Q. If a Federal Election was held today to which party will you probably give your first preference vote? If not sure, which party are you currently leaning toward?

Q. If don’t know -Well which party are you currently leaning to?

Sample size = 1992 respondents

NB.  The data in the above tables comprise 2-week averages derived from the first preference/leaning to voting questions.  Respondents who select ‘don’t know’ are not included in the results.  The two-party preferred estimate is calculated by distributing the votes of the other parties according to their preferences at the 2010 election. These estimates have a confidence interval of approx. plus or minus 2-3%.

Q. Do you personally experience one or more of the following forms of intolerance?

The vast majority of respondents do not experience intolerance (67%).

Of the forms of intolerance listed, 12% of respondents experience racism, 12% experience ageism and 11% experience sexism.

Smaller portions of respondents experience religious intolerance (6%) and homophobia (4%).

Q. For each of the following forms of intolerance, please indicate to what extent you think it is a problem in Australia:

The vast majority of respondents (71%) regard racism to be either a large or moderate problem in Australia, followed by 65% who believe religious intolerance to be a problem.

Fifty percent (50%) of respondents regard homophobia to be a large or moderate problem in Australia.

After racism, religious intolerance and homophobia, 45% of respondents view sexism as either a large or moderate problem in Australia.  The majority of respondents see it as either a small problem or not a problem at all (53%).

Q. For each of the following forms of intolerance, please indicate to what extent you think it is a problem in Australia:

The table above shows the results from the previous question (‘a large problem’ only) by sub-samples of those that experience one or more of the forms of intolerance and gender.  Only those sub-samples with a sample size of 50 respondents or greater are shown.

Respondents that experience racism were far more likely to regard racism as a large problem (51%).

Those that experience sexism were more likely to see all forms of intolerance as a large problem: racism (42%), sexism (32%), homophobia (38%), religious intolerance (40%) and ageism (20%).

Those that experience religious intolerance were more likely to regard sexism (21%), religious intolerance (48%) and ageism (23%) to be a large problem.

Those had do not experience any form of intolerance were consistently less likely to regard them to be a large problem.

Male respondents were also consistently less likely to regard each form of intolerance to be a large problem, compared with female respondents, save for ageism where an equal portion of male and female respondents (15%) see ageism as a large problem.

Q.  In your view, which party is better at dealing with the various forms of intolerance?

With the exception of sexism, when compared to Labor, the Liberals are consistently regarded by respondents as being the party that is better at dealing with racism (23% Liberal, 17% Labor), homophobia (13% Labor, 17% Liberal), religious intolerance (16% Labor, 22% Liberal) and ageism (16% Labor, 20% Liberal).

On sexism, both the major parties are equally regarded as the party that is better at dealing with it (19% each).

The Greens are regarded as the best party to deal with homophobia (21%).

There were a high portion of don’t knows in this question, with either a majority or close to a majority of respondents selecting this option for each form of intolerance.

Q. Do you think people of the same sex should or should not be allowed to marry? 

There has not been a great deal of movement in the figures since the last time the question was polled on 13 August: with a 1% increase in those in favour of same sex marriage (55%) and a 3% increase in those opposed (36%). This translates to a 4% reduction in the don’t knows: moving from 13% in August to 9% this week.

There has been little movement in the results in the two years since the question was first polled in November 2010.

Q. There have recently been protests around the world and in Australia (some violent) by Muslims against the screening of a film called ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ that negatively portrays the prophet of Islam, Mohammed. In your own view, which of the following statements is closer to your view on the protests?

A majority of respondents believe that the ‘Muslims engaged in the protests are just extremists and not representative of people who believe in Islam’ (55%).

About one third of respondents take the opposite view and believe ‘Muslims are more likely to be extremist in their views’ (29%).  Male respondents are more likely to take this view (35%) compared with females (24%), who are more likely to believe that the ‘Muslims engaged in the protests are just extremists and not representative’ (59% females, 52% males).

Looking at the results by voting intention, Greens voters are far more likely to believe that the ‘Muslims engaged in the protests are just extremists and not representative’ (73%), whereas Coalition voters are more likely to take the view that ‘Muslims are more likely to be extremist in their views’ (35%).

There were no real variations across the states and territories, save that respondents in Queensland were more likely to take the view that ‘Muslims are more likely to be extremist in their views’ (38%).

Q.  From what you have seen and heard lately, how would you rate the treatment of public sector services under the following current and possible future governments?

For the component of the question regarding the treatment of public sector services under the NSW, QLD and VIC state governments there were a large portion of don’t knows (39% or more).

However, amongst those respondents that rated the various state governments, the QLD state government received the worst rating: with 38% of respondents believing the treatment of public sector services under the QLD state government to be either bad or very bad.   Thirty four percent (34%) believe the treatment of public sector services under the NSW state government to be bad or very bad.

At a federal level, 37% of respondents rate the treatment of public sector services under the Gillard government as either very good or good and an equal portion (37%) regard the treatment as either bad or very bad.  Thirty nine percent (39%) of respondents believe that treatment of public sector services under a future federal Abbott Government would be bad or very bad.