With Saturday 3 May announced as the date for the 2025 Federal election, the Geelong Independent closed its Federal Election Survey to peruse the views of its readership across its publications around the country.
Here’s an overview of what readers of the Independent and Ocean Grove Voice had to say in the lead up to election day.
Independent readers made up the majority of the respondents (84 per cent).
Of the respondents, 61-75 year olds were the most prevalent (46 per cent of the total), with Over 76 (26 per cent), 41-60 year olds (22 per cent), 26-40 year olds (4 per cent) and under the age of 26 (2 per cent).
When asked for their least and most important political issues, local readers had varying and even conflicting opinions:
The top five most common ‘extremely important issues’ were Inflation (Cost of Living), Health Services, Electricity Prices, Immigration and Border Control and National Roads and Rail Infrastructure.
The issues most commonly deemed ‘least important’ were Broadband Internet Access, Water Infrastructure, Climate Change Policies, Influence of Social Media and Immigration and Border Control.
On the topic of energy and the environment, 32 per cent of all readers said they want to prioritise reducing carbon emissions, while the remaining 68 per cent favoured whatever results in the cheapest electricity prices. A small majority of respondents (56 per cent) said they supported nuclear energy in Australia, but when asked if they would support a nuclear plant in their area, 46 per cent said yes.
Respondents most want to see federal funding for local hospitals increase (32 per cent) over local infrastructure projects (24 per cent), defence (12 per cent), local national highways (14 per cent). 18 per cent had ‘other’ areas in mind for federal funding.
66 per cent of respondents wanted to reduce immigration, with 32 per cent wanting to keep it the same and 2 per cent in favour of boosting it.
At the time of taking the survey, the majority (60 per cent) of respondents indicated they were likely to vote for a major party candidate (Labor or Coalition), while 24 per cent indicated they would vote for an Independent candidate and 16 per cent for a minor party.
For the remaining questions, respondents were asked to indicate their thoughts on a few topics on a scale from one to five, with a five being the highest. Respondents were asked how significant social media’s influence is on public discourse and political decision-making in Australia, how important improved national road and transport infrastructure is to them and how concerned they are about global security and housing affordability in their region.
Respondents for social media having a significant impact was a pretty widely shared view with 40 per cent of respondents picking ‘four’ as their answer, 28 per cent selecting ‘five’, 26 per cent selecting ‘three’, 4 per cent choosing ‘two’ and only 2 per cent selecting the lowest option of ‘one’.
Improved national road and transport infrastructure was similarly valued with respondent choices also scaling down from ‘five’; 32 per cent voted ‘five’, 32 per cent for ‘four’, 24 per cent for ‘three’, 10 per cent for ‘two’ and 2 per cent for ‘one’.
34 per cent picked ‘five’ as a representation of their global security concerns, 30 per cent chose ‘four’, 28 per cent selected ‘three’, 6 per cent selected ‘two’ and 2 per cent for ‘one’.
36 per cent of respondents rated their concern for housing affordability in their region as a ‘three’, 24 per cent at ‘five’, 16 per cent at ‘four’ and 12 per cent for both ‘one’ and ‘two’.
