Comments on: Essential Report: The Coalitions Problems Edition

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:36:27 +0000

If the questions on characteristics of political parties are repeated over a political cycle we’ll be able to get a better idea of how interesting these results really are. I’ve done some work on Newspoll’s issue questions, which go back many years, which suggest that particularly for the Coalition movements from survey to survey of seemingly unrelated issues and of leadership satisfaction have fairly high correlations. The theory explaining this would be that for the average inattentive voter there is general impression of party performance that infects every answer, and is not actually a judgment on the detail.

By: We\'re All Rooned

We\'re All Rooned — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:37:43 +0000

Hmmm, they might be thinking, Were All Rooned!!!

By: sbr

sbr — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:45:00 +0000

Fredex – I suppose its easy to imagine someone who was sick of all the leadership *discussion* instinctively answering in the affirmative for that question, even though that isn’t what the question is about at all.

By: El Nino

El Nino — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:34:24 +0000

In regards to economic confidence, I wonder if the media doom and gloom is tempered by direct experience where most people keep their job and benefit from lower interest rates, cash handouts and falling prices in some retail sectors.

Here’s a little bon mot: there was a 2-3% rise in the monthly spending on lottery tickets/scratchies after the December handout. That’s not really a sign of perceived doom and gloom…

By: fredex

fredex — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:10:26 +0000

31% saying the Libs are ‘too dominated’ by their leader is a strange one in the light of their current staus as a multi-ruddered rabble.

By: calyptorhynchus

calyptorhynchus — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:25:30 +0000

What I find sad though is the knowledge that, however bad the polling for the Liberals is now, at some stage they are going to climb back and win government again. And no party which plumbed the depths of Howardise as this lot did deserves to govern ever again.
Or to take another example the British Tories were complete cr@p in government from 1979 to 1997, now, after the dreadful Blair Nu-Labour government they look set to romp back home with everyone forgetting how mind-numbingly awful they were when last in government.
Why don’t we have a voting system that allows people to choose factions within parties, so parties are constantly churned and reformed, being forced to become reacquainted with reality as a precondition of doing well. Why do with have to have this ridiculous swinging backwards and forwards between centre-awful and centre-dreadful, instead of continually choosing the best personalities and policies of all parties on the political landscape.

By: David Charles

David Charles — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:37:31 +0000

David Richards- you have asked the correct question and had a good go at answering it. I really don’t know whether your analysis is sound but I know many would agree with you. As I said in my prior post, the Government at least to date, has managed perceptions well. It must continue to do so.

By: Possum

Possum — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:35:48 +0000

Andos, Newspoll has been around 1100 for years and years, Nielsen around 1400 for years as well. Morgan is all over the place with sample size, Galaxy is generally in the ballpark of 800-1000 and Essential hasn’t been doing it for that long.

David C, I’m similarly surprised that the Essential economic confidence responses has held up so well. Especially when you look at the amount of “end of the world is nigh” stuff in the media, where every bad piece of news is sensationalised, where every neutral piece of data is interpreted or spun by the press as being bad news and where every good piece of economic data gets hidden away on page upteen with barely a mention.

By: David Richards

David Richards — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:27:03 +0000

DC – it is a certainty that the figures on confidence will invert if the economic situation gets too bad… but will that necessarily be translated into blaming the government?

If all other countries were steaming along merrilly, and Oz was going down the gurgler, then the government would be rightly condemned. If, on the other hand, the world economy is dying on the vine, and Oz managed to keep at least a few bunches of grapes alive, then they would not necessarily suffer any adverse opinion.

By: David Charles

David Charles — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:51:20 +0000

I agree that this Essential Report is a fair reflection of the political landscape in Australia as of March 2009, and also that the answers to Essential’s questions warrant a harsh indictment of the Opposition’s wilderness-breaking prospects in the short to medium term. Yet rather than dwell on the ‘ Labor rocks’/ ‘Liberal sucks’ perspective of others (which I suppose is understandable as far as it goes), I prefer to think about the “final question…measuring economic confidence” (by far the most important question, in my opinion). The confidence indicators have not moved in the last six months. That is interesting and a real credit to the Federal Government’s management of perceptions in the community to date. Given deteriorating conditions in the global economy, and a worsening local jobs environment, I don’t expect the confidence indicators to be so positive in another six months.