Voters have given the Albanese authorities an F on containing housing prices and surprisingly little credit score for rising wages, in two troubling indicators for Labor heading right into a cost-of-living election.
These are the outcomes of the newest Guardian Important ballot of 1,123 voters, which discovered robust help for social media regulation, together with two-thirds in favour of the under-16 age ban.
After a legislative bonanza with parliament passing 45 authorities payments in its closing week, Anthony Albanese nonetheless conceded Labor must do extra on the price of residing earlier than the 2025 election.
It will appear voters agreed, with 53% ranking the federal government’s efficiency as “poor” on “increasing the amount of affordable housing”, together with 30% who mentioned “very poor”. Simply 21% of respondents mentioned its dealing with of this difficulty was “good” and an extra 26% mentioned neither good nor poor.
On “increasing wages and workers’ rights”, those that mentioned the federal government had finished a poor job barely outnumbered those that mentioned an excellent job, 35% to 33%. That was regardless of wages rising quicker than inflation for 4 consecutive quarters, one of many brightest spots within the Albanese’s governments financial narrative.
Extra voters thought the federal government was doing an excellent job than poor one on a variety of different points: defending kids on social media (38% to twenty-eight%), supporting Australian jobs and business (37% to 32%), defending nature and the setting (34% to 30%), and progressing the transition to renewable power (32% to twenty-eight%).
In a forced-choice query, the bulk (53%) of respondents mentioned it was as much as the federal authorities to barter laws by parliament and “if they fail it is a sign of their inability to govern”, pipping those that mentioned “if the opposition and minor parties block most legislation, it is a sign they are playing politics rather than seeking positive outcomes” (47%).
Final week the federal government and opposition handed a world-leading social media age ban for these aged 16 and beneath, regardless of considerations about its sensible enforceability.
When it got here to regulation of platforms equivalent to Meta and TikTok, respondents to the ballot supported banning deepfake pornography (77%), deepfake political content material equivalent to faux movies of politicians (76%), requiring platforms to take away harmful and malicious content material (75%) and requiring platforms to make sure customers are over the age of 16 (67%).
The social media age ban was hottest amongst over-55s (76% of who authorised) and fewer so amongst 18 to 34s, of whom 55% authorised.
In an indication of urge for food for even larger regulation, 70% wished the federal government to require platforms to reveal how they resolve what content material customers obtain of their feeds.
A majority (55%) wished the federal government to “require platforms to carry news journalism and compensate media companies for their work” – an essential discovering with an announcement anticipated this yr to answer Meta’s halting of offers compensating media corporations.
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Most respondents thought Australia did an excellent job defending freedoms of: speech (75%), protest (76%), over one’s physique together with abortion (76%), affiliation together with becoming a member of a union (78%) and faith (80%). However fewer mentioned the identical of freedom from surveillance, at 56%.
However, a majority of respondents had been in favour of legal guidelines limiting freedom of speech together with: legal guidelines in opposition to hate speech and vilification (67%), defamation (68%), prison safety in opposition to assault and bullying (73%), and privateness regulation together with anti-doxing legal guidelines (76%).
On Monday, Albanese took intention on the Coalition, noting on ABC Radio that that they had “voted against the doxing legislation that was introduced as well as part of our privacy laws”.
Though these handed with Greens and crossbench help, Labor nonetheless has a combat on its palms over hate speech legal guidelines, which Christian teams oppose whereas LGBTQ+ equality teams and Jewish teams wish to go additional by outlawing vilification.
After Donald Trump’s US election win on an anti-free commerce platform, the Important ballot discovered Australian voters cut up between these wanting lowered tariffs to decrease costs (37%), those that assume lowered tariffs expose Australian employees to competitors from “cheaper imports from low-wage nations” (33%) and those that had been not sure (30%).
