Julia Gillard’s personal standing with voters has collapsed, according to today’s Essential Report.
Her personal satisfaction ratings with voters are now down to 34% approval and 54% disapproval, giving her a huge negative dissatisfaction rating. In early May, her rating was 41%-48%, a small recovery from her previous worst in April, when she had reached 37%-50%.
Tony Abbott has also gone backwards with voters since May, with a 4-point switch between approval and disapproval. He is now on 38%-48%, half the Prime Minister’s dissatisfaction level. Gillard still leads Abbott as preferred Prime Minister but it’s now down to its lowest ever level, 41%-36%, down from 43-35% in May.
The view that climate change is real and human-caused has softened since May. Just 50% of voters believe it is happening and is caused by humans, while 39% believe climate change is just a normal fluctuation in the climate; those figures were 52-36% in May, but 45-36% in December. Liberal voters are much more likely to not believe in human-caused climate change — 55% of them think it is purely natural and only 34% think human cause it, while 83% of Green voters and 64% of Labor voters think it is caused by humans.
Of those who believe climate change is caused by humans, 48% are “somewhat confident” it can be averted if we take action now, and 13% are very confident, but 36% are only a little or not at all confident we can stop it even if we act now.
Support for the government’s proposal to price carbon remains flat, with support unchanged at 38% and opposition up 1 point at 49%.
Awareness of the government’s proposal to send asylum seekers to Malaysia is relatively high, with 27% of voters saying they know a lot about it and 31% saying they know “something about” it, while 38% say they know little or nothing about it. Feelings are finely balanced, with 40% saying they support it and 39% opposing it. Greens voters object most strongly (51%) and Labor voters are its strongest supporters (47%).
On voting intention, a one-point rise in the Coalition’s primary vote sees the 2PP results move back to 54-46%, with no other change from last week.
Who cares? We are still more than 2 years from an election, can’t we have some serious political analysis instead of this meaningless poll.
Reactions to Julia Gillard ever since she took over have sometimes puzzled me. A lot of negative comments relate less to her performance and more to her appearance and demeanour. Women, in particular, seem very critical of her, but that is nothing new. However, another issue may be at work and that is simple snobbery. The fact that a woman with humble beginnings from the western suburbs, who is not particualrly wealthy, nor mixes with the “upper classes” should be sitting in the lodge may irritate some sections of society. It has nothing to do with representing the ALP and more to do with the fact that she follows the Footscray football club but does not collect antique clocks nor listen to Mahler.
well the labor party has only themselves to blame … its not because the libs are scoring victories its because labor is scoring own goals..if you look at the opposition the political talent is thin on the ground..they have a member in the bluest of blue ribbon seats whos claim to fame is tennis, a 21year oldwho doesnt know when the last time a budget was in surplus, my local member has been a liberal MP since 1996 and is still on the backbench, so even her party doesnt think she has the goods and a leader who one day is yes the next day no, then there is barnaby joyce LOL ….if there is talent in the conservative side of politics they need to put up their hand as a good democracy needs a good opposition
Outstanding result! Only 50% of Australian’s believe climate change is real and human induced….they would rather believe Barnaby Joyce etc than (almost) every scientist on the planet with an opinion. Lets ask them about the crazy new theory that the earth is not flat!
What brought about this rapid change in attitude by conservative politics to the natural world?
According to Sharon Beder in her study, Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism, the answer lies in the threat of costly environmental regulations. Corporate executives viewed environmentalism as “the life and death PR battle of the 1990s.”
As consultant Bob Williams wrote in ‘US Petroleum Strategies in the Decade of the Environment’, “to put the environmental lobby out of business, the petroleum industry must render the environmental lobby superfluous, an anachronism.”
Right wing politicians were the first to fall into line softened up by Big $ from Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Carbon and Big Tobacco. The compliant right-wing mainstream media followed.
The right in USA and Australia are now hell bent on destroying environmentalism. A good example was the extraordinary editorial we saw last year in the official party organ of the Australian Liberal Party, the Australian, when it called for the Greens “to be destroyed at the ballot box” . Murdoch owns 70% of the media in Australia. Former editor, Bruce Guthrie, revealed in The Age recently that Newscorps’ editors in Australia have been given the command to back Abbott.
(more on this story in Independent Australia)