Hung parliament really does change the paradigm

Up until 2010 they stuck with Labor but only for fear that if they didn’t John Howard would benefit. (Dislike of John Howard was the strongest voting motivator for all of his reign). They also needed to be persuaded that the Greens could actually perform.

In the 2010 election Labor looked so hopeless and moribund that these voters decided there was minimal risk in going Green – who could do worse than Rudd/Gillard/Swan?

Our most recent polling suggests that they see this risk assessment as vindicated, and that a hung parliament is in fact a very congenial place for them to be. This really does fundamentally change the paradigm and presents opportunities and threats to the old duopolists.

Of our online qualitative respondents, adjusted for voting intention, 33 percent think it is good to have a hung parliament and 41 percent think it is bad. That is an equivocal result, until you look at it by party breakdown.

In this case you find 71 percent of Liberals opposed to the idea, which analysis of the qual suggests is at the deepest level because they don’t form the government, justified through the idea that the government is being held to ransom by the Greens and Independents.

However Greens are 73 percent happy, at the deepest level probably because they are in government, although this too is tempered by the fact that the leverage is shared with the independents. They generally see the benefits of a hung parliament as breaking the two-party duopoly and bringing more democracy.

Labor voters are a lot more agnostic. 36 percent like a hung parliament, 23 percent don’t and another 36 percent are neutral. Again, at the deepest level, their side is in power, but their comments centre on keeping all parties honest, reflecting a deep level of cynicism and frustration with the existing political entities.

What this suggests is that there is a lot more potential for Labor to bleed to the Greens, but at the same time that Labor voters are tolerant of parliaments where the Greens have the balance of power.

This gives Labor the opportunity to have a real or de facto coalition with the Greens, leaving the Greens to guard the left flank while they attract blue-collar conservatives away from the Liberals.

Is this a viable option with Julia Gillard as leader? Probably not, it’s a longer term strategy.

While she is still our group’s preferred PM, analysis of the qual using Leximancer shows that Abbott dominates discussion. Gillard’s strength as a leader has diminished, and he is the one who appeals to the working class conservatives. He maintains his positive rating for honesty, seemingly enhanced every time he makes another verbal stumble. She is still rated as intelligent, but her character apart from that is ill-defined.

Leadership is a problem in another dimension for Labor. To respondents “democracy” entails parliament taking an increased leadership role.