Is the budget backlash hurting Labor?

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: 7am
Title: Is the budget backlash hurting Labor?
Date: May 22, 2026
Host: Daniel James (A)
Guest: Kos Samaras (D), Director of Strategy & Campaigns, Redbridge Group

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Overview

This episode examines the public and political reaction to the federal budget, focusing on whether the backlash—driven by media campaigns and high-profile millennial entrepreneurs—is harming the Labor government. Daniel James speaks with strategist Kos Samaras about Labor’s current polling, voter sentiment, the coalition’s struggles to capitalize on discontent, and the rise of populist right party One Nation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Media and Political Backlash to the Budget

• Large sections of the media and several millennial entrepreneurs have fiercely criticized the budget, accusing Labor of hurting aspiration and engaging in the "politics of envy."
• Notable Quotes:
  • Opposition critiques:
    • “This is a government that's just run out of money and it's coming after Australians' money … through tax sites.” [01:13, B]
    • “But this is a budget built on lies. It's built on higher deficits, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes.” [01:20–01:25, C/D]

2. Limited Immediate Impact on Labor’s Polling

• Despite the noise, Labor’s primary vote has remained stable; there’s been “zero” hit in the polls so far.
• Kos explains that it takes time for political news to reach and affect the broader public:
  • “It takes a while for that to actually happen.” [01:31, D]
• Only those personally affected by the budget (e.g., property investors, shareowners) closely follow these debates.
• Younger Australians feel the budget didn’t address longstanding inequities.

3. Disgruntled Voters, Dissatisfaction, but No Realignment—Yet

• Polls indicate 52% of people feel the budget will leave them worse off, and the Prime Minister’s popularity has dropped.
• The discontent is less about the government’s actions and more a reflection of general pessimism about the country's direction and compounding crises:
  • “The mental state of the Australian populace is probably rock bottom.” [02:29, D]
• Younger people's resentment focuses on a system they see as stacked against them—particularly the tax system.

4. Labor’s Strategy: Leaning on Its Electoral Base

• Labor has successfully locked in support from key demographics:
  • Generation Z (18–28): Labor’s two-party preferred vote is "just over 70%.” [05:28, D]
  • Millennials: 56%
  • Australians who speak a language other than English at home: 70%
• “...these constituencies are going to drive strong electoral results for Labor and lock in at least a minimum of 70 plus seats…on a bad day.” [05:51, D]

5. The Rise of One Nation and the Coalition’s Decline

• Coalition’s primary vote is down to 20; One Nation is up to 27 (per recent polls). One Nation’s share is volatile but on the increase.
• Kos predicts a restructuring of the centre-right, with One Nation likely to surpass the Liberals in many areas:
  • “We are seeing a complete restructure of the centre right of politics...” [04:24, D]
• If trends continue, the Liberals could be left as a minor party with only their wealthier, asset-holding base.
• “The only electorates that the coalition is now left holding...are basically electorates with high numbers of people with investments and assets. So the coalition...that's a shrinking base.” [06:43, D]

6. Coalition Messaging and Tactics Critiqued

• Angus Taylor’s “fair go” and anti-migrant benefit rhetoric (“Australians first”) seen as ineffective and tone deaf.
  • Kos: “Pretty poor.” [07:32, D]
• Policies targeting permanent residents are out of step with modern, multicultural Australia, and are likely to backfire.

7. The Risk of Chasing One Nation’s Base

• The Coalition’s hardline stance on immigration is unlikely to win back voters from One Nation; it may instead validate and strengthen One Nation:
  • “By embarking on this strategy of trying to outperform Pauline Hanson on immigration...you're going to now encourage hundreds of thousands...to become citizens [and] enroll to vote out of fear.” [10:14, D]
• The main motivation for defectors to One Nation is not immigration, but a belief the system is broken and a desire to “burn the place down.”

8. Projection for the Next Election

• One Nation could win as many as 40–60 seats, predominantly in the regions and outer suburbs—mostly at the Coalition’s expense, but also cutting into Labor’s base:
  • “Somewhere in the mid-40s to about 60 seats is what we’re looking at at the moment.” [11:51, D]
• The Liberal Party could be reduced to single digits or low teens in Parliament.
  • “Unless something changes, we're predicting that One Nation will win the bulk of the electorates outside the large cities.” [11:16, D]
• Barnaby Joyce (New England) is expected to hold his seat, possibly winning on primary votes alone. [12:09, D]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On generational resentment:

  • “Most younger Australians think that this system, the tax system, is not engineered for them, full stop.” [03:04, D]

• On the Coalition's shrinking base:

  • “The only electorates the Coalition is now left holding...are basically electorates with high numbers of people with investments and assets.” [06:43, D]

• On chasing One Nation voters:

  • “The majority have moved over because they think the two-party system's broken, that the economy is not working for them, that they want to burn the place down.” [09:19–10:05, D]

• On the risk of immigration policies:

  • “By embarking on this strategy of trying to outperform Pauline Hanson on immigration... you’re going to now encourage hundreds of thousands of [permanent residents] to become citizens [and] enrol to vote out of fear.” [10:14, D]

• On One Nation’s prospects:

  • “One Nation will win the bulk of the electorates outside the large cities...” [11:16, D]
  • “...mid-40s to about 60 seats is what we’re looking at at the moment.” [11:51, D]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Budget backlash & initial polling response: [00:01–02:10]
• Voter sentiment and mental state of population: [02:15–02:58]
• Media and generational divisions: [03:04–04:11]
• Labor’s core constituencies and polling: [05:10–06:11]
• Coalition's strategy and decline: [06:11–07:28]
• Coalition’s migration policy critique: [07:32–09:19]
• The risks and consequences of chasing One Nation votes: [09:19–11:02]
• Electoral forecasts & One Nation's rise: [11:02–12:20]

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Summary Tone & Style
The episode maintains a sharp, analytical, and slightly skeptical tone. Kos Samaras offers direct, sometimes blunt, insights, with a focus on data-driven polling and demographic trends. The analysis avoids partisan cheerleading but underscores the transformative shifts underway in Australian politics.

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This summary captures the major narratives, strategic insights, and standout moments on how Labor’s budget has shaped—and failed to dramatically reshape—the political outlook, highlighting the coalition’s ongoing weaknesses and the momentum of populist right forces.

Transcript

[A]

I'm Daniel James and you're listening to 7:00am the federal budget has been hit by a fierce campaign from large sections of the media and a handful of high profile millennial entrepreneurs. But so far, Labor's polling has remained relatively unscathed. But that doesn't mean voters are happy. People might not be shifting their votes over this budget, but many still feel there's nothing in it for them right now. For the coalition, that should be an open instead. One nation's turning that frustration into real momentum today. Director of strategy and campaigns at Redbridge Group, Koz Samaras on Labor's budget woes, the coalition's failure to capitalise and the populist rights growing hold on Australian politics. It's Saturday, May 23rd. Kos, good to see you again. This week the Treasurer has been doing a bit of a media blitz defending the government's latest budget. They've been facing some pretty big attack campaigns from the opposition and from some corners of the media.

[B]

This is a government that's just run out of money and it's coming after Australians money. And it's doing that through tax sites, not just these tax sites.

[C]

But this is a budget built on lies. It's built on higher deficits, more debt,

[D]

lower living standards and fewer homes.

[A]

So how much of a hit has the government actually taken in the polls?

[D]

Well, right now I would say zero. Because what we do know about how long it takes for any political news to actually be absorbed by enough people in the country for it to be statistically viable as a captured audience takes a while for that to actually happen. And so really the only people I think would have tuned into the budget are those who are negatively impacted. So clearly people with shares, people who are, who are negative gearing, who may have checked it out to see whether it's grandfathered or not. But by and large, based on a lot of the qualitative research we've done over the last week or so, there's been very little cut through, except for amongst younger Australians who think it didn't go far enough in recalibrating the inequity.

[A]

What did you make of the news poll that said 52% of the people feel the budget will leave them worse off?

[D]

The latest polls show the PM's popularity has nosedived. Voters are threatening to walk away from the major parties and barely anyone thinks they're better off.

[A]

Do you think that's accurate? And if so, where's that sentiment coming from?

[D]

That sentiment is coming from a general sentiment across the country that the country's heading the wrong direction. And that's really a manifestation, not necessarily whether government is performing well or not, it's just that they think the world around them is in disarray. The economy is struggling, there's a fuel crisis, inflationary crisis. They've been buffeted by one crisis after another. They've not seen daylight since the pandemic. The mental state of the Australian populace is probably rock bottom. And it really is not always about politics.

[A]

What have you made of the overall reaction from the media in the days and now, weeks after the budget?

[D]

Look, I'd say it's a campaign that I've seen run many times. It works for a particular group of Australians, much older Australians, but it's completely tone deaf when it comes to the sentiment that we are seeing expressed by younger Australians. And that is most younger Australians think that this system, the tax system, is not engineered for them, full stop. And most of these younger Australians are salaried. Contrary to the narrative that has been put out over the last week. They're not all tech pros. They don't have shares.

[A]

Millennial entrepreneurs.

[D]

That's right. The vast majority of them belong to that renter cohort, particularly in Sydney, Melbourne and now increasingly in cities like Brisbane and Perth and Adelaide. They are overwhelmingly people with no political power, no asset power, no financial power, and they want someone to go into bat for them. And hence, so far, I think that the labor government took that positive step forward and you can do a lot more. And more importantly, I think that the political fallout from this budget is going to be pretty minimal.

[A]

You mentioned that labor hasn't really taken a hit in terms of its primary vote. It's steady at 31, according to Newspoll. But the coalition has gone down to 20 and One Nation has gone up to 27. So that's right. Why is one nation coming out on top?

[D]

Cos so what we're seeing is that news polls, one nation vote bounces around a lot and so does ours whenever we publish numbers. Because we are living through a transitional period, we are seeing a complete restructure of the centre right of politics that's going through a process now where people will move from one position to the next over time, but it will eventually settle to around what we're seeing, where one nation will probably be sitting in the high 20s and the coalition on a good day will break 20. In your view?

[A]

Cos is Albanese as Prime Minister doing enough to combat the rise of the populace right here? This is bigger than making sure government Business runs smoothly while the other side tears itself apart. This is really actually about the soul of the country, isn't it?

[D]

Yeah, that's right. And really it's also for them being the labor government and the labor camp carefully observing who is their constituency and the budget was pretty clear and it was pitching a very strong narrative to that constituency. If you look at what is propping up Labor's vote and their seats, we still predict the Albanese government to be re elected. As it stands right now could change, but as it stands right now, and that is possible because of the constituency they leaned into at that budget. So the two party preferred vote for labor amongst generation Z, that is Australians between 18 and 28 is just over 70%. It's extraordinary that the levels the two party preferred vote amongst Australians who speak a language other than English at home, 70%. And amongst millennials, it's 56. And so these constituencies are going to drive strong electoral results for labor and lock in at least a minimum of 70 plus seats for them on a bad day.

[A]

Coming up, was this the final budget reply from the coalition? Cos this should be perfect photo for the coalition saying labor broke faith with voters. They're attacking aspiration through the politics of envy and going after what they say is the fair go is the coalition's opportunity to leverage this budget and become a real force in politics again. Is that something that's a possibility?

[D]

I don't think so, because the word fair go, most people will tell us they think there isn't a fair go in the country right now, even before the budget. They think the system, the tax system, is designed to reward people with wealth and not those with incomes. And that's the overwhelming position of everyone that is voting Labor, Green and one nation and Independent. Everyone but the Liberal Party. And the only electorates that the coalition is now left holding are electorates which are similar to till electorates. But these electorates that they've got, which is only just over a dozen, are basically electorates with high numbers of people with investments and assets. So the coalition might be referring to their own base, but that's, that's a shrinking base at that.

[A]

So how would you assess Angus Taylor's messaging this week, more broadly?

[D]

Pretty poor. You know, going to what we've just been talking about and that is a growing number of Australians not feeling that they are being given the fair go. And then the other one, which is of course his migration policy, which was in my, my opinion a policy designed to completely lock themselves out of big urban Australia.

[B]

This isn't fair. So we're making some changes. We're going to put Australians first. We'll restrict those 17 welfare programs and NDIS to Australian citizens only. Labor puts you second. The coalition will put Australians first.

[A]

First.

[D]

So not only does it touch Australians who are permanent residents, what he fails to understand is many of these Australians who are permanent residents also have family who are citizens in their own household. There's mixed households. They, you might find a situation where the grandparents are permanent residents, but the adult children are citizens. This is not unusual. It is something that was absolutely prevalent when I was growing up in the Greek and Italian communities in Australia. And that migration takes a while, you know, so you're, you're planning to bring over your brother and sister and you know, that period of uniting your family in a new home takes about 10 to 15 years. You rely on that permanent residency framework to facilitate that. So if you fall on hard times, the government's there to help you if you're a permanent resident.

[A]

So anyone who understands kind of like the fabric of Australia and multicultural Australia in particular, understands that dynamic and understands that story. What, what explains his politics on this? Has he forgotten that? Does he, Is he not aware that that's what happens in Australia? That aspiration of people coming here and making a better life here is impossible without government support?

[D]

Yeah. I think we are now seeing an opposition desperate to survive and they think that immigration's the only thing that's going to help them. They fail to understand the reason they're in this terrible situation is because they've taken the eye off representing working class conservative Australians who have voted for them for many years, not the top end of town. And they always resort to immigration because it's easy. They think that if they try to outperform Pauline Hanson on that, they might bring back some of those votes. Well, when we look, ask Australians who have moved to one nation from the coalition as to why they've done that. The majority have moved over because they think the two party system's broken, that the economy is not working for them, that they want to burn the place down. Only about 13%, 13% to 17% have done so because of immigration.

[A]

And do you think that chasing the one nation votes by adopting their rhetoric and policies may just end up validating one nation as a party even more?

[D]

Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what's going to happen. So the labor camp had this problem versus the Greens. They thought that if they tried to outgreen the Greens, they will arrest their problem on the left during the the last 20 years and they gave up that idea and started just focusing on their strengths. And that seems to have worked for them as an electoral strategy. But it took a while for them to realize that. But they didn't have a massive existential threat on their left flank. It was a minimal threat and it was very geographically contained. The flip side for the coalition is that that is not a luxury they have. And so by embarking on this strategy of trying to outperform Paul, enhance on immigration. The other thing they've done is of course you have in excess of 2 million Australians who are permanent residents. You're going to now encourage hundreds of thousands of them to become citizens enrolled to vote out of fear.

[A]

And you've said, Kos, that this might be the last or second last budget reply delivered by a Liberal mp. That's a pretty extraordinary thought. Do you think One Nation will overtake the Liberals as the main opposition voice?

[D]

Yes. Yes. So unless something changes, what we're predicting is that One Nation will win the bulk of the electorates outside the large cities. The coalition will be cut down to only a handful of seats, probably as high as, I think the high teens, as low as single digits. I do put a caveat. It can change because we are for, as I touched on, living for a quite transformative period. But that's the world we're looking at

[A]

from a seat perspective. How many seats are we looking at? That One nation could actually end up at the next election with anything from

[D]

somewhere in the mid-40s to about 60 seats is what we're looking at at the moment, and predominantly in the regions and some in the outer suburbs of the large cities. Largely coming off the coalition, but also a bit off Labour.

[A]

And what about Barnaby, the great White Hope? How's he looking?

[D]

He doesn't need to stand for the Senate. He can win New England quite comfortably. I would expect that the one nation primary vote in New England will be close to almost allowing him to win on primary votes alone.

[A]

Wow. Cos, thanks for coming on the show and taking us through the reaction to the budget, which was aimed at young people like us.

[D]

That's right, no problem.

[C]

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[A]

7am is a daily show from Solstice Media. It's made by Atticus Bastow, Arielle Richards, Chris Dengate, Crystal Keller, Ruby Jones, Travis Evans, Zoltan Fetcho and me, Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio. Thanks so much for listening to 7am this week. Have a great weekend.