they had the Indigenous flag … so he’s conservative in that way,” Shaughan says. “I don’t necessarily agree with that. But at least he’s got a stance and he’s willing to put it out there and say this is what I stand for.”

In short, this group sees him as more authentic than the prime minister.

“He knows what he wants, and he knows what he represents,” says Jael. “And I think that’s a very, very different personality from our current leader.”

“I think strategically, Dutton has been very smart by just being himself because they talk about authenticity… and they find, you know, Albanese to be not meeting that authenticity test,” RedBridge director and former Liberal strategist Tony Barry says.

Focus groups help campaigns shape their strategies

Barry’s RedBridge colleague, former Labor strategist Kos Samaras, says campaigns run regular focus groups for years leading into election campaigns.

“Ideally you want people in the room who are not interested in politics … that’s the genuine undecided voter, disconnected from politics,” he says. “They don’t consume political news like political junkies do.”

None of the people in our group would describe themselves as political junkies.

Campaigns then take the information they learn in groups to develop advertising strategies and work out how to sell their leader.

For example, the top issue in this election is well known: cost of living.

Another political research firm, Ipsos, puts it far and away at the top of the list. In February, nearly two thirds of Australians ranked cost of living in the top three issues facing the country, and most of the other issues in the top five relate to people’s budgets as well.

A focus group lets campaigns better understand how the issue will drive people’s votes, and how voters view the responses of political leaders.

“You get that touch and feel about why they feel the way they do,” Barry says.

The focus group is a window into the lives of these voters, including soon to be mum-of-three Victoria (“I’m just constantly worried about everything going up”), Sagar (“I don’t know about my little one … how he or she will buy a house”), and Ned (“Back in the day, I’d spend maybe 50 bucks, and then I’ll have a whole massive bag of shopping … $50 now, you might have 10 items”).

But the concerns over cost of living extend to the healthcare system, one of the other top issues consistently found in polling.

That may explain the government’s focus on healthcare costs in recent months, with its pledge to increase Medicare funding to improve bulk billing rates, and a budget-eve pledge to reduce the cost of medicines on the PBS.

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Linda welcomes the bulk billing plan but says it’s not enough: “I think there’s a lot more that has to happen.”

While some, like Jael, harbour doubts the government will follow through: “I think if it was something they would implement, then I think it would definitely be a good thing to help relieve some tension on the system.”

“The common theme for this discussion so far is they can say one thing and do another, and a lot of people aren’t certain,” Jael says.

Voters have long been cynical of politicians, but Samaras says it’s “more profound” now.

“Particularly in the health space, because Australians have seen what governments are capable of during the pandemic,” he says, noting how quickly and decisively governments were able to move when they thought it was important. “They’re very cynical because they’ve seen what governments are truly capable of actually achieving.”

There’s not a lot of love for the political class

Albanese and Dutton are vying for the prime ministerial suite at a time when there are an extraordinarily large number of swing and soft voters. And for many of those voters, politicians are completely unrelatable.

“They’re on these massive salaries that are paid by people like us who are having to pick up extra jobs and extra hours,” Jael says. “They don’t even have to look at their bank accounts before going to the shops.”

“I think they need to accept the fact that they’re not celebrities,” Shaughan says. “They just like to have these big moments … there’s 100 cameras around, they’ll be shaking everyone’s hand and making it all about them.”

“[For] a lot of these politicians, in their minds they’re Obama,” says Barry. “But they’re actually more like RFK Jr.”

“They need to be very careful of their perception … and how voters see them. They just want them to do the job, they don’t want them to be popular.”

Samaras concurs with his advice to politicians: “Drop the selfies, get down to the hard work [and] represent your constituents.”

Challenges for both leaders

Last election, Albanese’s personal story of being raised in public housing by a single mum was a selling point in seats like McEwen, because it was a clear sign that he understood their circumstances and their financial struggles.

Now that he’s in the top job, voters here might see him as just another politician, and it seems for many of the voters he needs to retain, that personal story is now proof he’s disappointed them.

It’s part of a broader and longer-term issue for parties which are seeing voter loyalty decline. 

“My parents told me, Labor’s for the people, working class, and then Liberal benefits the rich,” says Serene. “But now I see them as very, very similar because when I’ve seen both of them in power, I haven’t really seen much difference.”

Paula agrees: “I grew up thinking that the Liberals work for the rich people, Labor’s for the working class. Okay, well, Labor’s not looking after the working class anymore, they haven’t for the last five years or more.”

“They haven’t done anything. It’s a little bit too little too late.”

‘You can’t fatten a pig on market day’

Samaras says the group demonstrates longstanding problems for Labor in the outer suburbs.

“You can’t fatten a pig on market day,” he says. “Trying to fix this problem in an election campaign is nearly impossible.”

And while Dutton would watch this focus group with more satisfaction than the prime minister, there are challenges for him too. Many in the group confessed to having very little information about who Dutton is.

“I did hear this morning on the radio that he’s in for a chance of winning, which made me think, okay, I’ve got to do my research,” Paula says, while Ned says that he has “absolutely no idea” about the opposition leader.

“How do I not know this?” he asks himself and the room. “Are they not doing enough to promote it? You’re stressing about everyday life, cost of living, and you’re not thinking about that.

“The last election I really cared about was Kevin Rudd, Kevin 07, with the stimulus package. Everyone was into politics then, because everyone got a thousand bucks in their bank account.”

That lack of definition around Dutton and his character leaves him open to being defined by his opponents. With undecided voters now getting a better look at him in the heat of the campaign, what are the chances he comes off as no better than the prime minister?

Given Labor’s improvement in quantitative polling in the past few weeks, that seems to be a very real risk for him.

There’s certainly no massive enthusiasm for either leader from this focus group.

Casey Briggs examines the changing nature of swinging voters and how Australian politics is shifting on Swingers, every Tuesday through the campaign on ABC TV and ABC iview

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