'; ?> October 2009 | What The People Want
October 2009
Global warming quantitative analysis
Friday, 23 October 2009 00:07 | Written by Graham Young

Only 38% of Australians favour passing the government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) before the Copenhagen climate summit, with 46% opposed. 42% of Australians are absolutely opposed to the CPRS, while only 40% support it.

This is the quantitative result of our online survey of 1022 Australians on global warming. The sample was balanced to reflect the voting patterns of Australians at large.

 
The heat is back
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 23:24 | Written by Graham Young

Global warming is back as the top issue after taking second place for much of this year. The table below needs to be viewed with a bit of caution because we have changed versions of Leximancer which is the software program we use to count concepts. The relevance appears to be a consistent concept between the tables, but the percentages in the latest sample don't appear to match well with those from the previous one, so rely on rank order rather than absolute measurements.

 
Heading in the right direction
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 23:23 | Written by Graham Young

Our figures show that voters are generally optimistic about the direction of the country. They are even more optimistic about their own personal circumstances.

In October last year 53% thought the country was heading in the right direction. That plunged to 41% in May this year. Those who thought the country was heading in the wrong direction went from 28% to 42%. There has been a significant reversal in these figures with 49% thinking the country is heading in the right direction now and 36% disagreeing.

 
Turnbull recovers but Rudd unshaken as preferred PM
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 23:23 | Written by Graham Young

I don't put a lot of store in the vanity polls, but they are interesting to follow, not least to see what everyone else says about them.

In our vanity poll this month we see a strong bounce back in the popularity ratings by Malcolm Turnbull while Rudd's show essentially no change.

 
Is differentiate or disappear working? October quants
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 23:22 | Written by Graham Young

Is the National Party on to something? For the first time I have included their index calculation in our First Preference Indicator (FPI) graph below. The index has now been going for just over 12 months and it shows little real change in the Labor and Liberal votes in that time with the Greens up slightly. In contrast the National Party vote has been on a roller coaster - down dramatically in the middle of the year, and now up substantially on 12 months ago.

 
Summary of quantitative analysis October 2009
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 23:21 | Written by Graham Young

Our quantitative analysis of Australian politics shows a few changes that might be significant. The National Party vote appears to be improving, and Malcolm Turnbull's disapproval rating has also improved.

Otherwise results are little different from 12 months ago.

 
Turnbull wins virtual ballot
Tuesday, 20 October 2009 20:14 | Written by Graham Young

If they had a vote in the Liberal Parliamentary Party room Malcolm Turnbull would be the favoured choice of most Australians. Their second choice would be Peter Costello who resigned from parliament yesterday.

After preferences Turnbull would have won 59% of the vote.

 
Liberal leadership looks like two-horse race
Wednesday, 14 October 2009 08:13 | Written by Graham Young

This morning's news was full of reports of a difference between Newspoll and AC Nielsen on who was the popularly preferred leader of the Liberal Party.

The SMH carries a story that Joe Hockey is "slightly favoured" over Malcolm Turnbull by 33% to 31%. The Australian suggests that the margin is firmer for Turnbull at 32% to 24%. One of these results is wrong, if not both, because the distance between them is larger than the sample error, but the reporting is wrong too.