Newspoll: Greens support surges

Support for the Greens surges while Labor retains a slim two party preferred lead.

The latest Newspoll published by The Australian has seen a rise in support for the Greens in the first poll to be released after the 2021 Budget.

The Greens primary vote sits at 12% in the latest poll, an increase of +2 compared with the previous poll released three weeks ago.

The Labor Party has seen a fall in their support to 36% (-2), while the Coalition has gained a point and now sits on 41% after they handed down their budget last week.

One Nation received just 2% (-1) in the poll, while support for Others increased to 9% (+1).

Labor maintains a narrow two-party preferred lead of 51/49 over the Coalition.

Both Scott Morrison (+1) and Anthony Albanese (+3) have suffered a rise in their dissatisfaction ratings. 38% of those polled were dissatisfied with the Prime Minister, while 46% were dissatisfied with the Opposition Leader.

The poll was conducted in the days after the 2021 Budget from a sample of 1514.

Inner City Greens: Exposing the Myth

Conservatives often claim that Greens voters are all from the inner city and that the party’s policies do not appeal to rural and regional voters, but is this actually true?

During a recent bushfire crisis in Australia, Deputy PM and Nationals Leader, Michael McCormack, made a comment about “woke capital city greenies” after being asked a series of questions about climate change on ABC Radio National.

It is becoming increasingly common for conservative politicians and commentators to dismiss progressive voters as inner city elites who are out of touch with those living in rural and regional Australia.

However, the data available from the Australian Electoral Commission tells a very different story.

At the 2019 Federal Election, 472,400 Australians living outside metro areas voted for the Greens in the House of Representatives.

To put that number into context, there are more Greens voters from non-metro areas (472,400) than there are One Nation voters in total from metro and non-metro areas combined (438,587).

While there are around twice as many Greens voters living in metro areas as there are outside metro areas, this is also true for both the Liberal and Labor parties as well, as can be seen below.

Labor: Metro = 3,102,338 | Non-metro = 1,649,822

Liberal: Metro = 2,790,471 | Non-metro = 1,198,933

Greens: Metro = 1,010,523 | Non-metro = 472,400

Note: The “Liberal Party” as defined by the AEC does not include the Queensland Liberal/National Party (Metro: 545,830 | Non-metro: 690,571).

When you consider the fact that one third of all Greens supporters – almost half a million voters – live outside metro areas, it is factually incorrect to say that all of the party’s support comes from the inner city or that their policies do not appeal to rural/regional voters.