Bad luck comes in threes, they say, but not in our house, not this year.

The first appliance to die was the water softener, now disconnected and sulking, weeping in its own brine.

Water softeners are a vanishing breed, anyway, even in Adelaide where we shower in water that’s so hard it’s only one step removed from gravel.

Then the ducted gas heating unit in the roof space spat the dummy. The gas guy said it had a small crack in the heat exchanger so he’d “decommissioned” it for safety. But he couldn’t install a replacement part because the roof was “too steep”.

We paid $189 for it not to be fixed but he could help arrange a brand-new unit for $8000, despite the steep roof. Thanks, but no thanks. The Greens say gas is the fuel of the devil, so what’s the point?

Next, the Breville sandwich press gave up the ghost. The worst was yet to come.

Late last week, our reverse cycle air conditioning unit blew its expensive little electronic brains out. That means the only “heating” in the house is a single $20, brick-sized K-Mart blower heater, rugs and beanies. This must be what it’s like living in an Extinction Rebellion house, where misery and piety keep each other warm.

We’re fortunate enough to have the money to replace or repair our dud appliances. Even luckier, we can afford to run them.

But for millions of Australians, this is no longer the case.

In middle Australia, the land beyond the Bullnose Veranda Belt, a major appliance breakdown – like an air conditioner, a hot water heater or a washing machine – is no longer just an inconvenience. It can be a home-wrecking, budget disaster.

The Reserve Bank’s narrative, while merrily rolling out crushing interest rate rises, is that Australians squirrelled away a “large stock of unexpected additional savings” during the COVID lockdowns and are now having to “dip into” these to make ends meet.

What planet are they on?

Most young families with a mortgage, and most renters, don’t have savings to “dip” into. They’re running on empty.

When Tony Abbott was elected Liberal leader in 2011, one former ABC colleague, from another program, laughed uproariously when I suggested Abbott would be the next Liberal Prime Minister.

Abbott’s many critics on the Left wrote him off as a slow-moving, onion-chomping dill.

He proved to be a dangerous dill for Labor, leading the Coalition to a landslide victory in 2013.

Abbott had a robotic knack for keeping his message simple – stop the boats, junk “Labor’s carbon tax”, create two million jobs in a decade.

Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is also seen as a dull, slow-moving target, mocked as Mr Potato Head, a reference to his bald dome.

But in his first Budget-in-reply speech on May 11, Dutton rolled out a sharp message.

“Inflation is coming from Canberra,” he said.

“The budget hurts working Australians. Worse, it risks creating a generation of working poor Australians.”

These lines don’t need to be fair, they just need to resonate.

The “working poor Australians” tag is devastating. It’s straight out of the Tony Abbott songbook. It will strike a chord in the suburbs where elections are won and lost.

And while the Albanese Government isn’t yet to blame for the nation’s inflation rate – a key driver of interest rate hikes – Dutton is burying a landmine for it, just in case.

Dutton’s speech was criticised for not painting a big picture for the Coalition, but big pictures aren’t looking too pretty right now. Most households seem to be studying the small picture, in the shape of their credit card bills.

This week, the Resolve Political Monitor poll in The Sydney Morning Herald showed another significant dive in support for the Yes vote in the looming referendum on an indigenous Voice to parliament.

The paper’s national affairs editor James Massola tweeted: “There is no way to spin this. The Yes campaign for the Voice to parliament is in serious trouble. A 5 percentage point move in one month, to 53-47, is well outside the margin of error and tight enough that the referendum could be lost”.

A Resolve poll last month showed one in 10 eligible Australians don’t even intend to vote in the referendum.

While some of this shift can be blamed on confusion over the Voice model, it’s hard to escape the thought it may also be seen as a “big picture” issue that is leaving many voters cold.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, revealing the initial wording of the referendum question last July, asked of the Voice: “If not now, then when?”

The answer may well be: “When things get better”.

Big pictures aren’t looking too pretty right now. Most households seem to be studying the small picture, in the shape of their credit card bills

Down in Tasmania, the “working poor” are creating heartache for the Liberal state government over its plans to ramp up debt for a proposed $715 million stadium development on Hobart’s Macquarie Point.

The stadium is seen as the price demanded by AFL boss Gil McLachlan to bestow a licence for a Tassie team to play in the AFL competition.

Two Liberal MPs – Lara Alexander from the seat of Bass and John Tucker in Lyons – last week resigned from the party over the issue to sit as independents, plunging Premier Jeremy Rockliff’s government into minority status.

Neither have guaranteed budget supply, a move that could potentially force the government – the nation’s only conservative outpost – to an early poll and an early grave.

Alexander, a certified accountant with an honours degree in economic studies, wants the government to explain how the debt-versus-benefit numbers stack up. How novel.

“For me, as an accountant, as an economist, as a person that has worked in a not-for-profit sector, it’s really hard for me to understand this particular investment (the stadium),” she says.

“I just can’t get my head around it.”

The AFL, on Planet Footy, is probably struggling to get its head around people who can’t appreciate that charging taxpayers $715 million to secure one footy team is a brilliant deal.

In 2023, any politician, any sporting boss or any CEO who doesn’t think the cost of living is the only game in town is a mug.

South Australia’s Treasurer Stephen Mullighan brags that his five per cent increase in fees and charges from July 1 will be “welcome news” for households because it’s below the inflation rate. This is bizarre logic. Such an unnecessarily hefty rise only feeds inflation, and that won’t be welcomed by anyone.

Little wonder his welcome news was met with the sound of one hand clapping.

Kos Samaros, who has run election campaigns for Labor in Victoria and nationally, now operates a research outfit called RedBridge.

Rather than treating Australia as “one big homogenous electorate”, he says RedBridge research reveals the myriad issues worrying voters in key regional and outer suburban seats – petrol prices, longer child care sessions, when and how you access other services, bad roads, long drives, alienation.

“Throw into the mix massive household debt, largely created by this country’s insane property market and many of these electorates are ticking time bombs,” he argues.

He believes these views are “baked in” and can’t be shifted by “a six-week election circus or a series of promises”.

“No amount of election spin, promises or kissing babies will obscure the reality that millions of families will be providing their children with a unique inheritance – debt,” he says.

“They won’t be dying with their Australian dream but a nightmare of debt. If they are lucky, that debt may again explode if they require intensive aged care. There are no nest eggs to fall back on. Any main ‘breadwinner’ falls ill, the income dries up quickly.”

Grim stuff. Let’s hope some rays of sunlight penetrate the gloom.

Peter Dutton wrapped up his budget-in-reply speech by asking Australians: “Are you better off than you were 12 months ago?”

Let me get back to you on that, after we get the heating fixed.

Matthew Abraham’s political column is published on Fridays. Matthew can be found on Twitter as @kevcorduroy. It’s a long story.