Over 50s reckon Budget fair enough, but not great hopes
While the argy-bargy about how fair the Budget is (or isn’t) continues in Canberra, it’s reassuring to share some common-sense from the wisdom of the crowd that is FiftyUp Club members.
More than 3,400 of you answered our snap poll after the Budget and found overall it was both fair and unlikely to change your voting intentions.
But you were equally divided as to whether Mr Hockey’s planned expenditures and savings would actually solve any of the long-term challenges facing the country.
There were four concise multiple-choice questions on the Budget; how fair was it in your assessment, what was its impact on your lives and how likely was it to change both your vote and address Australia’s problems?
The results in summary were:
- Only 1/3 of you say the Budget was unfair on over-50s
- 42% say it had a negative impact on them, and
- Nearly 2/3 say it's not a vote-changer.
We know from previous questionnaires that 48% of you are prepared to identify as coalition voters and 22% as Labor.
Some 70% describe themselves as pensioners and part pensioners – or expect to be in their retirement.
Here are the results in more detail:
Fairness: Almost half (47%) felt it was very or quite fair as opposed to 32% who believed it was very or quite unfair. The neutral measured 21%.
Impact: In terms of personal impact 42% thought it would be severely or slightly negative, 33% were neutral and just 25% a slightly or extremely positive impact.
Voting intention: 63% says the Budget was not at all or very unlikely to see them change their vote. Another 23% said it was quite or very likely to change their vote and 13% were neutral.
Long-term solutions: Split down the middle, with 42% on each side finding it equally likely or unlikely to make a difference. The neutrals were 15%.
It’s interesting many of you were prepared to mark the Budget up as being fair while at the same time acknowledging it was going to cost you something.
Perhaps you were one of the 300,000+ who stood to lose pension entitlements through the tighter eligibility requirements.
It’s taken Labor almost two weeks and detailed analysis they commissioned from NATSEM, the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, to pronounce the Budget as ‘unfair’ for low-income families on Monday.
ACOSS, the Australian Council of Social Service, says their modelling shows the government’s decisions to hold onto most of last year’s cuts as well as bring in new ones this May would cost lower-income families and Australians some $15 billion over the next four years.
So there’s plenty more argument to come about the Budget and who does, or doesn’t, carry the can in terms of the cost of the cuts. The focus has been on families so far but expect it to return to the highly contested area of retirement incomes soon.
In the meantime we’ll make the pollies aware of what you think in surveys like this.
For starters, we’ll be on air this afternoon talking to Chris Smith about the snap poll on 2GB 873 at 1.10pm, so do tune in!
