May poll - approvals and preferred PM

Sunday, 03 June 2012 16:56 | Written by Graham Young

When it comes to approval or disapproval of the Prime Minister and Her Majesty's Loyal Leader of the Opposition, the same themes that have been apparent from the beginning still recur.

For Gillard the argument for is that she is doing a difficult job as well as she can in difficult circumstances, while the case for the prosecution is that she is a liar. The only new thread is related to Slipper and Thomson, where she is seen as being incompetently opportunistic. This tends to feed back into perceptions of her ability to govern, which are not high.

There is a definite gender theme with respect to Abbott with the noun "man" being frequently applied to him. I note that the word "woman" is not applied to Gillard, which tends make me think that this is not so much overt sexism against Gillard, but a recognition of characteristics that supporters like about Abbott.

The terms used by supporters of Abbott tend to be about values, such as honesty and strength. The carbon tax also plays its part. The negatives are that he lacks policies or vision and is negative.

That it is an intensely personal struggle for the Prime Ministership is apparent in the final Leximancer map which shows that they are both central to the debate, and in a negative sense, with the name of each more likely to be used by their opponents than their friends. Australian politics is in a particularly negative phase.

Note that off to one side there is the "Can we have an alternative please?" faction who interestingly choose Malcolm Turnbull as the alternative. That doesn't mean that Kevin Rudd is neglected. I searched the data and "turnbull" was mentioned 63 times while "rudd" was mentioned 74. However in the "Preferred PM" column it was Turnbull 34 mentions to Rudd 25.

Share this article on your favourite social bookmarking sites:

Add comment

Members Sign In

Polls Blog Archive