When we put this poll up a fortnight ago we weren’t expecting the Coalition’s announcement, of sorts, on costings on Nuclear, so while that may be top of mind for you right now, remember this survey was done a week ago. It also didn’t specifically ask about nuclear.
539 New England Times readers and locals from the KORE Panel participated in our survey on the renewable energy transition, 54% women and 45% men, with a good age spread from 16 to 90, and the usual lower response rate that plagues all political polling.
92% identified as living within the New England electorate, 45% said they wanted the National and Liberal Coalition to win Government at the next election, 30% Labor, 13% said they didn’t know and in classic New England style, 12% would like a minority government with Independents holding the balance of power, please.
As is the practice of the KORE Polling method, we always have a lot of open text questions to mimic the kind of extra chatter that would go around the questions if you were polling someone by phone or in person. It helps us understand the meaning behind the response, and identify when the interpretation of the question is different than intended.
In this case, the open ended question asking people what renewable energy meant to people in their own words revealed the discord in the community is largely based on very different conversations being held about the same thing. Compare these responses to see what we mean.
“Cheaper energy, clean energy, safe energy.”
“It’s untrue, unfounded and only to benefit those companies who can make money by this false propaganda.”
“Phasing out coal powered energy in favour of wind and solar.”
“Sustainable future for farming.”
“Destruction of my home, destruction of our prime agricultural land and destruction of my community.”
Absolutely, there is a lot of propaganda in this space, and politicians intentionally amp that division and misinformation up to get votes. But issues never get resolved while the community is quite literally not of one mind on what the issue is.
Quite a number of responses were skeptical, doubtful, or alleging outright conspiracy. But even they ranged from just doubting that 100% renewable power would work, or doubting the timeline, through to protectionist claims of overseas companies destroying our communities, financial greed and corruption being the source of policy proposals from both sides, or the whole thing being a performance to get votes.
“It’s untrue, unfounded and only to benefit those companies who can make money by this false propaganda. The biggest April fools joke on all time!!!”
“Renewable energy is the future we must transition asap and the continuing negative political interference that comes from Lib/NP really makes me mad. This BS about Nuclear being better is just a way of slowing the change so Big coal can stay around longer!”
“I think it is just a political debate to get votes. There is no real plan to address climate change while Australia continues to be a mass exporter of coal. Renewables is a diversion tactic to avoid a real and honest debate. It has also been necessary as we have not been proactive in looking at long term energy supply.”
“In the political landscape renewables are treated as a bargaining tool and not as the solution they could be if given an all out effort.”
So… this makes interpreting the numbers a little challenging, and some of them not useful. Overall, the tone is generally one of ‘we think you’re doing a bad job, but keep going’.
Of the more specific questions we can take on face value regardless of interpretation of the core issue, a slim majority (53%) do want to see Government investment in renewable energy.
Do you support or oppose increased public (Government) investment in renewable energy production?
70.2% are concerned about their household power bill, and believe the federal government has some power to do something about it, and over half (54.7%) already had solar on their roof.
However, when asked if they would support more renewable developments locally if it meant having local power bills, the answer became very murky and support dropped below the half way mark.
Would you support more renewable power generation in your area if it meant you could have lower power bills?
Most of the responses in the ‘other’ were again that wonderful New England scepticism forged by generations of being ripped off by Governments of all persuasions… they would never believe such a promise would actually be delivered. Or alternatively, they didn’t care, it wasn’t worth the damage to their community. Which is interesting, given part of Barnaby’s pitch for communities hosting nuclear is that they would get lower power bills, or no power bills if they could see the plant.
View on the renewable energy zone itself were highly polarised with the ‘strongly support’ and ‘strongly oppose’ both registering 30%. But when asked about specific technology being built near their home, the only one generating more the 50% concerned is wind – and only just, at 51.4%, while only 20.6% are concerned about pumped hydro.
Concern about renewable energy developments being built near where they live
The one part of the survey the New England were truly united on is EVs. Don’t have one (2.3% have an EV), don’t want one (57% would not consider buying one), think owners should pay for them (65% do not believe that charging at public stations should be free), and the comments all indicate New Englanders feel the technology has a long way to go before they’re a viable option around here.
Thank you to all who participated, our next poll will be up tomorrow on New England Times.
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