Category: Public opinion

The economy as a depreciating political asset

~ Andrew Norton ~ 22 Comments

In late September, Newspoll asked its respondents: ‘John Howard or Kevin Rudd – who do you think is more capable of handling Australia’s economy?’. 48% thought the Prime Minister was more capable, while 33% thought the Opposition Leader.

The ACNielsen poll reported in yesterday’s Fairfax broadsheets used a different question to probe the same issue. They included an option saying ‘it makes very little difference which party is in power, economic performance would be the same’, and it was the most popular choice on 43%, with the Coalition regarded as the better manager by 40% of voters, and Labor by 12%.

That’s consistent with the increasing belief, as seen in the Australian Election Survey, that the government makes ‘not much difference’ to either general or household economic situations (I blogged on this in July; the full AES time series has been published here, but unfortunately in a generally very useful publication the ‘bad effect’ and ‘not much difference’ numbers have been transposed).

Though the Coalition is still well ahead of Labor on this indicator, it is not as strong as Newspoll would suggest. As more people come to believe that the economy is going well on autopilot, and Labor won’t try any Whitlam or Keating crash landings, the more the Coalition loses one of its clear policy strengths and the more likely people are to take a chance on Labor. It’s probably one factor explaining why, despite the best set of economic indicators in a generation, the Coalition faces the kind of wipeout normally reserved for goverments that have presided over serious economic downturns.

The systemic consequences of big election victories

~ Andrew Norton ~ 59 Comments

Today’s Galaxy poll was more of the same old bad news for the government, another week of no rain in a long electoral drought. Because of the way single-member electorate voting systems exaggerate results, a uniform swing would see the Coalition’s 44% of the vote translate into only about a third of the seats in the House of Representatives.

An election victory that big would have systemic consequences. Voters wouldn’t just be changing the government now, they would effectively also be limiting their choices for the next couple of elections at least, since even being optimistic it would take that long for the Coalition to rebuild to the point that it passed the threshold of credibility as an alternative government. And unless parties pass that threshold, even bad or unwanted governments seem secure.

This is already the problem we have at the state level. In a Galaxy Poll last November respondents were asked whether, based on its recent performance, the NSW Labor government deserved to win the next state election. Only a third of voters thought that it did. Yet the same poll showed Labor leading on the 2PP 52-48, roughly what it in fact got at the subsequent state election. The Opposition has never really recovered from its dismal showing at the 1999 state election. At this distance, the Beattie/Bligh government in Queensland looks to be struggling towards mediocrity even less successfully than the Iemma government in NSW, but it too seems secure in power, because the Opposition is not credible.
Continue reading “The systemic consequences of big election victories” →

Unhealthy federalism

~ Andrew Norton ~ 25 Comments

This morning’s ACNielsen poll attracted most attention for adding another week to Labor’s remarkable lead in the polls, but it also reported some interesting issue polling.

Alas, support for federalism – at least so far as it concerns hospitals – is no stronger than the Coalition primary vote. 40% think that it would be better if hospitals were run by the states, compared to 42% who think the federal government should do it.

I doubt that this is an ideological thing; federalism (as opposed to parochial concerns with ‘state’s rights’) has never really been widely understood among the politically active, much less the masses. It is a pragmatic assessment of which level of government seems most competent, with 55% of those polled agreeing that the health system is ‘not very well run’, and nearly twice as many people (46%) blame the states for this as blame the federal government (24%).

Personally, I doubt the federal government would do a better job. The Canberra bureaucracy has relatively little experience of service delivery compared to their state counterparts, and with the added disadvantage of being very remote from the places they need to service. The one advantage of the otherwise poor policy on display in Mersey hospital takeover may be to provide evidence that the Commonwealth does no better at running hospitals than the states.

How effective is The Climate Institute?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 12 Comments

Australia’s richest think-tank, The Climate Institute, has been carefully following the model set by board member Clive Hamilton’s The Australia Institute. It feeds the media’s love of public opinion surveys, even targeting the current election media frenzy with polling in marginal seats on climate change. It produces attention-grabbing semi-gimmick research, like their latest report which calculates superannuation costs if action on climate change is delayed (a male of my age will be $1,165.46 a year worse off in retirement, it says with all the spurious precision of economic modelling). Despite Clive’s strict insistence on leisure, both his think-tanks take advantage of slow news weekends to release reports on Sundays.

Yet despite all this the Climate Institute’s profile seems modest. The superannuation report had a bit of media coverage, but nothing like the masses of publicity the Australia Institute can often pull, particularly in the Fairfax papers and on the ABC. The Climate Institute is a new think-tank, of course, and it will take time to build a reputation. But I doubt it will ever do as well as The Australia Institute.

The basic problem is summed up in its statement of purpose:

Established in late 2005, The Climate Institute has a five-year goal of raising public awareness and debate about the dangers to Australia of global warming and to motivate the country to take positive action.

Continue reading “How effective is The Climate Institute?” →

The public’s mixed views on free trade

~ Andrew Norton ~ 69 Comments

The latest Lowy Institute poll on Australia and the world shows some now familiar patterns of belief on free trade. As I argued in Policy some years ago, while the Australian public remains protectionist, this does not mean they fail completely to understand the arguments for free trade.

For example, 72% of respondents to Lowy’s poll agreed that freer trade ‘leads to lower prices and more product choices for consumers’. 67% agreed that freer trade ‘helps to increase prosperity, both in Australia and other parts of the world’. 84% agree that it ‘enables Australian business to open new markets for Australian products’. On all these propositions, public and expert opinion is close. There is even majority support for the social and political benefits of free trade, with 64% agreeing that it ‘makes the world more stable by putting people from different countries in contact with each other’.

Yet when it comes to a specific question on a free trade agreement with China, only 38% say that on balance such an agreement would be good. Why? The answers to some of the other questions on free trade give us some clues. 68% of Lowy’s respondents believe that freer trade ‘puts Australia at a disadvantage because of our high labour and environmental standards’. 50% agree that freer trade ‘costs more Australian jobs than it creates’ and that it ‘leads to more economic and social inequality’. 42% think that freer trade ‘leads to lower quality jobs in Australia’.

People are more in favour (47%) of a free trade agreement with Japan than China. I think this parallels initial reasonably strong support for a US-Australia FTA – that Japan, like the US, is not seen a low-cost manufacturing competitor (these days ‘Made in Japan’ is a mark of quality; it used to mean what ‘Made in China’ means today, ie cheap). Support for FTAs, though short of majorities, is always well above questions that assume unilateral tariff cuts – the idea that Australia is getting something in return helps increase public support – which is probably why the largest favourable response in the Lowy survey is on opening markets for Australian business.

Many economists think that even unilateral tariff cuts are better than maintaining protection. But to carry public opinon, reducing protection through international agreements is the way to go.

Are voters tiring of tax and spend?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 7 Comments

Three years ago I wrote a paper on a reversal in 30 years of public resistance to higher taxation, which I argued was largely the result of prosperity. When household budgets are less tight, I suggested, people want to buy more or better goods and services. But for services that are largely provided by government, such as health and education, it is hard to purchase better services without the large financial leap involved in going private. A small increase in taxes for the government to improve services is, for these people, the cheaper option. This was why the polls showed trade-off questions between reducing taxes and spending more on services trending in favour of services, and why surveys assuming there was a surplus found large majorities in favour of extra spending.

For example, in January 2004 a Newspoll asked

If the federal government has a large surplus, should this be spent all or mainly on health and education, on personal tax cuts, or both?

72% of respondents preferred the surplus to be spent all or mainly on health and education, 9% wanted tax cuts, and 16% wanted it spent on both equally.

In the last few months, there are signs that public opinion is shifting away from tax and spend. In April, an ACNielsen poll found that two-thirds wanted income tax cuts to be included in the May Budget. About a week later Newspoll came to a very similar result.

Neither, however, directly asked about a trade-off with services, though support for tax cuts dropped to 36% when respondents were told that tax cuts might push interest rates up.

Today’s Galaxy poll reported in the News Ltd tabloids again finds the two-thirds in favour of tax cuts previously recorded by ACNielsen and Newspoll. Continue reading “Are voters tiring of tax and spend?” →

Interest rates past and future

~ Andrew Norton ~ 5 Comments

Last week ACNielsen reported on the public’s retrospective view of interest rates, finding that 49% of its respondents thought interest rates would have been the same had Labor won, 31% thought rates would have been higher, 7% lower, and 13% couldn’t say. Today’s Newspoll results report on a prospective question:

John Howard or Kevin Rudd – who do you think is most capable of keeping interest rates lower?

The wording is a bit odd, lower than what? But again the biggest single group are those who can’t or won’t choose, 39% (22% neither + 17% uncommitted), followed by Howard on 34% and Rudd on 27%. Clearly Rudd’s 27% is a big improvement for Labor on the 7% who couldn’t imagine Mark Latham keeping interest rates down, but notably less than half of people (48%) intending to vote Labor were prepared to back Rudd on this issue. There is no significant Ruddmania here; with interest rates lower than they are now Kim Beazley scored 23% in a Newspoll in June 2006 (though the question was different; asking which party would better handle interest rates). It looks like most of the people who previously backed the Coalition in Newspoll surveys are heading to the undecided column rather than to Labor.

Noting the bad results on the interest rate survey, a slip in Coalition support on the which party is better to handle the economy question, and a decline in the PM’s satisfaction levels, Dennis Shanahan concluded that ‘the latest interest rate rise appears to have dented the Coalition’s economic credentials’.
Continue reading “Interest rates past and future” →

How much does the public know about interest rates?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 23 Comments

Much election-year political point-scoring assumes that public knowledge of economics is minimal. In 2004, the Coalition encouraged us to believe that the double-digit interest rates experienced during the last Labor government might return with a new Labor government. This year, Labor is suggesting, with all the fine-print qualifications the Coalition attached to interest rates last time, that it might be able to do something about grocery and petrol prices.

How easily fooled is the public on these things? On interest rates, answers to questions in the 2005 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes suggested a public without the level of policy understanding needed to evaluate the government’s claims. Respondents were asked how much knowledge they had of the role of the Reserve Bank. 6.5% said they had ‘a lot’ of knowledge, and another 31% said that they had ‘some’ knowledge. The rest admitted little or no knowledge.

Yet even these numbers may be overstating the public’s formal understanding. Another question asked how much knowledge the respondent had of how monetary policy is determined. Given that the Reserve Bank determines monetary policy all 37.5% with some or a lot of knowledge of its role ought to have also been knowledgeable about monetary policy. But instead 5% claimed ‘a lot’ of knowledge of how monetary policy is determined and 25% ‘some’ knowledge’. Some of those who think they know about the RBA need to visit its website.
Continue reading “How much does the public know about interest rates?” →

The dog whistle that wasn’t

~ Andrew Norton ~ 28 Comments

The most interesting finding in the Newspoll reported in today’s Australian was the question on Kevin Andrews’ handling of the Haneef case. At least until he released part of the transcript of Haneef’s discussion with his brother about leaving Australia Andrews was being punished by the media like no other Minister in recent times.

Yet even with the public seemingly willing to believe the worst about the Coalition, Newspoll finds more people in favour of the way Andrews handled the case than against, with 49% approving and 36% disapproving (with a fairly large 15% uncommitted).

I suspect this fits with a pattern of views on migration. The public supports migration when it is seen to be in the interests of Australia. The key change under the Howard government has been that the migration system meets this criterion. Even though migration has increased considerably opposition to it has halved since 1996. Murray Goot and Ian Watson report that between 1996 and 2003 the proportion of people thinking immigrants are good for the economy increased from 49% to 69%, the proportion thinking immigrants take jobs from people born in Australia has dropped from 40% to 25%, and the people thinking immigrants increase crime rates has dropped from 45% to 34%.
Continue reading “The dog whistle that wasn’t” →

Demo-familism

~ Andrew Norton ~ 12 Comments

First right-familism, then left-familism, and now demo-familism, with Victorian multi-millionaire father-of-three Labor MP Evan Thornley proposing that parents get votes they can exercise on behalf of their under-18 children.

Given Thornley’s narrow victory in the 2006 Victorian state election I can well understand why he might want an extra three votes. But what are the in-principle arguments for his proposal?:

Families are currently underrepresented in our democracy. They pay but don’t have a say. A family of five or six has no more say in our democracy than a couple of two — yet their needs and potential contribution are greater.

“Electorates with large numbers of families can have up to 30 per cent more people in them than ones that don’t. As a consequence, issues of long-term concern to families like early childhood development, education and the environment don’t get the priority they deserve in our democracy.”

The idea of plural voting has a long history. In the 19th century John Stuart Mill favoured it, on the grounds that intelligent people would cast better-informed votes: Continue reading “Demo-familism” →