Q. After the election the Coalition Government will not have a majority in the Senate – they will need the support of the minor parties and independents to pass legislation. Do you think this will result in a better or worse Government for Australia?

44% think that better Government will result from the Coalition needing the support of minor parties and independents in the Senate while 30% think it will result in worse Government.

A majority of Labor, Greens and other voters think it will result in better Government while 44% of Liberal/National voters think it will result in worse Government.

Q. The Federal Election will be held next weekend on 7 September  – to which party will you probably give your first preference in the House of Representatives? If not sure, which party are you currently leaning toward?

The table below shows weekly figures through the election campaign.

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.

Q. Since the election was called has your opinion of Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party gone up or down?

16% say their opinion of Kevin Rudd has gone up since the election was called and 40% say it has gone down. Views follow party preferences with 65% of Liberal/national voters saying their opinion of Kevin Rudd had gone down and 33% of Labor voters saying their opinion had gone up. Greens voters opinions were more likely to have gone down.

The following tables show the weekly voting intention since the election was called.

Q. Thinking about the Federal election to be held this year, when do you expect you will make your final decision about who you will vote for?

53% say they have already decided who they will be voting for in the Federal election, 30% will finally make up their mind at some stage before election day and 8% will decide on election day.

Those least likely to have made up their mind were aged 18-24 (33%), Greens voters (36%), other party/independent voters (29%) and respondents with university education (48%).

Q. Thinking about Federal politics and the election, which of the following have you personally done in the last week?

TV was the most common way for respondents to engage with politics over the past week. 56% said they had watched Federal politicians on TV and 48% had watched commentators talking about Federal politics on TV.

Labor voters were more likely to watch politicians (63%) or commentators (54%) on TV and also more likely to use the internet to read about politics (47%).

There were some substantial differences by age group – 30% of respondents aged under 35 read about politics in a newspaper compared to 57% of those aged 55+ and 42% of aged under 35 watched politicians on TV compared to 71% of aged 55+.