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18 May 2008
Federal Budget 2008 - what voters approve of most
Thinking of the Federal Budget, what do you approve of most?
This is the first of the qual. I've analysed it using Leximancer, which produces the concept map below.
I've used people's final preference as the variable to which the concepts are related. In the bottom left-hand corner you have those who would preference Labor first, and in the top right-hand corner those who would preference the Coalition. The "Undecideds" are on the bottom right. Resolution is not as good as I would have liked, so I might need to do something else in future. Please bear with me.
The theme with the largest area is "tax", and this sits closest to the Coalition voters. This is largely what you would expect, as the tax issue resonates most strongly with Coalition voters. Within the "tax" theme sit concepts like "families" and "tax" and "cuts". So, voters were largely happiest in general that the tax cuts were honoured and that there was support for families. These things are winners across the board.
What is a little surprising is that the theme most closely associated with Labor voters is "rich". When you examine the quotes, this theme is very closely linked to the one next to it - "testing". "testing" is actually a compound of two words - "means" and "testing". So taken together these concepts indicate that the means testing of benefits is what is most pleasing in the budget to those preferencing Labor. There are a couple of explanations for what is behind this. For some, means testing allows money to be saved for those who really need it. "Means Testing. If your rich then why would you need payments? Its a good way of reducing the countries costs. And the money going into education is good." Contained in this concept is also a sense of equity. Why should someone who doesn't need the benefit get it? I also detect a satisfaction in some responses that people who were seen to undeservedly prosper under the Howard regime are not doing so well under Rudd.
The other area of approval related to the budget is "education" which also contains within it the concepts of health and infrastructure. The Education Revolution still resonates, and symbolises the important social welfare/social equity issues to Labor voters. Hovering around the edges is the word "fund" or "funding", both of which predominantly refer to the three statutory funds for health, education and infrastructure. Both sides tend to approve of this concept. Labor voters associating it with a government that they see as at last planning for the future, and Liberal voters giving Rudd a mark for adopting what they see as Liberal policies.
Posted by Graham at May 18, 2008 10:02 PM
Comments
Why is the print so light I cannot re3ad most of it,
Posted by: Ronaldo at July 24, 2008 02:19 PM
Yes, a bit too feint. At 75, I need brighter print.
your comments are good and generally reflect the expressions of my crowd. Assistance to the honestly struggling(anyone on $100000 is NOT struggling--- ask a genuine pensioner)is a dire necessity.
Posted by: Vincent O'Hara at June 7, 2008 09:05 AM
Yes, I know it's a bit small. I've fixed that in later posts by using a pop-up map. I'll add a link here later.
Posted by: Graham Young at June 2, 2008 06:06 AM
Can't see it!
Posted by: Tony Le Clerc at May 31, 2008 10:03 AM
I can hardly read them, can you make them a bit bigger?
Posted by: Bob at May 30, 2008 09:52 AM
Looking at graphs may be great for some, but they are too small to see properly. Give me figures any day, and let me compare them for myself. We don't all have 20 year old eyes. Ta!
Posted by: alan kennedy at May 30, 2008 09:13 AM
Sorry but these graphs are way too difficult to understand at a glance - not interested.
Posted by: Nick from Kalamunda at May 29, 2008 11:10 PM