Of boats and votes

Nielsen struck a blow for transparency yesterday by releasing comprehensive data for their polling on asylum seekers, featuring detail on the questions and how they were asked, breakdowns by state, location, gender, age and voting intention, and no fewer than eight tables cross-tabulating various results for the eight questions asked. They even went so far as to include the raw numbers they reached after weighting the responses for age, gender and location, not that this particularly tells us much.

The poll also deserves credit for posing thoughtfully crafted questions on a complex and contentious subject. No doubt taking inspiration from Murray Goot and Ian Watson’s recent paper on public opinion and asylum seekers, which noted that results had been heavily influenced by “the way questions are framed, the kinds of questions that precede these questions (and) the range of possible responses the questions allow”, the Nielsen report offered the following:

It is important to note that the results of opinion polls on this issue are more sensitive to the wording of the questions asked than for many other topics. This is because the issues are often emotional for some and complicated for all. Respondent knowledge on this subject is never complete. The task of adequately condensing complex options into fair but meaningful questions is also a difficult one.

The questions in this poll were stripped of their political context as much as possible. For example the ‘sent to another country to be assessed’ option was not offered in the context of deterrence, nor was any human or financial cost alluded to. It was not offered as Labor or Coalition policy (e.g. by calling it the ‘Malaysian solution’ or the ‘Pacific solution’).

The Fairfax papers asserted that the poll showed voters “at odds with both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott and the perception that attitudes have hardened against asylum seekers”, and certainly the figures point to a more liberal attitude than the tenor of political debate would suggest. However, The Age gilded the lily a little with a graphic showing 60 per cent believed those assessed as genuine refugees should be allowed to stay in Australia permanently. It takes a bit of digging to appreciate that this excludes the 15 per cent who didn’t believe the asylum seekers should be assessed at all, having preferred that they be “sent out to sea”. The number supporting settlement in Australia was nonetheless a very solid 49 per cent, although there remained a combined 44 per cent in favour of the less liberal options of temporary protection visas (29 per cent support) and sending boats back out to sea (15 per cent). The same issue occurs with The Age’s figures for whether boat arrivals should be held in detention (64 per cent) or allowed into the community (32 per cent): putting the aforementioned 15 per cent back in (together with the 4 per cent “other/don’t know“), the results come down to 52 per cent and 26 per cent.

Regarding the treatment of asylum seekers on arrival, the results can be broken down thus:

22% – Allowed to live in the Australian community
12% – Detained in Australia, excluding children
17% – Detained in Australia, including children
4% – Sent to another country, allowed to live in community there
23% – Sent to another country and detained there
4% – Assessed for refugee status, no opinion on detention
15% – No assessment for refugee status: sent back out to sea
4% – Other/don’t know

And on their treatment after being assessed for refugee status:

49% – Settled in Australia
29% – Granted temporary protection visas
2% – Returned to country of origin
15% – No assessment for refugee status: sent back out to sea
5% – Other/don’t know

To those who are ready to junk the orthodox view on this subject, I would offer a few notes of caution. Certainly there was no majority in favour of assessing refugee status in Australia at the time of the Tampa episode, when Nielsen and Morgan polls had between 68 per cent and 77 per cent in favour of turning boats away. It is hardly plausible that so many of these respondents have had changes of heart that only 15 per cent now remain. What it likely shows is how the finer point of public opinion on this issue are shaped by the terms of the debate at the time. The symbolism in August/September 2001 involved boats being either allowed to land or held at bay by the military – only as the Howard government scrambled to effect its “Pacific solution” was the public alerted to the fact that the latter course only constituted half a policy. This may have led to a change in questions posed and answers given in opinion polls, but it doesn’t follow that there was a shift in underlying attitudes.

This leads to a point that occurs to me about the wording of Nielsen’s “sent to another country to be assessed” option: for many respondents, Nauru might not register as “another country” in the sense that Malaysia does, as it is perceived either as a dependency of Australia or too insigificant to qualify as a “country”. This option may accordingly have been interpreted by some as an invitation to sign on for the Malaysia solution. If Nielsen had at least added enough political context to allow for the restoration of the Pacific solution as a response option, the poll may have told a somewhat different story.

UPDATE (22/8): Crikey reports the latest Essential Research has Labor up a point on two-party preferred (to 56-44 from 57-43) and also on the primary vote, to 32 per cent, with the Coalition and the Greens steady on 50 per cent and 10 per cent. In other findings, 24 per cent support the health package finalised by government last month against 9 per cent opposed, with the great majority either indifferent (31 per cent said it would have little or no impact) or ignorant (28 per cent said they had heard nothing, 36 per cent little). Forty-seven per cent supported David Cameron’s suggestion that access to Twitter and Facebook be blocked during periods of civil unrest, with support varying as you would expect according to age and social media usage.

UPDATE 2: Full Essential Research report here.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

6,550 comments on “Of boats and votes”

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  1. “My comment was in reference to your broad statement that women have equality in most sectors.”

    I was being sarcky. But, yes, unasseptable in every instance.

  6. [Explain how a poll matters 2 years out from an election Glen.]

    I never said they did…they do say something about the here and now.

  7. The Economist …an editorial view of Oz
    ______________________________
    Interviewed today on ABC radio was a British journo/visitor who expressed amazement at the air of gloom and anger over the economy and other issues in Australia,when he knows of the mood in Europe and The USA…which he found so different to anything in Oz
    He thought Australian attitudes showed an air of unreality

  8. I agree Connie.

    Howard was so so much better than Abbott.

    A past Liberal leader like Howard must look back and think that the accomplishment he made was not that great afterall if a common monkey can do it!

  11. [The Economist …an editorial view of Oz
    ______________________________
    Interviewed today on ABC radio was a British journo/visitor who expressed amazement at the air of gloom and anger over the economy and other issues in Australia,when he knows of the mood in Europe and The USA…which he found so different to anything in Oz
    He thought Australian attitudes showed an air of unreality]

    If he were to understand that 90 per cent of the country’s news media are on the one side, he would wonder no more ….

  14. gusface,

    English, Danish and Spanish OK. Bit of French and German. Eastern languages not so much. Need The Finnigans to interpret.

    Doogie doing well on t’ABC.

  15. Thomas Paine, you are an offensive, boring, unstable, pratt.

    I don’t come here to put up with your paranoic idiocies.

    Get some help, or get out.

  16. Polls are simultaneously important and unimportant. It’s true that they are just a snapshot of one moment in time and where they’ll be in 2 years time would be anybody’s guess. However, they still provide a valuable snapshot of the nation in the present, not to mention highlight a trend and give an idea of where it is going. So, yes, polls are important for analytical reasons, but not important for electoral reasons.

    If that makes sense.

  23. dee,, i think its one of those things that may be you let the liberals do all the talking and if you do talk out side i mean then how is it reported.

    i would say this is the strategy they are using and it good so far as it is a one sided conversation the Tories talking to themselves and any one else who will listen becoming boring.

    do you think that could be the plan

  24. BK:

    Also shows how far the Liberals have sunk that a) there was a leader worse than Howard waiting in the wings, b) that particular leader wants to embrace former has-been incompetents like Ross Cameron, and c) there are no depths that leader won’t plumb if he thinks it’ll win him a vote or two.

    And remember that an MP of the caliber of Sophie Mirabella can be rewarded with a key front bench position in an Abbott ministry. And that’s before we even get to Joyce being made shadow finance minister for heaven’s sake!

  34. o just seen that news poll who gives a what ever ess, is no where near that
    william is going to kill me

    but if ess is not similar just take no notice of it, ess. was very much the same last week as it was this week,

    tell us william how can one poll be extreme that way and then the other way,

    i have been reading a bit latley about polls done over the phone and how dated they will be sooner or later..

    so personally i am ignoring it

  35. o just seen that news poll who gives a what ever ess, is no where near that
    william is going to kill me

    but if ess is not similar just take no notice of it, ess. was very much the same last week as it was this week,

    tell us william how can one poll be extreme that way and then the other way,

    i have been reading a bit latley about polls done over the phone and how dated they will be sooner or later..

    so personally i am ignoring it

  41. jen,

    and every one why do you alwasy place so much store on news pooool

    apparently those polled on ess. have not heard about the thompson thing.??? then of course they have i say get over it, consentrate on the modern way through the internet.
    night

  46. [:lol: an ALP primary vote of 27% 😆 ]

    If Labor enjoyed the benefit of a legion of anti-Liberal media outlets, the Liberal 2pp would be a figure starting with the number 2.

  47. [:lol: an ALP primary vote of 27% 😆

    Thomson is the gift that keeps on giving 😀 ]

    Proof positive Gary “Sockpuppet” Sparrow is only here to tr*ll

  48. [dovif
    Posted Monday, August 22, 2011 at 7:28 pm | Permalink

    It is occassionally good to come in here to read what is happening at an alternate universe. Ie one where the PM is not a backstabbing Liar.

    It brings a smile to my face everytime, some of the bloggers here should be commended for their Fictional writing ]

    It’s a bit blatant canvassing for votes like that, dovif.

  50. No surprise really, but the Human Rights Commission is unhappy over Manus Is. They suspect it is just the Pacific Solution again. Have to agree there.
    [Rights group slams Manus Island deal
    The Human Rights Commission has warned that transferring asylum seekers to an immigration processing centre set to re-open in Papua New Guinea could lead to human rights breaches.]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-22/human-rights-group-slams-manus-island-deal/2850586

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