Voters fed up with pollies

By using the power to vote carefully, we will hopefully end up with a better class of politician.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison during Question Time.

EVERYONE loves to verbally bash politicians — it’s almost a national sport.

A YouGov Galaxy poll conducted for News Corporation papers reveals an underlying distrust in our leaders in Canberra by close to a third of the population.

SMUG VS DODGY: WHAT VOTERS THINK OF AUSSIE LEADERS

Both main contenders in the soon-to-be-called Federal Election are seen by a significant proportion of the population as untrustworthy, smug and arrogant.

It’s easy to see why. How can we help but feel cynical about the quality of political leadership in Australia when there have been five prime ministers in nine years.

Add to this private helicopter travel rides, au pair visa scandals, dodgy discussions with potential overseas political donors and extra marital relationships and it’s easy to see why many voters are simply fed up.

The poll shows that unstable leadership has been political poison for the Coalition with every age bracket from 18 to 64 more likely to vote for the ALP than the Coalition.

The Coalition is facing a wipe-out. Labor leads 53-47 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, according to the poll of 2224 Australians across the country from March 25 to 28. This points to the Government losing as many as 15 seats.

The poll was conducted before this week’s Federal Budget and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s reply.

The headline feature of both fiscal plans was sizeable tax cuts — about $1000 for most taxpayers from the Coalition, matched by Labor and extended to lower-income brackets.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced big infrastructure packages while Labor’s focus was on health and education.

A key initiative announced by Mr Shorten was $2.3 billion for cancer care to all but eliminate out-of-pocket costs for cancer scans, fund three million cancer specialist consultations over four years and allow for more listings of cancer drugs on the PBS.

He also committed to removing the cap on university places — opening up another 200,000 spots and a $1 billion TAFE package to encourage more apprenticeships.

These are likely to be popular moves but voters are unconvinced by other policies.

The poll reveals a whopping 74 per cent of all voters don’t back Labor’s plan to axe tax refunds for franking credits and 65 per cent do not support the party’s negative gearing changes.

So where does this leave us? It’s not healthy for democracy to have such a large section of the community disengaged and unhappy with our current leaders. But rather than walk away, it’s now up to the voters to carefully consider the policies put forward by our political parties and look beyond the spin and hyperbole. By using the power to vote carefully, we will hopefully end up with a better class of politician.