Category: Environment

A greenhouse route to nuclear power?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 16 Comments

According to The Australian this morning, reporting on the latest Newspoll:

FEAR of global warming has dramatically reversed Australians’ attitude to nuclear energy, with more people supporting nuclear power for the first time. In the past four months, support for nuclear power has risen from just 35 per cent to 45 per cent, and opposition has fallen in the same time from 50 per cent to 40 per cent.

Actually, what this poll shows is that if you put the magic words ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ in the question you increase support for nuclear power. Back in June last year, Roy Morgan Research asked the question:

Do you approve or disapprove of nuclear power plants replacing coal, oil, and gas power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

And found that 49% approved and 37% disapproved. In December 2006, Newspoll, after reminding respondents that there was a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights but no nuclear power station in Australia, asked:

Are you personally in favour or against nuclear power stations being built in Australia?

The result was 38% in favour and 51% against.

In the latest Newspoll, the question changed:

Are you personally in favour or against the development of a nuclear power industry in Australia, as one of a range of energy solutions to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

The result was 45% in favour and 40% against – closer to the June 2006 Roy Morgan survey that also mentioned greenhouse than to the December 2006 Newspoll that did not. This indicates that there is a section of the electorate that is willing to accept the logic of their views on global warming, and change their otherwise negative view of nuclear energy. But this is still dangerous political territory for the Prime Minister, with overall support below 50% and 11% of Coalition voters ‘strongly against’ a nuclear power industry.

8 March update: A new Morgan Poll confirms that opinion is stable on this issue, with recent debates having no net effect.

Why is Labor the preferred party on water resources?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 23 Comments

Today’s ACNielsen poll in the Fairfax broadsheets has a ‘best party to handle’ issues question I don’t think I have seen before, and which could be just as worrying to the Coalition as the 58%-42% two-party preferred result. This was which party is best to handle water resources, which Labor led 48% to 34%. That’s well under the 40% who said in 2004 that they tend to identify with the Liberals, and close to the Coalition’s core support of around one-third of voters.

Purely on an issue basis, it’s hard to see why Labor has a strong lead on this. Water has little history as a federal issue, and not much more (at least in recent times) as a state issue, so there are not strong party stereotypes to fall back on, as there are on issues such as health, education, and tax. But if you had to think about it in the context of the governments who have been responsible for water, ie the state Labor governments, you’d have to say that their long-term performance (except perhaps in WA) is in the poor to mediocre range. In Victoria, the Bracks government’s strategy seems to be limited to killing off gardens and shorter showers. When Newspoll asked Victorians during last year’s election which party would better handle water management, Labor was nevertheless ahead, but only 38% to 32%.

As Malcolm Turnbull theatrically told Parliament last week, thanks to severe domestic water restrictions bucket back is afflicting pensioners as they carry water from their showers to their gardens. You don’t have to be raving right-winger to think we can do much better than this policywise (some ideas today from Professor Q). And whatever the merits of the PM’s $10 billion plan for the Murray-Darling Basin, it had been more prominently in the news than any suggestions from the Labor side.

It’s hard to tell without repeat polling, but this result could just be the flow on from the enthusiasm surrounding Kevin Rudd – that voters don’t actually have real views on which party federally would best handle water, but they are feeling positive toward Labor at the moment and so when asked they say ‘Labor’ rather than say nothing. Another possibility is that this is a case of issue association – that because water seems related to the environment, and Labor is way ahead on that (60% to 26%), Labor seems the more obvious answer to this question. Unless the drought breaks between now and the election, the Coalition had better hope this poll does not reflect solid opinion.

Ends versus means on global warming

~ Andrew Norton ~ 7 Comments

This month’s Newspoll on nuclear power plants, as reported in The Australian yesterday, again highlights the political complexity of the greenhouse issue. While several polls confirm that the public believes global warming to be a major issue, they do not accept the most feasible ways of reducing emissions. In this poll, 50% are against nuclear power plants, and only 35% are in favour – with most of the remaining 15% of unsure respondents likely to go for a negative response if pressed (if people are forced to choose they tend to go for status quo options; all the more so on an issue ripe for scare campaigns like this one).

Due to the particular history of this issue, with opposition to uranium mining an article of faith on the left, we have the situation of Labor voters being considerably more likely (80%/60%) than Coalition voters to think global warming is a serious issue but considerably less likely (29%/51%) than Coalition voters to support a way of significantly reducing emissions. It is another example of the reluctance of left-of-centre voters to see politics and policy in pragmatic terms.

How the Greens are turning me into a tree-hugger

~ Andrew Norton ~ 55 Comments

It’s enough to turn me into a tree-hugger. Melbourne City Council – having already killed the gums along the middle of my street in an unnecessary and bungled road repavement – is now planning to get rid of Melbourne’s beautiful European trees, on the grounds that they use too much water. Personally, I’d be quite happy to pay higher rates to set up a water recycling scheme if there is genuinely a problem here. And who is leading the charge on this crazy policy? It’s the Green councillor Fraser Brindley. The irony! What finally turns me into a politicised nature-lover is a Green plan for environmental destruction. For my fellow residents of inner Melbourne, remember that on November 25 the Greens have a chance of winning the seats of Melbourne and Richmond. Put them last!

When should we listen to public opinion?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 19 Comments

All the survey research into what the public knows about politics and policy comes up with the same conclusion: very little. I added an Australian pebble to the mountain of international evidence back in April. Not only do people lack factual information, but they freely express ‘non-attitudes’, opinions they don’t really hold, just to answer pollsters’ questions (one way non-attitudes are detected is by asking the same question again with different wording; if the replies are inconsistent the respondent probably doesn’t have a clear position on the issue).

For a democracy, this research raises important questions. For a start, should we be guided by majority preferences if the majority clearly has no idea what it is talking about? One way that I think governments can be democratically responsive and still be guided by expert opinion is to pay far more attention to the general goals the public wants achieved and the problems it wants solved than to any of the public’s specific views about how to achieve those goals and solve those problems. Goals and problems place much lower cognitive demands on poll respondents and voters; you don’t need to know anything about economics to know that you would rather have more money, or that it is better if unemployment and inflation are low. You don’t need to know anything about teaching or medicine to know that good schools and hospitals are preferable to the alternatives.

This morning’s Age/ACNielsen poll on global warming highlights the issues. 91% of respondents think that global warming is a serious problem. 62% are not satisfied with the Howard government’s response to it. As a guard against non-attitudes, a recent Lowy Institute poll found only 7% of resondents thinking global warming was not a problem, and 68% agreeing that we should take significant steps to reduce it even if costs are significant, and an April Roy Morgan Poll found that just 12% thought that concerns about global warming were exaggerated and 71% thought that if we don’t act now it will be too late. With broadly similar results from three different sets of questions we can be confident that people believe that global warming is real, and that something should be done about it. This is the kind of poll result that governments need to take into account.
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