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?

• 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

• 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%).

Q. Which of the following options is closest to your view on the best way for Australia to recover economically following the Covid-19 pandemic?

• Over three-quarters of people believe that the pandemic has exposed flaws in the economy and there is an opportunity to explore new ways to run the economy (78%) with the remaining 22% thinking that now is not the time to experiment with new ideas, we should return to the way the economy was being run.
• Preference for exploring new ideas was selected by the majority within gender (77% of men, 78% of women), ages (70% of 18-34 year olds, 77% of 35-54 year olds and 85% of those aged over 55), and voting intention.

Q. Which of the following is closest to your view on the best way to create jobs and grow the economy?

• There is a majority preference for the government to directly invest in creating jobs and growing the economy.
• 69% opted for direct investment, while 19% preferred deregulation and lower taxes. 13% were unsure between the two options.
• There was no difference in the support for direct investment between men and women (67% to 70%), but men were more likely to select deregulation (23% to 14%).
• There were no differences in preference between voters of Coalition or Labor, with the majority of each all favouring direct investment (72% of Labor voters, 66% of Coalition voters).

Q. Last Friday the Federal Government announced that, due to an accounting error, the number of people on JobKeeper is around half what the Treasury estimated it to be. The current cost of JobKeeper has consequently been reduced from $130b to $70b.

How do you think this reflects on the government’s credibility?

•  43% of the public do not think the error causing the re-estimation of the JobKeeper cost affects the Government’s credibility, 41% think it reflects Very or Quite poorly.
• Most Coalition voters do not think the issue has affected the credibility of the Government (59%), while the majority of Labor (58%) and Greens (61%) voters think it reflects poorly.

Q. On which of the following would you prefer the Government use the $60B it has previously allocated to the JobKeeper program?

•  A third of people would prefer the JobKeeper budget to be spent on extending the scheme beyond its current end date, with a further 20% preferring the scheme to be broadened to include more workers. 45% want the money to be put towards reducing the national debt.
• Younger people (aged 18-34) are more likely to want the money extending (42%) or broadening the scheme (29%) compared to those over 55 (25% and 16%).
• Over half of Coalition voters (57%) and retired people (58%) prefer using the money to reduce National debt, rather than providing more support for those who have lost work due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Q. Before the 2019 Federal election, the Government promised the 2019-2020 budget would return to surplus. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements about achieving a budget surplus?

• Four in five (79%) agree that it’s more important to spend money on bushfire recovery than fund the surplus; 65% agree that it’s understandable with the coronavirus impacting trade on China that the surplus won’t be achieved; and over half (57%) agree that the government was wrong to announce the budget ‘was back in the black’ before the last election.
• Coalition voters are least likely to agree that the government was wrong to announce the budget ‘was back in the black’ before the last election (44%); while Labor (70%) and Greens (68%) voters are most likely to agree.

Q. Do you think this budget is better or worse than last year’s budget?

45% think this year’s budget is better than last year’s and 15% think it is worse. 31% think it is about the same.

Those most likely to think it is better were Liberal/National voters (65%) and respondents aged 55+ (63%).

Q. In general, do you think the Federal Budget, announced on Tuesday 12^th May 2015 will be good or bad for?

Two thirds (66%) of respondents think the budget will be good for small businesses.

Respondents also thought the budget was more likely to be good for big businesses (34% good/10% bad), the economy overall (30%/22%) and people who are well off (36%/14%).

Compared to last year’s budget, this year’s budget was considered better (or less bad) for all groups except the economy overall where good has dropped from 40% to 30% – and bad has dropped similarly, from 32% to 22%. For all groups, those who say the budget will be neither good nor bad has increased.