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Funding Flood Damage

31 Jan 2011

Q. Which of the following do you think is the best way for the Government to pay for the damage caused by the recent floods?

Total Vote Labor Vote Lib/Nat Vote Greens
Introduce a one-off levy 22% 42% 9% 22%
Sell off Medibank Private 2% 1% 4% 2%
Scrap or postpone the NBN (National Broadband Network) 28% 11% 48% 10%
Postpone returning the budget to surplus 24% 26% 23% 27%
Raise taxes on mining company profits 10% 10% 6% 23%
None of them 7% 5% 7% 9%
Don’t know 7% 5% 3% 7%

Overall, there was no clearly preferred means of funding the flood damage. The most supported ways to fund flood damage were to scrap or postpone the NBN (28%), postpone returning the budget to surplus (24%) and introducing a one-off levy (22%). Only 2% favoured selling Medibank Private. Labor voters favoured the levy (42%) and Liberal/National voters favoured scrapping or postponing the NBN (48%).

Greens voters were split between postponing the return to surplus (27%), a tax on mining company profits (23%) and introducing a levy (22%).

Scrapping or postponing the NBN was strongly favoured by those aged 55+ (40%).

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