Both major parties have been sitting on the knife edge of a 50/50 split for the last couple of months. That analysis however, doesn’t include undecided voters (around 20%, and even higher for women and people under 25). It’s also based on preferences as they were at the last election, and there’s been some significant changes since then. And it assumes uniform swings across the country, rather than localised blips which could throw up unexpected results, like one of the safest Liberal seats in the country possibly falling to the Greens.
Essentially, all the polls tell us is that no one really knows who is going to win yet.
When you get past the breathless speculation about meaningless numbers, some of the other polling information shows a pretty clear explanation for this. Around 65% of people think both the major parties “will promise anything to win votes” and only about 30% believe they will keep their promises.
So, no matter what the government or Labor have promised, two thirds of the country doesn’t believe them.
The biggest differences in perceptions was in “too close to the big corporate and financial interests” (65 % Liberal/35% Labor), “out of touch with ordinary people” (63% Liberal/46% Labor) and “looks after the interests of working people” (31 % Liberal/56 % Labor).
So in the race to beat the runner up, the Labor party is looking pretty good right now. That is, until you factor in the personalities.
Policy versus personality
Despite all the claims that Australian politics runs under the Westminster system (so we vote for parties, not for leaders) the personalities do matter. Most of us don’t have an in-depth understanding of macroeconomics, educational theory or medical practices. Nor do we all study the fine print of each party policy on employment, education and health. We vote on a general sense of what we think is important and who we think is the least worst option. Too often, those perceptions are centred on the party leader and how we think they will manage government.
