'; ?> The issues that determined the Victorian result | What The People Want
The issues that determined the Victorian result
Saturday, 27 November 2010 18:42 | Written by Graham Young

Public Transport and Law and Order appear to have been the two most important issues to Liberal voters, and as the Liberals seem to have won, the deciding issues. I have been watching the ABC coverage as I write this and it makes it even clearer why public transport was an important issue.

Issues_Labor_Victoria_2010

This table is ordered in terms of what Labor voters find important. Education and Health were their highest order issues. Transport less so. But what you notice is that Greens and Liberals were both similarly uninterested in Education and Health, but both their interests were raised by Transport. The other big issues for Liberal voters was Law and Order, while the Greens were the only ones to be interested in Water, Climate and Environment.

A number of things come out of this table. The Greens agenda is more ideological. While state government can do little about climate change, it is still a key Greens concern. Probably the issue about Public Transport is about managerial competency as much as concern about public transport per se. It is hard to see most Liberal voters being huge consumers of public transport, so I suspect it's not about personal experience but impressions.

The concern about Law and Order is a bit of an aberration. Only the Liberals are concerned, and by a huge amount compared to the other two parties.


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0 #1 I wonder how many people have been quiet — Libby Mitchell 2010-11-29 23:12
I wonder how many people have been quietly and silently worrying about poker machine issues in recent times?

The Minister for Gaming (AND Consumer Affairs...a conflict of interest if ever I saw one since our pokies gambling runs illegally daily in VIC)has lost his seat. OK that might have been predictable but still...his effort as Gaming Minister would not have helped obviously, or he would have remained in parliament?

The Libs made a late show of support for pre-commit cards and also did not support the Mildura casino...could voters have read that as a 'brake to come, re pokies'? If so they might be horrified to learn that the Liberal concern over pokies is a matter of 'business as usual..so long as we turn a blind eye for a bit longer'!

Stephen Mayne stood on a No Pokies ticket and seems to have a strong chance to get elected? Xenophon all over again?

Brumby made shock deals with Packer...and how many voters have been burned by his casino? Brumby also oversaw the Victorian Gambling regulators...th e VCGR...a hopelessly deficient decision-making disaster of a mob!

Maybe like pokies...the silent addiction...peo ple are just not saying it out loud?...but they sure could be getting angry over pokies! What other part of our lives has brought such strong community disagreement and visible, vocal protest lately as in Jan Juc, Laurimar, Castlemaine, Mildura, Romsey and elsewhere. Groups are mushrooming all over to fight inappropriate pokies expansion now it seems.

Yet pokies is not even listed as a vote decider? I wonder...why not? Were people actually given that option when the list was formed?
 
 
0 #2 1 Monday, 29 November 2010 19:42 Graham — Graham Young 2010-11-30 05:44
1 Monday, 29 November 2010 19:42 Graham Young
Hi Libby, the reason gaming wasn't shown here is that it wasn't a major issue. You obviously weren't one of the respondents or you would know there was no list of issues. We ask respondents to tell us, in their own words, what issues will determine their vote. I then have to read responses and tabulate what people nominate.

I've just done a word search on pokie(s), poker, gamb(ling), gami(ng) and there is no occurence of any of them.

Stephen Mayne's result couldn't be different from Nick Xenophon's. Xenophon scored around 20% of the vote in the SA state election. Mayne scored just over one percent, and is only going to get elected via preference deals, if he does get elected.

I think poker machines are a blight, but the data tells me that it's not a belief that was shaping voting intentions.
 
 
0 #3 If there were Mildura people in the samp — mc*mc 2010-12-02 21:03
If there were Mildura people in the sample, the proposed casino would have likely been mentioned. The arguments against are not all gambling based however.
 
 
0 #4 Hello Graham, Than ks for all your int — Tony Lammens 2010-12-15 21:25
Hello Graham,

Thanks for all your interesting research. You say you can't imagine many Liberal voters being public transport users. I'm not sure that's entirely fair. About 70% of work trips to Melbourne's CBD are undertaken by public transport, and higher-income people (many Liberal voters) therefore need good public transport to get to their jobs. Public transport usage is very high in the eastern suburbs and bayside suburbs that are heartlands of Liberal support.

I do think this issue went beyond just a management competence issue into an actual service provision issue.
 
 
0 #5 In reality, I think voters were just pla — Aime 2010-12-16 10:33
In reality, I think voters were just plain tired of Labor and thought it was time for a change. So Labor have been replaced by the Coalition. Big deal! Nothing is going to change.

Big business and developers might get a boost from the Coalition, but the Brumby Government was giving both groups free reign anyway. Neither Labor or the Coalition give a hoot for the environment. If they did, they wouldn't be encouraging rampant population growth.

After studying the various political party's policies, the National Party seemed to have a reasonable list, yet even they leave a lot to be desired.

Not only in Victoria, but right across the Australian political spectrum, our politicians appear to have lost their way. Our entire country seems to be run by outside forces and Governments and this is a very disturbing trend. Our Governments have failed us by allowing our country and industry to be sold off and we can't remain a "quarry economy" for ever. What will we become when China stops buying our commodities?

Australian voters really need a wake-up call to get off their backsides and help change the political direction of this once great country. Try joining a party that doesn't pander to development and big business. Try voting below the line. Hell, if I can do it anybody can! We're supposed to live in a democracy, but you wouldn't know it judging by the way people vote, then whinge about the results.
Aime.
 
 
0 #6 I agree with Tony Lammens. I am from th — Vanessa Langford 2010-12-16 13:22
I agree with Tony Lammens. I am from the Eastern suburbs and have witnessed the same. People who are of Executive Management level have reported to me that, whilst they don’t use public transport (PT) their staff do and such staff began regularly arriving to work late. I was told that the staff were usually quite reliable in the past and had generally arrived to work on time. It was also said that it wasn’t just one or two staff members but many. This resulted in reduced productivity and led to frustrations by employers. Many of these same Managers had teenage children who, the majority of, caught public transport and were often reporting back to their parents the problems with PT. So a picture began to develop among traditional Liberal voters of the East (and Outer East to a slightly lesser extent)
 
 
0 #7 the statement that state governments can — bill grant 2010-12-16 20:07
the statement that state governments cannot do much about climate change is nonsense! the state government can help the transition from brown coal to renewables and lower emissions power.
 
 
0 #8 Interesting comments from many. But Labo — Oracle 2011-03-07 11:57
Interesting comments from many. But Labor lost because they created a major problem. That is a two speed economy. Real productive capacity has been declining for decades in Victoria which was once Australia's industrial heartland.But years of neglect and disinterest have meant that smarter governments in other who countries who have supported their own industrial base can offer a better quality of life without resorting to unsustainable population growth. But that, industrial productivity, is one of the two economies. The second economy is the population driven one. Victoria had/has the highest population growth of the commonwealth, encouraged by Brumby and Co. This has created demand for services and consumer goods and housing (developers love it). BUT the price of this "economic growth" is skyrocketing housing and rental costs, overcrowded and congested roads and rail and ever increasing utility costs as more and more infrastructure has to be built. All of which has driven the cost of living in Victoria into an upward spiral and made if very difficult for ordinary working Victorians and their children to secure a home or a better quality of life. The Liberal government is not in any position to do anything about it, even if they wanted to and that is questionable. So even though Labor is gone it is unlikely things will get better unless population pressure is eased. And neither Liberal or Labor seem to want that. Guess it makes to much sense.