Budget 2011 - the qual

Monday, 23 May 2011 20:50 | Written by Graham Young

The Leximancer graph of responses to whether the country is heading in the right direction shows just how "tight" times are for many in the population. The three themes identified by the software are all to do with money. They move from the more to the less abstract from left to right.

Those who think the country is heading in the right direction are most likely to cite the abstract "economy". The contested ground is "tax" which is mostly about the carbon tax, showing just how much it is impacting on the debate. As it is a net negative for the government is is no wonder that it lies closer to the Liberal voting respondents than the Labor voting ones. "Money" is a theme which denotes the lack of money - either for individuals or the government.

When it comes to approval of the budget the map is so crowded it's hard to read the themes. The aspect of the budget that appealed to those who approved of it was to do with "welfare" which was associated with health, middle class welfare, cuts, infrastructure, training, funding and social.

Tax is related to business issues, the mining tax and resources boom, jobs, benefits, surplus, deficit and carbon.

Debt is most closely associated with Liberal voters, and is also associated with pensioners, money, families and country.

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