A majority of voters, including a majority of women and Labor voters, support limiting women’s access to the government’s paid parental leave scheme if they have access to an employer scheme, according to the latest Essential poll.
The poll of 1,008 voters, released on Tuesday, found 55% agreed that women who could access employer-sponsored schemes should lose all or part of their taxpayer-funded paid parental leave (PPL). A further 32% disapproved and 13% did not know.
Even 52% of Labor voters supported the government’s policy, compared with 66% of Coalition voters and 33% of Greens. Majorities of both men (55%) and women (52%) also approved.
The respondents were told working women currently received taxpayer-funded PPL of $641 a week (the minimum wage) for up to 18 weeks.
The government has proposed changes to prevent parents with employer schemes from accessing both, or to limit government payments to a top-up of the employer’s scheme to the value of 18 weeks’ pay at the minimum wage.
The Coalition proposal would reduce the government-funded benefit for 76,000 mothers and wipe it out completely for 3,200 from 1 January.
The government’s PPL bill to stop so-called “double-dipping” has run into trouble. Although Nick Xenophon had indicated his party might support it if the start date were moved from 1 January to 1 October, a commitment given by senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore before the election has seen them rule it out or seek further modification.
Asked to rate the US presidential candidates against a number of attributes, a large majority of respondents said that Donald Trump was arrogant (85%), aggressive (83%), erratic (78%), narrow-minded (75%) and superficial (71%).
Hillary Clinton’s most common characteristics were that she is intelligent (74%), hard-working (71%), a capable leader (60%), that she understands the problems facing America (57%), and is good in a crisis (54%).
The poll found Labor ahead of the Coalition in two-party preferred terms, 52% to 48%. One Nation had 6% of the primary vote, steady with polls last week and four weeks ago.
It found 49% of voters approved of Malcolm Turnbull replacing Tony Abbott as leader, down from 58% in September 2015 but still much higher than the 29% who disapproved.
A majority of Labor, Coalition and Greens voters approved of the switch, but just 29% of “other” voters did, compared with 45% who disapproved. The result suggests Tony Abbott enjoys residual support amongst independents or minor party voters including the Nick Xenophon Team or One Nation.
Respondents were very supportive of tough gun laws, with 45% who thought Australia’s laws were right, 44% who thought they were not strong enough and just 6% who said they were too strong.
A plurality of people (44%) supported phasing out live exports compared with 29% who opposed it.
But 50% accepted live export of sheep and cattle “to countries which guarantee they will be treated humanely”, compared with 30% who said they could not support it at all and 9% who said we should export live animals to “any country that wants them”.
