Essential: The budget edition

This week’s Essential Report comes in with the primaries running 38 (up 1)/ 43 (up 1) to the Coalition, washing out into a two party preferred of 50/50 – unchanged from last week, giving is a bit of a consensus with today’s polls. The Greens are on 10 (down 1), while the broad “Others” are on 9 (down 1). This comes from a rolling two week sample of 1851, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 2.3% mark.

Additional questions this week focus on…… drum roll…… the budget!

These additional questions come from a sample of 1087, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 3% mark.

Thinking about the Federal Budget – how much attention did you pay to this week’s Federal Budget?

The short cross-tabs tell us:

Those most interested were men (60% a lot/some) and people aged 55+ (65%). Only 44% of respondents aged 18‐34 paid a lot or some attention to the budget.

Next up Essential asked a series of questions:

Do you think the Federal Budget was good or bad for you and people like you, or will it have no impact?
Do you think the Federal Budget was good or bad for Australian businesses, or will it have no impact?
Do you think the Federal Budget was good or bad for the Australian economy overall, or will it have no impact?

On the cross-tabs, Essential tells us:

32% of respondents aged 55+ thought the budget was bad for them and only 19%
good. Fulltime workers were a little more positive about the impact on themselves – 28% good/25% bad.

32% thought the budget was bad for business, 27% good and 9% said it would have no impact. 53% of Labor voters said it was good for business and 61% of Liberal/National voters said it was bad.

There was a more positive view of the budget in terms of whether it was good or bad for the economy overall – 36% said it was good and 28% bad. Labor voters split 67% good/5% bad compared to Liberal/National voters at 14% good/57% bad.

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Do you think that with this Budget, the Government has done enough to reduce the deficit and return the budget to surplus in the next few years?

Short cross-tabs say “Greens voters split 40% enough/31% not enough.”

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Overall, from what you have read and heard, do you think the Australian economy is heading in the right direction or the wrong direction?

The short cross-tabs say “83% of Labor voters, 30% of Liberal/National voters and 59% of Greens voters think the economy is heading in the right direction.”

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Which party do you think would be best at handling the Australian economy in the interests of you and people like you?

Essential tells us on the cross tabs that:

43% of Greens voters said there was no difference – 34% said Labor and 10% Liberal.

Respondents aged under 35 favoured Labor 31%/28% and those aged 55+ favoured the Liberals 44%/36%.