« November 2007 | Main | June 2008 »
29 May 2008
Federal Budget 2008 - Rudd and Nelson
There is a lot of relief from Labor voters that Rudd is proving to be a good Labor man, and that this is a good Labor budget that honours promises and looks towards the future. Coalition voters by contrast think that he lacks substance. Just as “honesty” was the cry of dyed-in-the-wool Labor supporters during their exile, “spin” is likely to be the cry of dyed-in-the-wool Coalition supporters as they wander in the political wilderness.
You can download the map of attitudes to Rudd by clicking here, and to Nelson by clicking here.
Contrast this Labor voter:
"Even though I am a Labor voter, I had Kevin Rudd pictured as a somewhat uninspiring bureaucrat with a savvy media image. The budget dramatically improved my assessment of him as a genuine Labor Leader"
with this Coalition voter:
"Kevin Rudd is all talk and no action. Before the election he gave the impression that he could drive down inflation and the cost of living. It is now obvious that he can't."
Nelson suffers from two major handicaps - the former Howard government and Malcolm Turnbull. While the top ranking concept is "Nelson" it appears mostly as a negative. The discussion is about his future or his performance rather than the budget. He is seen as lacking substance so is defined by what he inherits, or what he is not.
There is also a large degree of entrenchment of views. "Vote" is the second strongest concept which appears either in the context of "I always vote Labor" or "I always vote Liberal". In other words, Nelson is relevant only in so much as he is part of the institutional arrangements. This is to be expected. We've just had an election (six months is "just" to the average voter) so the budget is going to have a minimal impact on perceptions because elections, particularly those when you change government, are psychologically decisive. We don't want to go and revisit the decision too soon afterwards.
Posted by Graham at 05:53 PM | Comments (13)
19 May 2008
Federal Budget 2008 - dislikes
What do you most disapprove of in the Federal Budget?
I've tried doing this one with a pop-up image instead of an embedded one, so hopefully you will get better resolution. So, click here and you should get a usable map. I've used final preference as the variable, so Coalition voters are on the left (the software makes the decisions, not me) and Labor on the right.
There are some lessons for both sides here. For starters, "Alcopops" does not appear as a concept or a theme. There is a good reason for this. "Alcopop" only turns up 15 times out of the whole sample. All the time that the Coalition has spent on this issue has been wasted on the basis of this research. To follow-up, the strongest turn-off for Labor voters was "change". That word has been associated in all our polling in the last 12 months with "climate", and this polling is no exception. Labor was elected on a platform of fixing climate change, and some of their strongest supporters think they are not doing enough.
"Families" is another theme with risks in it for the ALP. Many of the Liberal voters are being turned off by the phrase "working families", because they feel that Labor is too narrowly focussed on a group which doesn't include them. If they're older, or divorced, or if the wife is at home, they feel as though they aren't included. "They keep saying working families as though they are the only people that are important to the economy, there are plenty of people that are working hard that don't have a dependent family and aged pensioners don't even get a mention."
"Tax" cuts all ways. Some feel they are paying too much, and others think that the tax cuts should have been directed to better services. In contrast, "Pensioners" is unambiguous. It may have surprised most commentators that pensioners demonstrated in Melbourne against the budget, but on the basis of this research it shouldn't have been unexpected, even if it couldn't have been predicted.
The "Baby Bonus" made an appearance, and again, for a number of reasons. Some thought that the rich should be encouraged to have more children, because those children were likely to be more successful than average. Others thought there shouldn't be a baby bonus, while still others thought the means test was too generous.
Posted by Graham at 02:57 PM | Comments (13)
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 10:02 PM | Comments (7)
Politics of the 2008 budget - quantitative analysis
Has the budget made an impact on Rudd's standing?
Do you approve of the job Kevin Rudd is doing?
| Greens | Ind | ALP | Liberal | National | Total | |
| Approve | 78% | 58% | 96% | 12% | 11% | 61% |
| Disapprove | 7% | 37% | 0% | 62% | 70% | 26% |
| Net | 72% | 21% | 95% | -50% | -59% | 35% |
Our sample suggests that Rudd's approval rating is now fairly similar to a successful Labor Premier, and while extraordinarily good, is starting to come back to earth.
Would you be more likely to vote for Kevin Rudd because of the budget?
| Greens | Ind | ALP | Liberal | National | ToTotal | |
| More likely | 31% | 32% | 61% | 1% | 0% | 34% |
| Less likely | 8% | 37% | 1% | 69% | 70% | 29% |
| Net | 22% | -5% | 60% | -68% | -70% | 5% |
What this table demonstrates is that the budget will intensify voting intention, but make little difference one way or the other. Liberal and National voters are significantly less inclined to vote for the government because of it, but the Liberal and National votes are also reduced to a hard core because of the extremely large share of the total vote that the ALP has at the moment
Do you approve of the job Brendan Nelson is doing?
| Greens | Ind | ALP | Liberal | National | Total | |
| Approve | 7% | 6% | 8% | 32% | 30% | 17% |
| Disapprove | 66% | 72% | 64% | 34% | 41% | 53% |
| Net | -59% | -67% | -56% | -2% | -11% | -36% |
These are devastatingly bad figures for Dr Nelson. While his approval rating on this poll is higher than on other polls, his disapproval rating is more than 50%. There is limited room for him to improve as only 2% of people don't have an opinion, and 28% neither disapprove nor approve. His "strongly disapprove" figure is 27%, while his "strongly approve" figure is only 3%.
Would you be more likely to vote for Brendan Nelson because of the budget?
| Greens | Ind | ALP | Liberal | National | Total | |
| Better | 18% | 26% | 17% | 27% | 19% | 21% |
| Worse | 30% | 37% | 48% | 21% | 15% | 35% |
| Net | -12% | -11% | -32% | 7% | 4% | -15% |
This poll was taken before the address-in-reply so it may have improved after that. However, what it says is that while the budget didn't win Rudd any votes, it lost Nelson some. You'll have to wait for the qual to find out why, but my strong suspicion would be that it is to do with his performance.
We also have figures on what percentage has changed its vote since the federal election. I won't reproduce the table, but 5% of last time Labor voters would vote Liberal if an election was held now, and 2% of Liberal voters would vote Labor. No Nationals have changed their mind. So there has been a small erosion of the Labor vote. Unfortunately there aren't enough of these people to be too sure what they represent, but I will have a look at the data later and see what we can make of it.
Posted by Graham at 04:40 PM | Comments (2)
Budget 2008 - the Quants
I'm still analysing the data, and it's going to take longer than I thought,
so what I will do is a series of posts which I'll collate into an article at the
end.
So far I've analysed the quantitative figures, and it they are good for the
government.
We had 1,681 responses, heavily weighted towards males (70%), and those over 55
(48%). As usual, Queensland was over-represented, and Victoria
under-represented. 46% of respondents would have voted Labor if there was an
election "next weekend", 19% Greens and 20% Liberal.
To make sense of this, the quantitative polling has been weighted in line with
the latest Morgan Gallup poll. Morgan was chosen because it is the most recent. Our quantitative
results should be regarded as indicative only.
Is the country heading in the right direction?
| Greens | Ind | ALP | Liberal | National | Total | |
| Agree | 54% | 37% | 93% | 16% | 11% | 58% |
| Disagree | 27% | 42% | 3% | 58% | 74% | 28% |
| Net | 27% | -5% | 90% | -42% | -63% | 30% |
This is an almost complete reversal from previous polls with ALP voters ecstatic (can't think of a better word for it) at the direction of the country. Liberals are fairly concerned and Nationals even more so. There is also a degree of apprehension from Greens voters.
Do you approve of the budget?
| Greens | Ind | ALPb> | Liberal | National | ToTotal | |
| Approve | 57% | 42% | 89% | 9% | 7% | 54% |
| Disapprove | 13% | 26% | 2% | 64% | 67% | 28% |
| NeNet | 43% | 16% | 88% | -55% | -59% | 26% |
This is similarly related to voting intentions, and reflects a similar, although less accentuated division of opinion as the direction question.
Is your personal position better or worse?
| Greens | Ind | ALP | Liberal | National | Total | |
| Better | 40% | 0% | 35% | 10% | 7% | 25% |
| Worse | 13% | 37% | 8% | 38% | 67% | 22% |
| Net | 27% | -37% | 28% | -28% | -59% | 3% |
To some extent approval or disapproval flows with perceptions of whether the budget has improved personal circumstances, although the close alignment with voting intention suggests that a large proportion of perception is reflected in voting behaviour.
Will it be good for the nation?
| Greens | Ind | ALP | Liberal | National | Total | |
| Better | 60% | 39% | 79% | 5% | 4% | 48% |
| Worse | 5% | 22% | 1% | 63% | 70% | 26% |
| Net | 55% | 17% | 78% | -58% | -67% | 21% |
Some intriguing and minor divergences here from whether respondents approved or not of the budget. For example, while 89% of Labor voters approve of the budget, only 79% think it will make for a better country. Perhaps the deficit can be explained on the basis that they don't think it will make it better or worse, perhaps a tacit approval of the way things were.
Posted by Graham at 07:33 AM | Comments (8)