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Australian Election Study survey conducted after 2019 federal election found Scott Morrison is most popular leader since 2007 - but not as popular as Kevin Rudd in his heigh day

The Australian Election Study (AES) has surveyed voters since 1987. With the exception of 1987 and 2007 the survey has been funded by the Australian Research Council and its predecessors.

AES surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,179 voters after the 2019 Australian federal election to find out what shaped their choices in the election.

The respondents were composed of two groups - those who originally took part in the 2016 Australian Election Study and those who were newly surveyed for the 2019 study.

apo.og.au, Australian Election Study, 6 December 2019, Sarah Cameron, Ian McAllister, 2019 Australian federal election: results from the Australian Election Study, Description, excerpt: 

Highlights: 

Policy issues 

• A majority of voters (66%) cast their ballots based on policy issues. 

• The most important issues in the election identified by voters include management of the economy (24%), health (22%) and environmental issues (21%). 

• Voters preferred the Coalition’s policies on management of the economy, taxation, and immigration. 

• Voters preferred Labor’s policies on education, health, and the environment. 

Leaders

• Scott Morrison is the most popular political leader since Kevin Rudd in 2007, scoring 5.1 on a zero to 10 popularity scale. [Note: In 2007 AES recorded Kevin Rudd as 6.3 on a zero to 10 popularity scale**]

• Bill Shorten is the least popular leader of a major political party since 1990. 

• A majority of voters (74%) disapproved of the way the Liberal Party handled the leadership change in 2018, when Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull. 

Political trust 

• Satisfaction with democracy is at its lowest level (59%) since the constitutional crisis of the 1970s. 

• Trust in government has reached its lowest level on record, with just 25% believing people in government can be trusted. 

• 56% of Australians believe that the government is run for ‘a few big interests’, while just 12% believe the government is run for ‘all the people’.  [my additional notation]

According to AES in 2007 eighty-six per cent of Australians were satisfied with the way democracy was working. However since then democratic satisfaction has fallen by twenty-seven per cent and “there has been a pattern of declining citizen trust in the political system. Trust has not declined significantly since the 2016 election, but nor has it recovered from record low levels”. 

That 2019 record low trust level represented a twenty percent decline after 2007.

In the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years the perception that people in government look after themselves rose from 66% in 2013 to 74% in 2016 and 75% in 2019.

After the 2019 federal election only 1 in 4 Australians believe that people in government can be trusted to do the right thing.

The complete study can be read and downloaded here.

** other leaders besides Kevin Rudd who have gone to an election with an AES popularity score higher than that of Scott Morrison were; Bob Hawke (1987 & 1990), Kim Beazley (1988 & 2001), John Howard (1993,1996, 1998, 2001, 2004) and John Hewson (1993).

A quote that resonates down the years to Australia in 2019

"What is courage? We know it by instinct. We see it. We feel it.
Courage is a firefighter standing before the gates of hell unflinching, unyielding with eyes of steel saying, “Here I stand, I can do no other. 
Courage is neighbour saving neighbour. 
Courage is stranger saving stranger."
[Then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, National Day of Mourning speech, February 2009]