OPINION: Are we more politically aware due to COVID and working from home?

I talked with a few friends over coffee the other day when the conversation turned to politics and the upcoming federal election.

The people I was talking with would typically be categorised as 'casual observers' of politics; they usually start to yawn if the topic comes up. But on this day, they were all keenly engaged in the chat.

One said the prime minister was "toast" at the next election.

"Yeah, we were never at the front of the vaccine queue," another piped up.

"What about electric vehicles will kill your weekend and now he is all for them," the last to speak said.

Then talk swung to what seats the Liberal Party might lose at the next election and what it all meant for us locally.

I was amazed. Not only were they talking about politics, but they were informed and speaking like veteran political beasts.

"When did you all become so politically aware," I asked.

"COVID, working from home, homeschooling," came the reply almost in unison.

"I have never taken a keen interest in politics, but working from home, I'd want to be informed of what was going on with COVID, so I'd tune in to the daily numbers press conference," one said.

"From there, I started listening to the news more closely and started paying attention to what the federal and state government was doing."

"I am the same," the others chimed in.

When I asked them whether they felt they would be better informed at the next federal election, they all said yes.

"More informed than I have ever been," they all agreed.

"I hate to admit it, but I normally just vote for the candidate whose name I recognise," one said. "The last few times that's been Andrew Laming, and I never pay much attention to preferences at all. I randomly fill the boxes in. Not this time, though, this time, I know how I am voting and why."

Once we had finished our chat, they all agreed I'd probably find more people like them, more politically aware due to COVID and spending more time at home.

So, readers, do you feel more politically aware than you were pre-COVID?

I know it's only a tiny sample size. Still, on the evidence of this meeting, things like Scott Morrison jetting off to Hawaii while the country burnt, gaslighting us on electric vehicles and what they could or couldn't tow, telling us we were at the front of the vaccine queue when we weren't, and treating sexual assault like a political problem rather than a moral one might've slipped through to the keeper pre-COVID and working from home.

As it stands with this group, thanks to COVID and working from home, they are more aware of these things than they may have been otherwise. So now there are a handful of votes that would've gone Scott Morrison and the coalitions way that now are not.

On polling day, that handful of votes could be the difference between the coalition government returning to govern or not.