More than 40% of Australians agree with Daniel Andrews’ controversial decision to scrap the Commonwealth Games, with his home state most supportive of the move, new polling shows.
While critics bemoaned the decision as “an international embarrassment”, the latest Guardian Essential poll found Australians were less invested, with 41% of those polled agreeing with the Victorian government’s decision, while 36% disagreed and 24% were unsure.
Victorians registered the highest level of support (44%), with Western Australians least likely to be in favour (36%).
Margaret Thatcher said: “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Vics who voted to return Labor would do well to think about that in light of the Commonwealth Games cancellation. $2.6 billion budgeted for a $6b+ event. Go figure. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/32AklnB9Kf
— Michael McCormack (@M_McCormackMP) July 18, 2023
With the Women’s World Cup in full swing, there was also widespread support for equal prize money for the Fifa’s female players. Almost 60% of the 1,150 people polled were in support of men and women receiving the same in winnings. Support was higher with women (67%), compared with men (50%) while 35% of men were against equal prize money and just 18% of women felt the same way.
Outside sport, views on current events were a little more mixed.
The wide-ranging poll shows Anthony Albanese’s approval rating continues to drop – from 54% in May to 48% in July, with those who disapproved with the job he is doing as prime minister increasing from 35% to 41%.
However his approval rating remains more than 10 points ahead of Peter Dutton. The opposition leader’s rating has remained steady in the last two months (36% in May compared with 37% now). Dutton’s disapproval rating has also remained fairly steady from 45% in May to 43% now.
While there was broad support for action and transparency on the use of external consultants for government contracts, when asked to what extent respondents were aware of the “recent news that an external consulting firm has admitted to sharing confidential government information with other clients creating a serious conflict of interest”, just 33% knew what it was about.
Another 27% had heard of it, but did not know what it was about, while 40% had not heard about the issue.
Awareness of the PwC scandal was highest among older people and those living in capital cities but there was no majority support for specific consultant reforms such as bans on external consultants providing government services.
Support for a royal commission into the government’s use of consultants was also mixed, with 24% in strong support, 26% in support and 34% neither in support or opposed. Another 10% strongly opposed a royal commission and 6% opposed.
The Greens have vowed to continue to prosecute allegations against PwC, including using parliamentary process to investigate a Coalition government decision to award $33m to a PwC startup without a competitive process.
Greens senator Barbara Pocock said the party would continue to push for more transparency when it came to the use of external consultants.
“I’m sounding like a broken record here but I’ll say it again, we need accountability and transparency in government, particularly when dealing with private sector suppliers and particularly when dealing with the big four consultants,” she said.
The PwC controversy had not hurt the reputation of accountants more broadly, with the profession ranked only behind doctors (83%) as the most trusted among those listed. Of those polled, 64% trusted accountants, 53% trusted lawyers and just under half (46%) trusted bankers.
Politicians were the least trusted of the professions (28%) narrowly beating journalists (39%) for the lowest rung.
