PNG solution cutting against Rudd

On Thursday 19 when it was announced the PNG solution took the commentariat’s breath away. By Monday and Tuesday 22 and 23 of July, our survey panel was viewing it as problematic.

An analysis of the figures suggests it won’t help Rudd and may indeed harm him by keeping people smuggling on the agenda through to the election, whenever it is held, and guaranteeing he gets the blame for existing and future failures of policy.

Despite the policy appealing to twenty-four percent of Liberal respondents our panel of 1,191, balanced by voting intention, was almost evenly split on whether or not they supported the policy. Forty-one percent supported it, and forty-two percent opposed it.

That is because of substantial opposition from Greens, Liberals and other minor party voters.

What is more, even many of those who support the policy don’t think it will work, while many of those who don’t, do. The table below shows the splits on whether respondents think it will work or not.

That means that while 70% of Labor voters support it, only 63% think it will work. For Liberals those figures are 24% and 6% and for other minor parties 33% and 16%. For Greens it runs in the other direction. Only 14% of them support it, but 22% expect it to work.

Putting the Greens to one side the gap between support and effectiveness is what one might call the Rudd credibility gap. As the qualitative responses, which I’ll get to shortly, show, Rudd may be honoured by many voters for the conception of policies, but he is damned in the delivery of them by those same voters. This is an issue that goes to trust and to competence and reflects a belief that the policy is about winning an election, not about stemming the boats.

This shows itself in the fact that the policy is a net vote loser for Labor. Given that both the major parties are a long way short of 50% of the vote the next election is about preferences. So, while Liberal voters are more turned-off by the policy than Labor voters are turned-on, the real electoral pain comes from the fact that Greens voters are a net 50% less likely to vote Labor and the other minor parties net 26%.

Reasons for supporting the initiative and thinking it will work run pretty much along the lines of the general debate. It’s seen as a deterrent, and fairer to the world-wide population of refugees, most of whom can’t afford to be sea-borne asylum seekers.

Interestingly, while almost every politician unfailingly invokes deaths at sea as a reason for being tough on refugees, this is only directly mentioned by 1.9% of respondents, just slightly more than those who raised the issue that many asylum seekers are “Muslim”.

For those who oppose the initiative the major reasons are concern that it hasn’t been “thought through”, which often accompanies concern that PNG won’t be able to cope. The issue of cost is also prominent, as is the belief that this is just an election promise.

This also is reflected in responses to the question of whether it will work. A key part of their reservations on this question revolve around PNG being the country taking the asylum seekers.

Concern that we might be dumping our problem on the neighbour least able to deal with it jostles with the fear that they won’t be able to cope with anything like the numbers so that the solution will implode.

Practicalities are also raised. Many respondents say that women and children can’t be sent to Manus Island, so the policy fails at the first hurdle because it can’t mean that every genuine asylum seeker will be resettled in PNG. This leads one respondent to even claim that this will probably lead the courts to invalidate the solution because it will lead to families being split.

All of which is diabolical for Rudd. In pure cold political terms he needed to come up with a solution to the problem, but everyone knows that, meaning that any solution he comes up with is viewed cynically. Further it is tainted by past performance.

Unless he completely copies the Liberal Party platform, which he can’t because he has ruled out towing back the boats, then any time a boat turns up, he will get the blame, even if his solution has made the numbers fewer than they would otherwise have been.

Seeing his weakness people smugglers are more likely to send even more boats. The prospect of a potential Abbott win will actually embolden them to do more sooner in case business gets harder after the election.

And every time a fresh boat turns up, or sinks, it is another day that Labor will lose control over the issues, and have to deal yet again with an issue that our research shows inclines voters, particularly minor party voters, against them.

I’ve copied a few of the verbatims below. I’ve also uploaded two Leximancer dashboard reports that I thought you might find interesting. They are Do you support PNG solution? and Will PNG solution work?

It is a mere election ploy - indeed, number 3 election ploy on this subject. So many people seem to believe Rudd despite him being so obvious.

Neither PNG or Rudd have the capacity to bed this down properly. The cost will be astronomical and the boats will keep coming.

There is no quick fix or any easy answer to this one but I'm certain that you don't solve serious problems, especially of this magnitude, by hiving it off to another country - especially PNG, one of the poorest countries in the region and one beset by massive social and economic problems of its own.

In the first place, it's not been passed in parliament yet, and I expect it to be opposed by both the Greens and the Coalition. Secondly, no policy announced and implemented by Labor in recent years has been without problems, caused by failure to fully develop programmes before announcing them.

Same as above, too costly, PNG hasn't the infrastructure or social structure, and it will be a new people-smuggling jump-off point to Qld. Plus, they won't send women/children to PNG, or people with health problems, so we will have to support them here.

Don't believe that the PNG Christian culture will be able to assimilate other cultures into their society without there being massive further problems occurring. How will they afford all these new immigrants?