The one issue infuriating Aussies that Anthony Albanese can’t ignore – after he spent months trying to convince voters about the Voice

Hip pocket thrust, arch pain, continued price pressure.

All of these clichés have been used to describe the deteriorating performance of Australian household budgets.

After the emphatic defeat of the Voice referendum, the major parties are looking forward to the December mid-term budget update, the Christmas holidays and what could be the Labor budget for the May election.

What happens in politics when you lose your vote?

Lawmakers from both sides of politics said the cost of living is the top issue on voters’ minds.

A recent Ipsos poll confirmed this, with the cost of living being the biggest problem for 62 percent of Australians.

This was followed by housing (38 percent) and health care (30 percent), while the economy came in a close fourth.

Only seven percent of respondents consider Indigenous issues to be their top concern, ranking them fourteenth.

In Western Australia, voting had not even closed when it became clear that the referendum had failed.

Liberal MP Melissa McIntosh, whose electorate of Lindsay includes Sydney’s western suburbs, immediately declared that the Prime Minister must do everything he can to drive down daily costs.

The political calculation for the coalition is simple: a net gain of 18 seats is needed to come to power.

Western Australia will be a key focus, with Labor gaining four seats in 2022, handing Anthony Albanese the premiership.

The coalition subsequently lost six and holds only five of the state’s fifteen seats.

Coalition members believe there are gains to be made in the West thanks to unpopular environmental laws and Labour’s plan to phase out live sheep exports.

It is unlikely that Queensland – where both the vote and the Labor vote outside the city seats were low – will not deliver any dividends to the government at the next election.

Mortgage belt seats in the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne are targets for the opposition, with a large group of ‘ambitious Australians’ looking to boost their incomes and invest.

Both parties agree that opposition to the voice of voters in particular will not translate into liberal-national support.

But the opposition’s plan is to tie the hundreds of millions of ‘wasted’ referendum dollars to the government, ignoring struggling Australians.

Voters were tired of hearing the voice out as they struggled to make ends meet, Liberal MPs said.

Opposition questions in Parliament this week went along the lines of: ‘Why has the Prime Minister chosen to focus on his divisive Canberra vote proposal and not tackling X?’, often tailored to the state of each member.

Dorothy Dixers – pre-planted questions that government leaders ask ministers to sprinkle on their agenda or take a swing at the opposition – focused on the same issue.

“How is the Albanian Labor government easing the cost of living pressure on Australians and is there any opposition to these actions?” one went.

This gave ministers the opportunity to call off all the measures the government had taken to reduce inflation and increase wages, while the opposition ignored the root cause of the higher prices.

A recent Ipsos poll confirmed this, with the cost of living being the biggest problem for 62 percent of Australians. Only seven percent of respondents consider Indigenous issues to be their top concern, ranking them fourteenth.

National Senator Bridget McKenzie is leading an investigation into the government’s decision to support an attempt by Qantas to deny Qatar extra flights, which the coalition has linked to higher prices and a Labor Party catering to vested interests.

Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was a “fat cat” who was supported by the government while struggling Australians could not afford a plane ticket, she said.

As the dust settles on the referendum result, both parties are insisting that their party supports workers and small businesses amid the cost of living.

Labour’s argument that wages are not keeping up with inflation has been taken up by the Liberals and incorporated into their attacks.

The Liberals’ pre-election argument that petrol prices and inflation were determined by factors outside government control, such as wars and the international economy, has been adopted by Labour.

Now that the voice has been silenced, the call for cost-of-living relief is growing louder.