ACT voters have given the Government a big thumbs down on health and land-use, according to results of a Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll.
This issues show an extremely high level of dissatisfaction. Health stands out as an issue of electoral vulnerability for the Government with more people saying the Liberal Party would handle it better than Labor.
Usually, Labor is seen as the party more likely to deal with health better _ both locally and federally.
Further, when voters were asked unprompted which did they see as the major issues for the next election, 60 per cent mentioned health.
Planning issues, especially dual occupancy, also rated high as an area of dissatisfaction. However, the dissatisfaction over planning does not figure electorally, with a majority saying the Liberal Party would not do any better.
The handling of the ACT TAB rated highest as a source of the dissatisfaction (83 per cent of people who responded on this question). The dissatisfaction comes in the wake of the Vitab affair, but a high percentage of voters (25 per cent) did not know about it, the Government could see it as an issue that is behind it now.
Education, long a major issue in Canberra politics, has dropped back as a source of dissatisfaction. The Government has taken school closures off the agenda. School closures were a significant factor in unpopularity of the Alliance Government in the lead up to the 1992 election. The Government was also forced a year ago to maintain the education budget after the Independents threatened to vote against it.
The health rating comes after reports from patients and medical staff of stretched emergency facilities at Woden Valley Hospital and long waiting times. It comes after Opposition charges that the ACT spends more than the national average per head on health, yet delivers a poorer service.
The planning-infill-dual-occupancy dissatisfaction comes after community groups have waged a long campaign about the way it is being done which has resulted in the Government announcing two inquiries.
Surprisingly, petrol pricing remained a moderately high dissatisfaction level at 65 per cent _ higher than rates but lower than health. Whether this dissatisfaction is an on-going gripe that Canberra’s petrol is higher than Sydney’s or whether it was over the handling of the Burmah Oils affair was not canvassed.
The good news for the Government is that neither petrol nor the TAB rated when people were asked unprompted what they thought the major issues were for the next election. People were asked to nominate up to three issues.
There were four strong issues: health 60; economic management 52; education 41 and planning 39. However, given that education did not rate as highly as the others on the dissatisfaction question, it would be safe to suggest that the Government has this issue under control.
When queried about economic management, respondents nominated rates , lower taxes and creating employment as key matters.
To some extent the Government itself has seen the hot spots of planning and rates. It has announced inquiries into both. They are to report before the election which, under provisions of the Self-Government Act, is fixed as the third Saturday in February every third year.
The Government has done well on parks, gardens and road maintenance. That might sound obvious, but in the first year of self-government parks, notably uncut grass, was a significant issue and under the Alliance Government road conditions were seen as an issue creating dissatisfaction.
Overall, the Government’s performance has dropped significantly in the eyes of the voters since the 1992 election as tested by their dissatisfaction levels on the five majors of health, economy, education, land use and quality of representation. The Opposition’s performance has increased significantly in health and decreased in education and has increased slightly on the quality of representation while falling slightly on the economy. That might be seen as a result of the change in the Liberal leadership where Kate Carnell is seen as a better performer on health than the economy whereas the reverse might be said of the former leader, Trevor Kaine.
The Liberals perhaps still suffer from the school-closure issue of the Alliance Government times.
Over the next two days The Canberra Times will publish more results of the poll, notably voting intentions, performance of individual MLAs and the performance of the ACT’s Federal MP s.