A detailed analysis isn’t possible in the absence of the raw data which would enable regressions and cross-tabs, but there are some interesting patterns in the data that are presented.

Mark, the 2007 dataset is in fact available at ASSDA – perhaps not for download, but you can do cross-tabs and (I think) regressions on the site.

Considerations in Voting Decision
1996-2007: ‘In deciding how you would vote in the election, which was most important to you?’

The party leaders
The policy issues
The candidates in your electorate
The parties taken as a whole

Is this section above what you referred to?

This question appears to refer to personalities rather than aspects of leadership, but my pdf may have generated the wrong page numbers. A search however of “leadership” returned zero.

http://assda.anu.edu.au/aestrends.pdf

The first point to make..is that leadership is much less important to voting intention than is usually claimed in the media.

Obviously this would depend on the questions asked about “leadership”?

And answers to those questions may well suffer the fate of being altered by the asking.

Some thoughts, in that “leadership” to the general public may also be something processed intuitively. Intuition is a very individual thing – very: as much as would be everyone’s computer operating system programmed differently, notwithstanding any similarities occurring as it happened one and another – so that any discursive data might be meaningless but for the broad questions such as “who do you prefer?”.

Intuition too airy? A feeling, if you prefer. Perception. A take-out. Real factors of individual make-up.

The questioner may easily have in mind a clear and precise frame for questions. That is, the asking is easily more precise than the answering.

“Leadership” questions as a quantifiable poll result of any in-depth, worthwhile meaning? Across the board? Or even of a group particularly?

The data quoted in the post above jolts against these thoughts. The data jerks around the feeling, and vice versa. Help appreciated. Or is this one of those cases where study meets question upon question; and or the meaningful answer is clear all the while.

Leadership! What is it? To whom?

Another example, take the environment and fix it up. That was a strong message from polls that looked at voters’ issues before and during the election.
I believe it was a major reason for the increase in the vote of both the ALP and the Greens.
So if that doesn’t happen there are going to be a lot of people rightfully feeling disenfranchised…hence [apparent] apathy.

The best issue where the media narrative has become the accepted truth in the community is interest rates. People understand that the government can have some indirect effect on interest rate levels, but they have no understanding of how this happens.

They find budget deficits bad not because of the effect they have on interest rates but because they believe that governments have so much money they shouldn’t need to spend more than they have.

A lot of people understand politics in the simplest terms, when people on here (for good reason, as it is the politically astute) understand it on the most complex terms.

While Brendan Nelson is unelectable, and the government is not doing a bad job really, nothing will change in the polls or public sentiment. However, if Rudd keeps making those unnecessarily long and unintelligible statements like

“Therefore, there is, in my argument, on the face of it, a natural complementarity between these two philosophical approaches and a complementarity that could be developed further in the direction of some form of conceptual synthesis.”

then a lot of Australians are going to start thinking of K-Rudd as a bit of a Midland Banker.

Howard lost the last election because he became less trustworthy than the other guy. The tipping point for this was WorkChoices, the confirmation among the populace that Howard was a mean ideologue.

“It doesnt matter who you vote for, in the end you always get a politician.” “Pollies are like bananas, the go in straight and green and come out bent and yellow.” Trite, hackneyed but sadly true. The aim of the politician appears to be appeasement. Appeasement to interest groups, individuals and the ephemerous Stakeholder. Appeasement ensures reelection and reelection is the holy grail. Altruism takes a backseat to most and disappears completely in the person who has chosen politics as a way to make a living instead of a way to help their constituency.
There is no solution. Politicians dont give a rat’s if you can or cannot see through their puffery because we are all locked in to the worst of a good system.
As much as I despise Hansonism, the initial results were an eye opener regarding the public’s response to straight talking. (Nothin’ else though.)
Finally, HD, do what you do best and raise your family. But vote with a resigned sigh.

Not having a go at you two, just riffing on the theme.

They are insightful. Rudd knows that full well and he seems determined to inform the community on the limitations of government in a market economy. It will take time to destroy the Howard narrative of the ‘government in charge’.

Ferguson’s trip to OPEC is simply an attempt to reinforce the facts that while the Government can do very little re oil prices (true), they will keep trying (political necessity).

In this context, it’s also very significant to observe the finding that a majority of voters don’t believe anything the government does has much impact on the economy – what we might term the “globalisation effect” – something very poorly understood by political commentators, I’d suggest.

I’m often skeptical about the level of understanding the average voter has about the issues they vote on. But, in this case, it seems like people understand a lot better than we perhaps give them credit for!