Surveys

So a crack commando unit of researchers from the University of Western Australia has found that people who place Australian flags on their cars are more likely to express racist attitudes than people who don’t.

The team of researchers discovered this through a comprehensive census of a vast crowd of 102 car-flag-bearing Austrayans havin’ a rip-roarin’ Oz Day barbie in Perth last year. It’s an incredibly groundbreaking and revealing set of data.

Except for the fact it’s a load of codswallop. And we’ve beaten them to the punch, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Continue reading "Flying the flag for lazy gotcha polling" »

News.com.au has today published the results of its exclusive Cost of Living survey, and the results are a major eye-opener. The take home message is this: a huge number of us say we’re struggling.

Reading the survey, which was taken by 30,000 Australians, you wouldn’t know that we’re one of the world’s 10 wealthiest nations in raw GDP per capita terms. Neither would you think we managed to surf out the worst of the global financial crisis. Or crises. Or whatever.

The national breakdown is as follows. Forty-eight per cent of us say we are “managing to get by”, 28 per cent of place ourselves on “Struggle St”, 17 per cent are “barely coping” while 7 per cent of us are on “Easy St”.

Continue reading "The long road that leads away from Struggle Street" »

The worst place in the entire universe is any of the smoking rooms at the otherwise spotless new Hong Kong airport. In these tiny glass cells, dozens of travellers squeeze in for a desperate last puff before they fly out. If you’re foolish enough to step inside, you emerge instantly reeking of ashtray. Bleah.

As these loathsome smoky dens are to Hong Kong airport, so is the airport to the wider world. Airports themselves are captive hell holes, where we can no more escape the check-in queues, the over-inflated prices and the smug frequent flyers heading off to their poncy “lounges” than a smoker in the Hong Kong cubicle can escape the smoke cloud.

And Australian airports are among the worst, as a “leaked” survey yesterday confirmed. Leaked schmeaked. Like that was some kind of secret. Anyone could have told you our airports are shocking. All airports are shocking, even the supposedly good ones. Quite rightly, we hate airports… but not as much as we secretly love them.

Continue reading "Our secret shame: We actually love airports" »

With the election only months away, will Julia Gillard’s elevation into leadership be enough to consolidate Labor’s electoral support and help them secure a second term?

Speaking to voters in Sydney today just over an hour after Gillard was elected Labor leader unopposed in Canberra, almost everyone knew about it and had a view on her impact on the national political landscape, though many reserved judgment on how it would affect their vote.

But broadly the people The Punch spoke to saw Gillard’s leadership a change to be excited about, and a great step forward for Australia in terms of gender equality.

Continue reading "Gillard as leader: will she make voters look twice?" »

The Punch first did a survey asking people what they thought of the Prime Minister last October when Kevin Rudd had approval ratings sometimes over 70 per cent. We wanted to get to the bottom of his popularity.

The conclusion was that Kevin Rudd was a bit like a budget airline in that everyone had a little complaint or two, but there was a broad tick of approval. Not anymore.

After asking 100 Australians for their views on the PM, there are three strong and distinct lines of concern from voters. There is disappointment and anger, including among Labor supporters, at the botching of the insulation scheme, poor oversight of the school building program, and the shelving of the emissions trading scheme.

Continue reading "The trouble with Brand Kevin" »

As Kevin Rudd’s approval ratings slide in the polls many Australians are growing disillusioned with the Prime Minister and sceptical about his promises.

In a survey The Punch conducted in Sydney city last week testing public opinion of Kevin Rudd, many respondents dismissed him as “a typical politician.”

Respondents were asked to describe the Prime Minister in three words. Some of the descriptions offered have long been used to characterise him: “bland”, “boring”, and “intelligent”.

Continue reading "Voters feeling let down by Kevin 07’s great promise" »

It was refreshing to hear something new in the public debate on climate change today. Liberal frontbencher Chris Pyne told Sky News: “If a modern political party wants to be taken seriously it cannot be a climate change sceptic party”.

Is there any issue which draws more predictable responses from people than climate change? The mere mention of it sparks a round of boring twaddle as folks argue from fixed positions over whether the latest news shows climate change is caused by people or even real - or, most hilariously, a massive conspiracy cooked up by an evil network of thousands of scientists with a twisted sense of humour.

But there’s one thing surely everyone agrees on. If sea levels rise and rain stops falling, we are all totally and utterly screwed. So we should probably deal with it.

Continue reading "People haven’t stopped caring about climate change" »

Another highly instructive sex survey has been released out of Britain.

According to a world-wide survey of 15,000 women, Germans are the worst lovers with Englishman, Swedes, Dutch and Americans rounding off the worst five. Spanish, Brazilians, Italians and French were rated the best in bed, with Australians rated the seventh best.

By my reckoning to have participated in this survey a woman would have had to have slept with at least one man from every country assessed.

Continue reading "How much sex can these women possibly be having?" »

Don’t worry if you don’t understand what the ETS is supposed to do or what the letters even stand for. You’re not alone.

Peter had no idea what the letters E, T and S stood for when we asked him, but did manage his own summary of the policy:  ‘It’s gonna cost extra. You don’t get anything for free. Soon they will be taxing the air that we breathe.” Well they kinda are actually Pete, at least what we put into it.

With all the debate about Climate Change and the focus very much on the ETS, here at The Punch we decided it would be a good idea to go out and see what people actually knew about it.

Continue reading "Punch survey: 15% of us know what the ETS is" »