Electors despairing of the Liberal Party

Dear ,

I recently wrote to you about some polling we were about to undertake and invited you to be involved. As I never read the names on the responses, I don't know if you did participate, but I thought you would be interested in the first piece of analysis that I have done in any event.

With the Liberal leadership in play I thought this was the time to release it, otherwise it loses its currency. If you are a Liberal supporter it will make bracing reading.

What follows is a media release that I put out. A more extensive analysis is attached.

Sussan Ley would be the choice of left-wing voters for Opposition Leader, while Andrew Hastie is the choice of right-wing voters. However, in a blow to the members of the current Coalition party room, voters would prefer Turnbull, Abbott or Frydenberg to any of the current aspirants, or anyone else.

The Australian Institute for Progress conducted a virtual focus group of 673 people balanced by voting intention and asked them to vote for their preferred leader of the Opposition. The survey was conducted before Andrew Hastie announced he would not be challenging, so had three candidates – Sussan Ley, Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor.

Respondents were also asked to nominate who their second choice would be if their first did not succeed.

This allowed the AIP to conduct a virtual exhaustive ballot for the positions.

Out of the total sample Andrew Hastie won by 3 votes on the second ballot – statistically a dead heat. This was because Sussan Ley was the choice for 85% of Labor voters and 91% of Greens voters.

However, the vote that counts is those who will vote for the Coalition, or might – predominantly Coalition and One Nation voters. In this cohort Andrew Hastie won on the first ballot with 56% of Coalition first preference votes and 81% of One Nation votes.

Sussan Ley came in last with 15% of Coalition voters and 1% of One Nation voters. Angus Taylor had 29% of Coalition votes and 19% of One Nation.

So Andrew Hastie, the choice of most centre right voters will not be running, with the two actual candidates only drawing minor support.

The research also asked voters to nominate any Australian, whether in parliament or not, who they would like to see as Liberal Leader. This was an open question.

Here, Malcolm Turnbull top scored with 29% of mentions. However, almost all of these came from Greens and Labor voters.

The next two spots were filled by Josh Frydenberg on 19% and Tony Abbott on 14%. Coalition voters preferred Frydenberg to Abbott by 35% to 18%, while One Nation voters preferred Abbott to Frydenberg by 32% to 17%.

Andrew Hastie came in on 4%, behind Jacinta Price on 6% and Matt Canavan, also on 4%.

AIP Executive Director, Graham Young said that the polling should be devastating to the federal Liberal Party.

“The party is contriving to have a leadership ballot where the most popular figure in their parliamentary party will not be a candidate, while the whole contest is overshadowed by the fact that voters would rather have substantial politicians from the past, who are outside the parliament, leading them.”

A full report is attached. It is part of a larger report that is still being compiled which will look at the rise of One Nation, anti-Semitism and immigrant numbers.

Regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE FOR PROGRESS