Foreign affairs and Senate preferences

A comprehensive new survey on attitudes to foreign affairs, and deeper-than-ever dive into Senate voting and the preference question.

We’re still yet to have a new poll of federal voting intention after the election, for whatever that may still be worth, but I would imagine Newspoll will be breaking its drought to mark next week’s resumption of parliament. We do, however, have one of the Lowy Institute’s occasional surveys on attitudes to foreign affairs, the results of which are attractively presented on the organisation’s website.

The headline topic of the poll is Sino-American relations, and the results point to a sharp decline in trust towards China, which a clear majority of respondents rated the “world’s leading economic power”. Even clearer majorities, of around three-quarters, believed China was pursuing regional domination, and that Australia should do more to resist its military activities even if it affected our too-close economic relationship.

However, the poll also finds a further decline in trust in the United States, to add to the body-blow it took when Donald Trump was elected. Of particular interest here are the age breakdowns. Whereas there was little to distinguish the age cohorts in their positive view of the US on Obama’s watch, respondents in their youth and early middle-age now take a substantially more negative view than older ones.

Relatedly, the highly negative and worsening view of Trump personally, while evident across all age cohorts, is most pronounced among the young. This carries through to a head-to-head question on whether respondents should prioritise strong relations with the United States or China, with a majority of those aged 18-30 favouring China, and a large majority of the 60-plus cohort favouring the United States.

Beyond that, the survey offers no end of interesting material:

• Respondents were asked about their satisfaction with democracy – which, one often reads, is in freefall throughout the western world, particularly among the young. However, the Lowy Institute’s yearly tracking of this question going back to 2012 doesn’t show any such thing. If anything, there seems to be a slight trend in favour of the response that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government”, which is up three on last year at 65%. While the young are less sold on this notion than the old, there has been a solid improving trend among the 18-to-30 cohort, with this year’s result up six on last year’s to 55%, a new high over the course of the series.

• Evaluations were sought on a limited sample of foreign leaders, specifically concerning whether they could be trusted in world affairs. Donald Trump ranked down alongside Vladimir Putin, while Jacinda Ardern recorded near-unanimous acclaim, with 88% expressing either a lot of or some confidence. New Zealand was rated “Australia’s best friend” out of six available options by 59%, up from six since 2017.

• Brexit was rated a bad thing for the United Kingdom by 62%, a bad thing for the European Union by 70%, and a bad thing for the West in general by 58%. The UK’s rating on a “feelings thermometer” fell six points, to 76.

• Concern about climate change maintained an upward trajectory, with 61% favouring action “even if this involves significant costs”. The long-range trend on this question going back to 2006 suggests climate change is less of a problem when Labor are in office.

• Views on immigration were less negative than last year, after a significant hardening of opinion between 2014 and 2018. However, the immigration rate was still held to be too high by 48% of all respondents, and a very large majority of older ones.

The survey was conducted online and by telephone from March 12 to 25 from a sample of 2130.

The second part of today’s lesson relates to Senate preference flows, from which we can obtain no end of information thanks to the Australian Electoral Commission’s publication of the data files containing the preference order for every single ballot paper. By contrast, we’re still waiting on the two-party preference splits the AEC eventually publishes for each party in the House of Representatives. There will be a lot of analysis of this information here over the coming weeks, but for starters I offer the following:

This shows, from left to right, the rate of voters’ adherence to their favoured party’s how-to-vote-card; the rate at which minor party voters’ preference orders favoured Labor over the Coalition or vice-versa, or neither in the event that they did not number either party (“two-party”); and a similar three-way measure that throws the Greens into the mix (“three-party”).

This shows that United Australia Party voters heavily favoured the Coalition over Labor, but not because they were following the party’s how-to-vote cards, a course followed by around 0.1% of the total electorate. One Nation preferences were only slightly less favourable to the Coalition, and even fewer of the party’s voters followed the card. Since One Nation’s preferences in the lower house split almost evenly in 2016, out of the 15 seats where they ran, it seems safe to assume a shift in One Nation preferences accounted for a substantial chunk of the two-party swing to the Coalition. I will calculate Senate preference flows from 2016 for comparison over the next few days.

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.

1,777 comments on “Foreign affairs and Senate preferences”

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  1. Cobber:

    [‘It’s not such a ridiculous presumption for someone who called Wyatt an Uncle Tom.’]

    That was indeed an unfortunate turn of phrase. For you to take H.V. Evatt’s moniker, though, you would do well to appreciate the manifold, malign forces agin Labor.

  2. I missed this in all the debate drama. Love how it is claimed that it’s ‘partisan gerrymandering’, enabling the SC to give the case the flick, when in reality the gerrymandering is about disenfranchising minorities.

    Gerrymandering is about muting and turning off democracy, a country that allows gerrymandering isn’t a real democracy any more.

  3. So in the US they can turn off democracy, they have a dodgy partisan stacked court (ie no rule of law), they have an executive run by a third rate conman who is also a very credibly accused rapist, and at best half of their legislature working as intended. ‘Failed state’, is pretty much the only appropriate description.

  4. [‘As I said at the time it was among the most egregious comments I have seen on this blog’]

    You seem to be easily offended – even seeking offence, in furtherence of your anti-Labor offensive. I’ll tell you what: the Doc wouldn’t be impressed – your screen persona belying.

  5. I wouldn’t be surprised if Minns replaces Linda Burney in Barton – she is 65 years old at the next election. Not really ministerial material.

    Hard to see him holding the state seat with the Asianisation of the electorate.

  6. Democracy in America is looking pretty worse for wear at present, but I think it’s a stretch to say that NSW is worse.

  7. AE – there’s a distinct smell of old in Labor’s parliamentary ranks. 65 is simply too old to begin your ministerial career.

    Would be worse if Burney was still there for 2025.

    I know this is on Albo’s radar for a clean out.

  8. I think it’s a stretch to say that NSW is worse.

    Yeah NSW definitely didn’t just reelect a corrupt Government that is pulling down stadiums and rebuilding them for no good reason while infrastructure is insufficient and you’re capital city public transport is a sad joke. But you are right on a city by city basis you can probably find worse than Sydney in the US.

  9. WWP:

    Australia just re-elected a woefully incompetent, definitely arguably corrupt govt despite untold number of scandals, some possibly criminally so. Yet despite all that I still reckon our electoral system far outweighs that of America’s, and therefore would much rather be a voter here (even if I lived in NSW) than over there.

  10. Age at next election:

    Mark Dreyfus 65yrs
    Brendan O’Connor 60 yrs
    Linda Burney 65 yrs
    Don Farrell 68 yrs
    Joel Fitzgibbon 60 yrs

    Thats 5 out of 23 Cabinet seats 60 years or older.
    This will be a key challenge for Albo to make room for young talent like Clare O’Neill.

  11. Fred Daly used to tell the story of the Doc standing on the Caucus table shouting “take their names, take their names” while the division was being counted during Stan Keogh’s spill motion. He and Frank Stewart (who were both probably groupers but went with the consensus to keep their seats) felt like pulling his legs from under him.

    Supporting the Doc as leader during his descent into dementia and stifling debate did not help either the ALP or Australia during the 50s and 60s.
    Denying the State ALPs problem over the last decade and an attitude of my party right or wrong (or more correctly Sussex St right or wrong) will ensure many years of continuing opposition for Labor

  12. of course Federal Labor are spring chickens compared to NSW Labor

    Next election:

    Nick Lalich 78 yrs
    Ron Hoenig 70 years

  13. shellbell:

    [‘History will look back at the McKay Minns battle with similar interest to Mason MacDonald in 1978.’]

    FFS mate: what do you mean by this? Don’t worry, I’m doing a Pepys, but will add that you’re smart by halves.

  14. Adam Carr ‘psephos’ started the Wikipedia page on NSW liberal party leaders and took joy from the revolving door and failure of any of them to be elected Lewis, Willis, Coleman, Mason, MacDonald, Chika, Collins. Have I left any out?

    I started the page on NSW ALP leaders and could say how few there were and only one long term leader (Pat Hills) had never been Premier.

    Things have changed in 10 years

  15. WWP
    In NSW government corruption should be reported to ICAC. I am not aware of the current government facing any open enquires.

    If you know of corruption you are obliged to report it to ICAC

  16. “History will look back at the McKay Minns battle with similar interest to Mason MacDonald in 1978.”

    Long-forgotten NSW Liberal leaders during the 9 year Neville Wran (ALP) premiership. The Liberals changed leaders pretty much annually while Labor was dominant.

  17. C@t:

    And McKay is very young at 49. I often think our Premier is very young, but at 51 he’s 2 years older than McKay.

  18. Counting of the more than 11,000 member votes was still underway on Saturday night, but the Herald understands the flow of votes overwhelmingly favoured Ms McKay and the top job was now beyond Mr Minns’ reach.

  19. Confessions @ #1136 Saturday, June 29th, 2019 – 9:20 pm

    C@t:

    And McKay is very young at 49. I often think our Premier is very young, but at 51 he’s 2 years older than McKay.

    Yeah. LVT conveniently left Jodi’s age out of his Aged Labor list. 😐

    She is relatively young, sharp as a tack and fiercely determined, let me tell you from personal experience.

  20. C@t:

    She won the Caucus, plus the member vote. She’s got a great start to her leadership, and a solid foundation from which to build upon. I wish her well.

  21. Sad to hear Ms McKay is likely to be NSW LOTO.

    She is a lightweight through and through. An informed, thinking electorate would never vote her in as Premier, but unfortunately there is no such electorate, so her lack of talent and competence will probably not be a hindrance to her.

    She is certainly no KK.

  22. I was hopeful for Foley but one thing you shouldn’t do is put your hand in a journalist’s underpants without a specific invitation

  23. Oakeshott Country says:
    Saturday, June 29, 2019 at 9:39 pm
    I was hopeful for Foley but one thing you shouldn’t do is put your hand in a journalist’s underpants without a specific invitation

    _____________________________________

    Unless you’re the (snigger) leader of the free world of course

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