Approval of Julia Gillard climbed 4 points from 31% last month to 35% approving of the job she is doing as Prime Minister this month, whilst her disapproval fell 3 points in the same time. In the 2 years since July 2010, Gillard’s disapproval has risen 24 points from 30% to 54%.
By state, approval for Gillard was strongest in South Australia (46%) and Victoria (44%) and weakest in Western Australia (66%, however this Western Australian sample size is considerably smaller at n=64).
Approval for Gillard was significantly stronger amongst female respondents (40% approve, 47% disapprove) compared to male respondents (31% approve/ 60% disapprove).
Tony Abbott’s approval fell 4 points within the last month, from 36% approval in August to 32% this week. His disapproval picked up 4 points from 51% to 55% in the same period. Over the 2 years since July 2010, his disapproval has risen 11 points from 44% to 55%.
There were few significant variations by state, save that respondents in South Australia were significantly more likely to disapprove of the job Abbot is doing as Opposition leader (63%).
Male respondents were more likely to approve of Abbott’s performance (36% approve / 55% disapprove) compared to female respondents (28% approve / 54% disapprove).
Forty percent (40%) of respondents believe that Julia Gillard would make a better Prime Minister than Tony Abbott, up 4% from the last time the question was polled in August 2012. Gillard has resumed the lead on Abbott as preferred Prime Minister, having dropped behind him after April 2012.
There was little change in favour of Abbott, with belief that Abbott would make a better Prime Minister changing just 1% from last month, down to 37%.
This week’s figures are fairly consistent with the results from the beginning of the year (39% in favour of Gillard, 36% in favour of Abbott).
Over the two years since July 2010, belief that Gillard would make a better Prime Minister has dropped 10 points from 50% to 40%, whilst belief that Abbott would make a better Prime Minister has equally increased 10 points from 27% to 37%.
Female respondents were more likely to regard Gillard as the better Prime Minister (44% Gillard / 30% Abbott) whereas male respondents were more likely to regard Abbott as the better Prime Minister (36% Gillard / 44% Abbott).
There is little change in respondents’ positions on troops in Afghanistan. Compared to the last time the question was polled six months ago in March 2012, 4% still believe that we should increase the number of troops. Belief that we should maintain the same number of troops increased 1% to 23% and belief that we should withdraw troops fell just 2 points from 64% in March 2012 to 62%.
Looking at the results by voting intention, Coalition voters were the most in favour of maintaining troop numbers (27%) compared to Labor voters (23%) and Greens voters (20%). Greens voters were the most likely to want to withdraw troops from Afghanistan (65%) when compared with Labor voters (60%) and Coalition voters (58%).
Q. Overall, do you think unions have been good or bad for Australian working people?
The largest portion of respondents polled believe that overall, unions have been good for Australian working people (45% total good), whilst a fifth of respondents (20%) felt that they had been bad for working people. Results have moved slightly since the last time the question was polled in March 2012, with those respondents regarding unions as good dropping from 48% to 45% and those regarding them as bad rising the equivalent amount from 17% to 20% in the same period.
Looking at the results by voting intention, Greens voters were by the most likely to believe that unions had been good for working people (74%), whilst Coalition voters were by far the most likely to believe that unions had been bad for Australian working people (36%).
The majority of part time workers believed that unions had been good for Australian working people (51%) compared with 47% of full time workers.
Q. And how important are unions for Australian working people today?
The majority of respondents regarded unions to be important for Australian working people today (52%), whilst 38% believe that they were not important. Belief that they are important fell 4 points from 56% in March 2012 to 52% in this week’s results.
Greens voters were by far the most likely to believe that unions were important for Australian working people today (82%), whilst Coalition voters were the most likely to regard unions as not important (58%).
Both the majority of full time workers (52%) and part time workers (56%) regarded unions as important for Australian working people today. However full time workers (42%) were more likely than part time workers (33%) to regard unions as not important.
Q. Overall, would workers be better off or worse off if unions in Australia were stronger?
The largest portion of respondents felt that workers would be better off if unions in Australia were stronger (39%), followed by 30% of respondents that believed workers would be worse off (30%). Fifteen percent (15%) felt that it would make no difference.
Looking at the results by voting intention, Greens voters were the most likely to believe that workers would be better off (71%), whilst Coalition voters were by far the most likely to believe that workers would be worse off (47%).
Whilst the same portion of full time workers and part time workers felt that workers would be better off (both 40%), full time workers were more likely to believe that workers would be worse off if unions were stronger (35%) compared to part time workers (24%).