(Cross posted from What the people want).
A TNS survey conducted around the same time as our last federal political omnibus comes to similar conclusions. If respondents were given $1,000 surplus only $220 would be spent with the rest being saved or used to pay down debt.
TNS also finds that 57% of Australians think we are heading into a Depression, and 51% think the crisis will last another one or two years.
What this should say to politicians is that giving more money to Australians at any time in the next two years would be a very poor way to stimulate the economy because most of it will be saved. Which is what our research said.
It also makes you wonder who is advising Lawrence Springborg in Queensland. Today he claimed that Labor is “playing up the scope of the financial crisis“. When 57% of your constituents are calling it a depression, they’re not likely to give you marks for insight when your claim is so different from the reality they perceive. If anything, they’d probably think that Anna Bligh is being unduly optimistic when she says “Things are likely to get worse before they get better over the next 12 months”.
What the Queensland polling is saying to me is that Springborg’s best chance of besting Bligh is to claim that things are much worse than she is claiming, and that is why she is going early. I might need to start revising my forecast of seats to change hands! Despite claiming for months that Bligh was going to have an early election the Lib/Nats don’t seem to know what their key messages should be.
February 24, 2009 | Graham
It’s depressing – TNS survey
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Their main message is that they are confused and don’t know that Brisbane is the part of the state with most seats, is the most open-minded, most diverse and best educated.
Comment by Keith — February 25, 2009 @ 10:03 am
The 1996 Coalition government had known since the 1995 election that it was likely to govern after the by-election. But when Borbidge and Sheldon took office, it seemed to me as a senior economic policy adviser that they had no idea of what they would do. Their main advantage over the ALP was that they were less effective at implementing bad policy. This may well be the case again, but there is at least some hope of better policy if the government changes.
Comment by Faustino — February 25, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
It would help Austaralia if we actually had someone who could lead and inspire confidence.Kevin is trying to compensate for his inadaquacies by throwing money at the problem.It won’t work beccause people are too fearful.An education program is needed to get the message across to spend a bit and reduce debt.The average house hold in the last few months has had an increased in income of $200.00 per week and they should be encouraged to spend at least half of this while also reducing debt.This is the sensible approach.
Do we hear of any such education programs eminating from Canberra?
Comment by Arjay — March 1, 2009 @ 9:56 am