Trust in government has reached its lowest level on record, with just one-in-four Australians saying they had confidence in their political leaders and institutions, according to a major study of the 2019 Federal Election.
Professor Ian McAllister and Dr Sarah Cameron have launched an interactive online tool to explore the Australian Election Study (AES) data from 1987 to 2016. The tool shows trends in Australian political opinion over time, and enables the user to explore these trends by age group, gender, education level, and vote choice. Almost 100 charts are included, covering citizen attitudes towards: the election campaign; voting and partisanship; election issues; the economy; politics and political parties; the left-right dimension; the political leaders; democracy and institutions; trade unions, business and wealth; social issues; and defence and foreign affairs. The online tool is intended as a resource for those who teach, research, and study Australian politics, as well as journalists and members of the public. The tool was produced with support from Small Multiples.
To explore the data see here.
Professor Ian McAllister and Sarah Cameron of the ANU School of Politics and International Relations will deliver a talk, ‘Trust, Parties and Leaders: Findings from the 1987-2016 Australian Election Study’, for the Senate Occasional Lecture Series on the 25th of August, 2017 at Parliament House.
Drawing upon Australian Election Study surveys fielded after every election over the past thirty years, this lecture will provide an analysis of voter opinion in three areas: 1) trust in politics and attitudes towards democracy; 2) assessments of the political parties; and 3) perceptions of the political leaders. The lecture will shed light on why we are witnessing dramatic declines in public satisfaction with democracy in Australia and will conclude with some proposals for political reform.
For more information on the event see here.
A copy of the presentation can be downloaded here.
Three initial analyses of the 2016 Australian Election Study data by ANU academics will be presented at the Joint Quantitative Political Science Conference for Asia and Australasia, University of Sydney, 9-11 January 2017.
In ‘Gender Quotas in the 2016 Election’ Dr Katrine Beauregard examines public support for the introduction of gender quotas to increase the proportion of women elected representatives in Australia.
In ‘Moral Politics, Social Permissiveness and Voting in Australia’ Dr Jill Sheppard uses the AES to evaluate public opinion on a range of moral issues, including same sex marriage, abortion rights, and drug liberalization.