Essential Report

Economy: Direct investment vs trickle-down approach

Oct 6, 2020

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

	Total	Gender		Age Group
	Total	Male	Female	18-34	35-54	55+
The government should directly invest in the economy by creating projects and jobs, and raise the standard of living for the majority of workers	69%	67%	70%	57%	66%	81%
The government should relax regulation and lower taxes for the wealthy to encourage businesses to grow and create jobs	19%	23%	14%	28%	20%	10%
Unsure	13%	9%	16%	15%	14%	9%
Base (n)	1,066	531	535	340	341	385

	Total	Federal Voting Intention
	Total	Labor	Liberal + National	Greens	TOTAL: Other
The government should directly invest in the economy by creating projects and jobs, and raise the standard of living for the majority of workers	69%	72%	66%	77%	75%
The government should relax regulation and lower taxes for the wealthy to encourage businesses to grow and create jobs	19%	17%	22%	19%	17%
Unsure	13%	11%	12%	5%	8%
Base (n)	1,066	332	433	91	111

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).

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