We completed our first focus group on the NSW election last night. You can download the transcript from here. They were all people who indicated that they would vote against their traditional habits in this election, or had yet to make up their mind. There was a mixture of Labor, Liberal and Independents in the group. This is a summary of initial first impressions. I’ll do an article up over the weekend for On Line Opinion.
Voters are pretty disgusted with the choice they are being offered:
“Hobson’s choice…” Tony9
“i think the whole election can be described as bland versus colourless” according to Susan10.
“I was looking forward to the election, hoping to see the end of labor pretending to run the state, however, yet again, the libs have failed to produce a viable alternative.. the greens were an option however knowing their preferences are going to labor… ahhh… nsw is a pit” Julie13
A few of my impressions appear to be confirmed. First, there is a lot of sympathy and support for John Brogden, who could have made a real impact on Labor.
“to me it seems the same old spin and rhetoric we get every election. Debnam has failed to gel with the public and the ghost of John Brogdan hangsover him.” robingail
“agree with Ian about right wing of libs. I would have voted for Brogden” Ann11
“I would have too (voted for Brogden) *” Ian5
There is a protest vote (Debnam has that much right), but it appears to be going against both major parties, and to Greens and Independents (but because there aren’t enough of them in winnable seats this won’t have much impact on the actual election result).
“That wouldn’t send labor the right message and we could get caught. I’d rather vote independent” Ann11
“I think people are going to be voting green to send a message, not libs – which, with preferences will mean labor gets in again” Julie13
“not way in hell … a pox on both their houses” robingail
“haha rotate” Susan10
“the message would be via an independent/green party” Helen2
One area where I might have over-stated the case is the federal government. IR is certainly an issue, but voters appears to be quite able to distinguish between levels of government when voting.
This group also seemed disinclined to buy Iemma’s criticism of Debnam that he would cut 20,000 public service jobs and hand over industrial relations to Canberra.
But while they agree with Debnam that the greatest risk this election is “that nothing changes”, they don’t see him as the solution to it. Dispiriting times to be a voter.