Politics
How the Coalition’s right read the opinion polls
A superficial reading of the polls suggests that the Liberal Party should move to the Trumpian right. This is a stupid and dangerous idea.
Political opinion polls conducted over late September to early October suggest there has been a surge in support for One Nation.
Opinion polls at this stage in the political cycle don’t tell us much about the likely outcome of the next election, but they do seem to explain some of the tensions within the Coalition.
William Bowe’s Poll Bludger reports on three polls conducted in that period – Newspoll, You Gov, and Essential. When three different polls tell much the same story it’s a fair guess that any movements they reveal are more than reflections of sampling errors.
For Labor, the general story is that it has consolidated its support after the election, both in primary support (shown in the table below) and in TPP terms. That’s hardly surprising for a re-elected government.
The story for the Coalition is different. It seems to have bled support to One Nation. In round numbers it’s lost 4 percent support, while One Nation has picked up 5 percent. Some of One Nation’s gain may have come from Palmer’s Trumpets of Patriots and from other small parties who may not get picked up in the polls. But it does appear that the Coalition has lost support to parties on the right, because Labor isn’t picking it up, and there is no surge in support for the “others” not separately identified in the polls.
These poll results are shown in the table below, with significant movements highlighted.
This has probably led to some in the Coalition suggesting it should move to the right to stop that support from bleeding. Another framing of that perspective is that it has lost support because the Liberal Party has positioned itself too far to the “left”.
We are witnessing in the Coalition what is known to statisticians as “survivor bias”, the survivors in this case being the 43 Coalition Members of the House of Representatives who kept their seats, of whom 34 represent conservative “provincial” or “rural” electorates to use the AEC terminology. See the table below.
Those 34 survivors are probably very aware of the threat from the far right, not just One Nation, but also from others towards that end of the spectrum. The table below shows how that support relates to AEC regional classification. In short the surviving Coalition MPs represent hard right electorates. It would be surprising if that did not influence their views on their parties’ prospects.
This far right presence is particularly noticeable in the 16 seats the LNP holds in Queensland. In those seats One Nation won 9.8 percent of the primary vote, the Trumpets 3.7 percent, and Family First 2.9 percent, taking the far right vote up to 16.4 percent. No wonder those 16 MPs feel wedged. As does Andrew Hastie, whose own electorate in south-west Western Australia has many of the same characteristics, as pointed out in last week’s roundup. One Nation won 11.4 percent of the vote in his Canning electorate – providing enough preferences to get him over the line from his 43.4 percent primary votes.
Writing in the Saturday Paper – Andrew Hastie’s play for the leadership – John Hewson warns Hastie against “riding the anti-immigration wave” and taking other populist stances. Michael Taylor writes in The Australian Independent Media Network that Hastie’s ascent would be a gift for Labor. Although Hewson’s article is specifically addressed to Hastie it’s a warning to the right of the Liberal Party generally.
A normal response to survivor bias would be for the Coalition parties, particularly the Liberal Party, to become less reliant on its Parliamentary caucus for developing policy, but it appears that its branches in at least three states are even more on the right than its caucus. In South Australia where an election is due next March, the Australian affiliate of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point is actively trying to shape the Liberal Party’s campaign.
It’s a tough and lonely time for the remaining grown-ups in the Liberal Party who want to take the party back towards the political centre – to the days when it could accommodate people like John Hewson and John Gorton. Some must surely be considering the possibility of re-constituting the party and starting again, accepting that the Coalition is finished and that a new centre-right party has to stand on its own, separate from the National Party.
Attitudes on immigration, climate change and other matters
Essential surveys voters on emission targets, immigration, recognizing Palestine and social media bans, finding normal differences of views rather than any burning issue.
The Essential Report referred to in the above post surveys Australians on a number of issues.
There are three questions on our 2035 emissions reduction targets, which are to be 62 to 70 percent below 2005 levels. About half of respondents believe they are “about right”, and more people believe they are too ambitious than believe they are too unambitious. Older people and Coalition supporters are particularly likely to believe they are too ambitions. Two thirds of respondents believe we won’t reach them, with the same age and voting intention differences. There is some scepticism about their value in driving investment in renewables, but apart from Coalition supporters we go along with them.
About half of respondents believe our 185 000 immigration cap is too high: very few believe it is too low. Older people and Coalition supporters tend to believe it is too high. Over the last 6 years (i.e. since the pandemic) we have become less supportive of immigration but we are still split evenly between those who think immigration is generally positive and those who think it is generally negative. Younger people are more enthusiastic about immigration than older people, and Coalition supporters are particularly negative on immigration.
There are questions on racism – a topic that’s difficult to survey because of people’s understanding of the terms. A majority of respondents believe “there is tension between people of different races and nationalities in Australia”, and that “people are scared to say what they really think because they don’t want to be labelled as racist”. Older people are more likely than younger people to believe these statements, even though they are less likely to experience ethnically mixed activities. Unsurprisingly younger people are more likely to have experienced racism than older people. Only 41 percent of respondents believe that Australia is less racist than it has been in the past. (Something must be missing in the history curriculum.)
On our government recognizing Palestine, we’re slightly more in favour than opposed. There is a hard-to-explain gender difference: men are more supportive of Palestine’s recognition than women. When respondents are grouped by voting intention the responses are quite predictable.
There is strong support for the social media ban for children, particularly among older people.
“Gender equality has gone too far”
2021 March 4 Justice
Gender equality has had an unsteady path in Australia. The indicators are OK, but we need to work on culture.
In 1975 if you drove through outback and country towns on a Saturday afternoon, you could happen upon women sitting in cars outside pubs, drinking beer or shandies brought to them by their menfolk gathered in the front bar.
But the times they were a changin, rapidly. That same year was International Women’s Year, two years after Prime Minister Whitlam had appointed Elizabeth Reid as special adviser on women’s issues, explains Virginia Haussegger in a Radio National interview with Nick Bryant: The story of feminist action in Australia. Thanks to Reid’s advice, and to a cabinet that implemented her suggestions, by 1975 Australia was making extraordinary progress in practical matters to do with workplace discrimination, availability of child care, access to health care services, and was hailed as a trailblazer in advancing women’s interests.
Haussegger explains progress and setbacks in advancing gender equality over the half-century since 1975. There is still a way to go, and there are points of resistance. For example a survey by Nicholas Biddle and his colleagues at ANU – The gender gap revisited: polarisation, progress, and party politics in contemporary Australia – finds that 28 percent of Australian men believe that it has gone too far and that’s up from 14 percent in 2022. The figures are even worse among young men surveyed.
It is heartening to see the progress in women occupying senior and responsible positions in corporate and government organizations – even the leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party! But progress isn’t just about numbers warns Haussegger. It’s about attitudes and behaviour – the underlying national culture. The early 1970s perhaps were a liberal moment, when public ideas were moving in one direction towards gender equality.
Although the spectacle of women drinking shandies in parked cars is now ancient history, there are still blokey themes in our folklore and national stories. And the global environment now is less supportive as we are witnessing what’s happening in the USA and the stream of misogynistic filth flowing through social media.
Haussegger explains the challenge posed by this environment in her book: Unfinished revolution: the feminist fightback.