Month: December 2009

Abbott and women #2

~ Andrew Norton ~ 13 Comments

There is no sign in today’s Newspoll (it will be on the Newspoll website later) of Tony Abbott’s forecast problems with women voters.

On a question asking whether Abbott would be a better leader, worse leader, or about the same as leader compared to Malcolm Turnbull women were less likely than men (26%-29%) to rate Abbott as better, but much more likely to rate him about the same (46%-36%). It was men (25%) rather than women (18%) who were much more likely to rate Abbott as worse than Turnbull. Overall, 72% of women and 65% of men rate Abbott as the same as or better than Turnbull. And this is the whole Newspoll sample, so includes left-wing women.

My main test of the women-don’t-like-Abbott theory is in the 2PP voting intention, which is essentially the same as last time with no gender breakdown. But for the theory to be correct, the swing by men towards the Coalition must have been big enough to counter-act any swing against by women.

It’s too early to say for sure, but it is looking more likely that the women-don’t-like-Abbott theory was a product of a massive over-sampling of women pundits know.

Why do Indians suffer the most discrimination?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 11 Comments

Unfortunately the new Mapping Social Cohesion study reported last week doesn’t seem to be online anywhere, though I have been given the summary report.

Though it generally shows that ethnic relations in Australia are reasonably good, it provides further evidence that Indians have come from seemingly nowhere as the subject of racism and discrimination to being the lead victim group.

The Indians and Sri Lankans in the survey, recruited from areas of high ethnic diversity, were the most likely to report discrimination on a monthly basis, with 12% saying this was their experience. By contrast, 7% of Middle Eastern background people and 8% of Chinese or Vietnamese background people reported this frequent discrimination (though not reported by ethnicity, by far the most common forms of discrimination were verbal abuse and ‘made to feel that did not belong’.)

A Saulwick poll in 2004 and the earlier 2007 Scanlon report both found opposition to migration from India at under 2%, much lower than the proportions of people opposing Middle Eastern migration or Asian migration (around 7-8%, though both a little hard to work out because of numerous similar options). Continue reading “Why do Indians suffer the most discrimination?” →

Abbott and women

~ Andrew Norton ~ 41 Comments

According to this week’s Nielsen poll, women (38%) were slightly more likely to support than Coalition than men (36%). Newspoll doesn’t routinely report by gender, but a pooling of polls between April and September this year found identical rates of male and female Coalition support.

The conventional wisdom is that this is set to change:

He [Abbott] has a serious problem with women voters

– Paul Kelly in The Australian

Abbott, who is deeply unpopular with female voters due to his hardline and aggressive Catholicism…

– Bernard Keane in Crikey

…his conservative social views make him divisive among voters, particularly women.

– Katharine Murphy in The Age

He’s taken a stand on a number of issues that would certainly alienate, has the potential to alienate, especially female voters.

– Nick Economou on The 7.30 Report Continue reading “Abbott and women” →

Tony Abbott – much to like, many reasons to doubt

~ Andrew Norton ~ 33 Comments

There’s much to like about Tony Abbott. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to who has met him (I’ve known him slightly since my mid-1990s Sydney days) finds him to be engaging and affable. I find his internal struggles to reconcile his Catholicism with his political imperatives and personal desires interesting and even appealing. If other Liberals change their minds because they never believed in anything in the first place, Abbott sometimes seems to change his mind because he believes in too many things, which are competing for his loyalty.

But can things that make him attractive as a person make him successful as a Liberal leader? The pundits are saying he has trouble with women. Kerry O’Brien and Nic Economou both said this on the 7.30 Report tonight, Bernard Keane at Crikey said that he is ‘deeply unpopular with female voters due to his hardline and aggressive Catholicism’. But the evidence for this is thin. – the Newspoll this week in fact found that women voters preferred Abbott over Turnbull. We should not confuse the self-appointed feminist representatives of women with women voters. The Newspoll this week found that Abbott’s support was near identical between male and female voters.

Abbott is not a simple ideological conservative. His centralist views, for example, put him outside the conservative mainstream. In my criticism of his recent book Battlelines, I argued that the problem-solving approach he adopted as a Howard minister and still defends leads to a far larger and more interfering government than most people on the centre-right would prefer. However, this approach does reflect the Australian public’s approach to things. They want problems fixed. Continue reading “Tony Abbott – much to like, many reasons to doubt” →