Category: Public opinion

Does the public support ‘legitimate’ refugees coming to Australia?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 16 Comments

Pollytics blog reports on some interesting Essential Research polling on refugees. It does a bit more to fill the big gaps in our public opinion knowledge of refugees: there have been many questions about boat arrivals but very few about what the public thinks of the broader refugee program.

From this perspective, the most important proposition put by Essential Research was:

The federal government should be allowing legitimate refugees to enter the country and contribute to our nation.

A plurality (45%) agreed, and a minority (25%) disagreed. A surprisingly high 30% of respondents did not have a view.

Though only 25% oppose refugees generally, 66% agree with turning the boats back. Possible reasons are the prospect of terrorists being on the boats (56% agree) and doubts about whether the refugees currently coming to Australia are genuine refugees (37% think they might not be, though the question was confused with the added concept of processing them immediately).

What we need now are questions about the concept of a ‘queue’ and whether there are particular types of refugees the public does or does not want.

10 November update: A useful summary of polls from Pollytics blog.

American climate change scepticism growing too

~ Andrew Norton ~ 14 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I noted modest increases in Australian climate change scepticism and much larger increases in policy action scepticism over the last couple of years.

Now a Pew survey shows that in the United States the sceptics are gaining ground. Since April 2008, the proportion of respondents believing that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming has dropped 14 percentage points to 57% (there is no same-wording question in Australia, but similar questions find over 80% belief in global warming).

climatepew Continue reading “American climate change scepticism growing too” →

Generational differences in issue opinion?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 9 Comments

At the end of another post on demographic shifts in voting patterns against the Coalition, Pollytics blogger Scott Steel says:

Think of the vast generation gap that exists between the youngest and oldest cohorts of the electoral roll on climate change, same sex marriage, censorship laws, asylum seekers, immigration policy and general technology issues – how will the Libs pivot towards Gen Y when on any of these issues the views of the party’s older membership base is incompatible with the majority view of Gen Y..

But is there a vast generaton gap on all these issues? I was particularly curious about immigration, as opinion on this issue appears to be cyclical, though this does not rule out generational effects as well.

On looking at the 2007 Australian Election Survey’s question on migration by Scott’s categories (Pre-WW2 born up to 1945, boomers born 1946 to 1964, Gen X born 1965 to 1980, and Gen Y born 1981 onwards) it does have the pattern he expects, but it does not show fundamental differences. Gen Y had a significantly larger majority in favour of saying that the current intake was about right or not large enough than the pre-WW2 generation, but they are both on the same side of the then seemingly cyclical pro-migration view.

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Question: Number of migrants allowed into Australia: gone much too far/ gone too far/ about right/ not gone far enough/ not gone nearly far enough. Continue reading “Generational differences in issue opinion?” →

The cooling of climate change

~ Andrew Norton ~ 63 Comments

As the media have been reporting today, the annual Lowy Institute public opinion survey shows that whatever is happening to the planet, climate change as an issue is cooling.

There were signs of this in an August Morgan poll, but its finding that the proportion of respondents believing that climate concerns were exaggerated had doubled since 2006 was ambiguous. As I suggested at the time, this could be a reaction to the relentless and seemingly hyperbolic predictions of doom over that time, rather than showing any real gains by the sceptics.

One of the Lowy questions does however suggest that the sceptics, while still being a small minority, are gaining ground. The proportion of respondents agreeing with the proposition that until we are sure climate change is a problem we should not take costly actions has nearly doubled, from 7% to 13%.

Despite passionate debates about climate science among activists (please don’t re-run them in comments), this isn’t the main political issue. Rather, that is how much pain the electorate is prepared to suffer to solve a problem that an overwhelming majority (76% in the latest Lowy survey) say is real. Continue reading “The cooling of climate change” →

Will a human rights charter be popular?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 13 Comments

The public opinion research accompanying the report of the National Human Rights Consultation suggests that those proposing a charter of rights have a tough task ahead.

These days, only bastards and people who know a little political philosophy are likely to question the whole idea of ‘human rights’ (‘nonsense upon stilts’, as the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham memorably called them). So on questions about parliament paying attention to human rights or increased education on human rights only one or two percent of respondents express opposition.

But only 7% of respondents disagreed with the proposition that human rights are adequately protected (with a large 29% not expressing a view).

Worse for the main advocates of putting general human rights into legislation or the Constitution, the public isn’t in general very sympathetic on some of the issues that are driving the human rights push in the first place. Continue reading “Will a human rights charter be popular?” →

Public opinion on economic history wars

~ Andrew Norton ~ 10 Comments

Pollytics blog reports on an Essential Research survey question on the economic history wars triggered by Kevin Rudd.

The question was:

Do you think that Labor or Coalition Governments have been responsible for the most important economic reforms in Australia over the last 25 years?

I’d give it to Labor on microeconomic reform but the Coalition on macroeconomic reform, while agreeing with John Howard’s argument that favourable judgment on Labor should be qualified by noting that the Liberals co-operated with reform while in opposition while Labor largely obstructed. Labor gets high marks 1983-95, but low marks since.

However it’s not a question most voters could easily answer, and so they will rely on party stereotypes. Along with a very large (and honest) ‘don’t know’ response the small advantage for the Liberals suggests that the strong economy under the previous government still gets some public opinion credit.

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Do gays want to get married?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 13 Comments

One suprising aspect of the 2005 Private Lives report, to date the biggest survey of gay Australians, was the limited expressed interest in a ‘commitment ceremony’. Just over half of gay men and 40% of lesbians in a relationship said they had no intention of having such a ceremony.

It’s never been clear whether this meant that there was little gay interest in gay marriage, a reluctance to commit to their particular current partner, or whether it was the nature of a ‘commitment ceremony’ with no legal or accepted community status that meant support was low.

Another survey of gay Australians carried out this year finds that there is strong gay support for gay marriage. Only 1% favour no legal recognition, and more than three-quarters support gay marriage.

However, in response to the question

“If you are or were to become involved in a long-term committed same-sex relationship, in what way would you prefer Australian law to recognise your relationship?

Continue reading “Do gays want to get married?” →

Is climate change alarmism encouraging scepticism?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 77 Comments

Climate change ‘alarmists’ have been utterly relentless in their campaigning. It’s quite possibly the biggest global political campaign in history. My media survey last year found an average of 1.6 different predictions of climate doom a day. Even on a boat tour of Stockholm today I could not escape it, with warnings that human-caused global warming could cause parts of Stockholm to flood (on the other hand, not having their waterways ice up in winter might be one of the pluses of global warming).

But a recent Morgan poll suggests that maybe the constant predictions of doom is having an unintended effect. The number of people who think concerns are exaggerated has doubled since 2006, from 13% to 27%.

There is still an overwhelming majority of people who believe that climate change is happening and strong majorities in favour of policy action. But perhaps the claims of impendending disaster are sounding a little too hyberbolic, and people are beginning to mentally discount the scale of the problems we face.

(It could be that the denialists are gaining some traction; though they get only a small fraction of the media coverage given to the alarmists.)

HT: Pollytics blog.

Would parents use league tables?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 39 Comments

The NSW Opposition has landed itself in political trouble for cooperating with a Green proposal to ban league tables of school performance.

School league tables are part of a strange obsession with lists and rankings, which in my view are very rarely of much value (eg here, here, and here).

The public education lobby believes school rankings are worse than worthless, since any ranking system must have those who come last, and we can be pretty sure that public schools will be heavily over-represented in the lower ranks.

Implicit in this worry is an assumption that parents will misunderstand what published school performance data means and rely on rankings based on school academic performance, without taking into account the significant socieconomic factors which influence student results. An Essential Research survey, reported at Pollytics blog, starts to explore this assumption.

Given the choice between assessing a school’s performance by the percentage passing tests, and the improvement shown by students (the school’s value adding), 59% thought that the improvement was the better measure, with 30% going for the percentage passing tests.
Continue reading “Would parents use league tables?” →

Confusing polling on tax

~ Andrew Norton ~ 1 Comment

The latest tax poll from Essential Research, published on Pollytics blog, shows again that question wording effects make opinions on tax and spend hard to read.

In this latest poll, a question which did mention bigger tax cuts for high than low income earners, but did not mention the deficit or any spending trade-offs, found that 60% of respondents approved of the 1 July tax cuts. 23% disapproved.

The disapproval rate is only half the 47% of Newspoll respondents in early May who thought the tax cuts should be cancelled to reduce the deficit.

I don’t think that opinion could have changed that much in two and a bit months. Rather, question wording can highlight the otherwise not top-of-mind link between the size of the defict and the tax cuts.