Soft budget and rate cuts bring swinging voters back to Abbott government

Perth : Swinging voters driven to back Labor by the unfairness of the Abbott government’s first hard-cutting budget have swung back after a “softer and milder” 2015 budget giving them “less to worry about”. Exclusive focus group testing of the nation’s swinging voters commissioned by Fairfax Media shows the 2015 budget was viewed in direct comparison to the 2014 budget and was marked favourably because it contained far less “direct pain”, prompting voters to say the Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey had “learnt their lesson”. It comes as economic conditions for households also align more favourably for the government with the minutes of this month’s Reserve Bank board’s meeting leaving open the possibility of yet another rate cut to follow the one in May.The two factors have driven consumer confidence higher than at any time since November according to the ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence index, which recorded a 3.4 per cent spike since the budget and a cumulative rating of 114.6 – which is above the long-term average of 112.7.The results explain why the government has begun to claw back support in middle-Australia, suggesting it can survive if it maximises the advantages of office between now and the election.Exclusive post-budget qualitative research commissioned by Fairfax Media, and using the identical methodologies approved by the major parties, has found voters expected worse and felt a “sense of relief” when the 2015 budget avoided deep cuts and contained $10 billion in spending for childcare and small business.And it found the measure to provide $20,000 instant asset write-offs for new small business purchases to be “the icon item”.The research was undertaken by the political market researcher Tony Mitchelmore, who also does such market testing for the ALP among other clients.