Newspoll has come a day early, announcing a 55-45 result on a 2PP basis one year after the election of the Rudd Government.
The poll also looks at voters’ concerns about the economy, with a vague question about whether they would be concerned “if the federal budget were to go into deficit as a result of further government spending in the new year”. Not surprisingly, people would tend to be concerned – but does that mean they would be concerned about the government or that they would be concerned about what it meant for economic conditions? In other words, a budget deficit is a sign that there are serious problems, but it is not clear from this question that the government would be blamed.
More discussion at The Poll Bludger.
That’s certainly a leading but meaningless question! I would have been very surprised if the majority answer had not been yes.
I would have been very surprised if the answers were significantly different from, “Would you be concerned if your house was on fire?”