POLL: Labor and Greens get the nod from iTWire readers

Stan Beer
Monday, 16 August 2010 13:52

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The old canard lies, damned lies and statistics could well apply to the iTWire online poll as to our readers' voting intentions in the upcoming Federal Election. However, there is no denying that they send a stark message to both the Labor Government and the Coalition Opposition.

To sum things up the 24 hour online poll, which ran until midnight last Friday 13 August, asked:

If the election were held today, which party would get your first preference in the House of Representatives?

The following outlines the results:

Yes there were only 553 respondents, however, it does provide some indication of the political preferences of the iTWire reader base in this particular election.

Assuming that readers were assessing the parties from a technology policy rather than just an idealogical standpoint (and that's a huge assumption) then it would appear that the Abbott Coalition (24.95%) gets a huge thumbs down for its technology policies.

Since we're making assumptions, the Coalition stance against the NBN may well have been the telling factor.

Meanwhile, the party that gets the most support the Gillard ALP (38.52%) gets a ringing endorsement for its policies - or does it? Actually, 61.48% voted against it.

The big surprise was the enormous level of support for the Greens (30.92%). This would tend to indicate a few things from an iTWire perspective:

First, there may have been a protest vote against the ALP because of its pro-filter stance.

Second, there may been a protest vote against the ALP because of its backflips on emissions trading and the mining tax.

Finally, the Greens is genuinely broadening its base nationally and seems to have views that are generally popular with many among the technology aware - pro-NBN, anti-filter, pro-fast train and of course pro-environment.

Whichever way you look at it, a large majority of iTWire readers (most of whom are very technologically aware) do not appear to have a positive view of the Abbott Coalition and a smaller majority don't feel good about the Government either.

There will be another poll on Election eve this coming Friday 20 August.