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Federal budget expectations

6 Oct 2020

Q. The Federal Budget will be announced on Tuesday 6th October.

In general, do you expect the Federal Budget will be good or bad for the following?

  Oct’20 Mar’19
  NET: Very Good / Good Neither good, nor bad NET: Very bad / Bad Don’t know NET: Very Good / Good Neither good, nor bad NET: Very bad / Bad Don’t know
Big business 53% 26% 12% 9% – – – –
People who are well off 51% 30% 10% 8% 58% 23% 9% 10%
Small business 44% 26% 23% 7% – – – –
The economy overall 34% 27% 32% 7% 35% 33% 24% 9%
Australian families 33% 31% 29% 7% 27% 32% 33% 9%
Older Australians 31% 28% 34% 7% 25% 28% 38% 9%
Average working people 30% 29% 34% 6% 31% 30% 30% 9%
People on lower incomes 30% 23% 40% 6% 26% 32% 31% 10%
Younger Australians 29% 31% 33% 8% 24% 25% 42% 10%
You personally 25% 36% 31% 8% 19% 37% 34% 9%
  • Budget expectations are in line with March 2019, showing people are not expecting drastically different announcements this week.
  • Over half of people think big business (53%), and those who are well-off (51%) to benefit from the budget, while the losers are expected to be those on a lower income (40% expect these to have a bad/very bad budget), older Australians (34%) and younger Australians (33%).
  • More people expect the budget announcement to be bad for them than good. A quarter of people think the budget will benefit them personally (25% think the budget will be good/very good), which is less than those expecting it to be bad/very bad for them (31%).

By voting preference

NET:

Very good / Good

 Total Vote Labor Vote Liberal / National Vote Greens NET: Vote Other
Big business 53% 62% 47% 68% 58%
People who are well off 51% 62% 41% 67% 56%
Small business 44% 41% 55% 36% 33%
The economy overall 34% 31% 43% 31% 26%
Australian families 33% 30% 43% 28% 23%
Older Australians 31% 27% 39% 34% 23%
Average working people 30% 25% 43% 19% 23%
People on lower incomes 30% 27% 40% 24% 17%
Younger Australians 29% 25% 37% 24% 27%
You personally 25% 22% 32% 27% 18%
  • Labor and Greens voters are more likely than Coalition voters to expect a favourable budget for Big businesses (62% and 68% of Labor and Greens voters respectively, to 47% of Coalition) and for those well-off (62% and 67% to 41%.
  • For all other groups, Coalition voters are more likely to expect a good budget than Labor or Greens.
  • 32% of Coalition voters think they will have a good budget. This was higher than Labor (22%), Greens (27%) or those voting for another independent/minor party (18%).
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