Poll / survey

Each federal election, the AES gathers extensive demographic and attitudinal data from a substantial sample of Australians. That means we have comparable snapshots from each election in recent times, including 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010 and 2007 (though attitudes toward VAD have been asked only since 2016).

First up, given the well-documented strong connection between higher religiosity and less favourable attitudes towards VAD, let’s take a quick look at Australia’s changing religious landscape.

Abandoning religion: from trickle to torrent

Since federation, periodic census data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirms a long-term decline in religious affiliation (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Religious affiliation in Australia by census year (ABS data)
NOTE: Figures are nett of typically 10% non-response

Even this data generally overstates actual religious affiliation, compared with repeated good-quality polls. Census data has pegged religious affiliation typically 4-8% higher than do most polls.

That’s because until the most recent census (2016), collections had primarily or exclusively used a single, massive booklet for household completion. Mr Jones was unlikely to upset Mrs Jones by ticking the “No religion” box when he thinks she’s sure the family is Anglican, and she can see his answers. In contrast, relatives are not looking over the shoulder of an opinion poll respondent, which allows them to be more frank.

Additionally, a formal booklet is more likely to prompt respondents to answer in terms of historical household identity (a lagging indicator), while ad hoc surveys are more likely to prompt answers in terms of recent, pragmatic attitudes and practices (current indicator).

Abandoning religious identity

AES data clearly shows that for major denominations, Australians are leaving institutionalised religion in droves (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Religious affiliation by federal election year (AES data)

Over just 12 years Catholic affiliation has dropped from 28% to 21% (a drop of 26% of its flock); Anglican from 21% to 15% (-29%); and Uniting/Methodist from 8% to 4% (-52%). In total, minor Christian denominations have remained around the same, while non-Christian denominations have experienced a small increase, mostly from immigration.

But by far the most dramatic change over the 12 years is that No Religion has soared from 26% to 41% of the population, an increase of 61%. The largest increase was between 2016 and 2019, most likely a result of Australians’ dismay at the 2017 reports of the royal commission into institutional responses to the sexual abuse of children. It found that most offenses occurred in religious institutions, more than half of them in the Catholic church alone.

Abandoning religious practice

Not only have Australians been abandoning religious identity, but for the most part increasingly abandoning religious practice (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Almost never/never attend religious services (AES data)

At the same time as many Australians have abandoned religious identity, those still identifying with Catholic, Uniting, and non-Christians faiths are attending services less than before.

Overall, service attendance has remained about the same amongst minor Christian denominations, and there has been an increase amongst Anglicans (actually because far more Notionals — people who identify with a denomination but never attend religious services — have “left” the Anglican church).

Indeed, in 2019, fewer than half of Australians (47%) ever attend religious services, just a third (32%) attend more often than once in a blue moon, and a mere 16% are consistent attenders.

Clerics might still be talking, but fewer Australians than ever want to listen.

Abandonment to continue

Australians will continue to abandon religion given that most younger Australians reject religion at the same time that older, more religious Australians pass away (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Religion by age cohort 2019 (AES data)

This picture is even more dire for clerics than it was just three years earlier in 2016 (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Religion by age cohort 2016 (AES data)

Over the next 25 years the Catholic church and minor Christian denominations will struggle, while the Anglican and Uniting churches will almost cease to exist if current trends continue.

An integrated measure of religion

For further analysis, we’ll use the Australian Religious Identity 6-Factor (ARI6) model. It segments on the combined basis of religious attitudes and behaviour across a spectrum from Rejecters to Devouts.

Unsurprisingly over the past decade, Devouts have remained firmly entrenched in their faith (Figure 6), while there has been a small downward trend amongst Regulars.

Figure 6: Australian Religious Identity 6-Factor (ARI6) by year (AES data)

Most of the abandonment of religion in recent years has been amongst Occasionals, those who identify with a religious denomination but rarely attend services. This begs the question as to whether clerics were right to assume that they spoke for many in their flocks in the first place.

Attitudes toward VAD — Overall

Between 2016 and 2019 there was a small but statistically non-significant increase in total support for VAD, while there was no change in total opposition (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Australian adult attitudes toward VAD by year (AES data)

What is readily apparent, though, is a substantial increase in the number of Australians strongly in support of VAD (from 43% to 53%), while total opposition has remained tiny at fewer than one in ten Australians (9%).

Attitudes toward VAD — Religious affiliation

Amongst Australians who still count themselves as religiously affiliated in 2019, a majority of all religions except minor Christian denominations clearly favour VAD (Figure 8), including three quarters (74%) of Catholics, four in five Anglicans (78%) and Uniting/Methodists (81%), and almost all non-Christian religious (96%) and non-religious (92%).

Even amongst the minor Christian denominations with nearly half (49%) in support, just one in five (20%) were opposed to VAD, the rest being neutral.

Figure 8: Attitudes toward VAD by religious affiliation 2019 (AES data)

Strong support amongst Catholics increased massively from 36% in 2016 to 48% (close to half in strong support) in 2019, highlighting the irony of Catholic clergy continuing to actively oppose VAD law reform.

Given the tiny minorities opposed across the religious spectrum, those clerics who continue to vocally oppose the legalisation of VAD — including some employing serious misinformation — in no way are speaking for the majority of their flocks.

Attitudes toward VAD — Religiosity

Unsurprisingly, given the vast body of existing scholarly research evidence, opposition to VAD is largely religious (Figure 9).

Figure 9: Attitudes toward VAD by ARI6 2019 (AES data)

Nearly half of all opposition to VAD (44%) is of Devouts, with an additional quarter (26%) amongst Regulars and Occasionals, and a smaller proportion (17%) from Notionals.

Tellingly, even amongst the most religious, opposition to VAD has dropped significantly in just three years since 2016 (Figure 10). Opposition to VAD amongst Devouts dropped from nearly half (46%) to just over a third (35%), and amongst Regulars from 25% to just 15%.

Figure 10: Attitudes toward VAD by ARI6 2016 (AES data)

For 2019, proportions of the most opposed religious segment, Devouts, are almost evenly split amongst supporters, neutrals and opposers.

Amongst the next most religious, Regulars, supporters outnumber opponents by three to one, and in all the other segments supporters outnumber opponents by more than ten to one.

The evidence is clear: even amongst the most religious Australians, opposition to VAD is melting away.

The lowdown for politicians

What does this mean for legislators, who the community is asking to legalise VAD with responsible safeguards? Figure 11 shows VAD attitudes of Australians by the political party they identify with.

Figure 11: Attitudes toward VAD by political party identity 2019 (AES data)

It’s obvious why VAD Bills have been sponsored by Greens members and/or facilitated by Labor governments.

In contrast, Australian Coalition parliamentary parties (with notable exceptions of a handful of Coalition members) have steadfastly obstructed consideration and passage of VAD Bills. This is not because the party machinery is representing the broader Coalition voter, whose overall support stands at 74% versus a tiny 13% opposed. Rather, it’s because of the (widely reported) takeover of the party machinery by the religious right.

The natural home of VAD opponents is minor right parties, comprising overall a slight majority (53%) opposed to VAD. [Addendum: those identifying with minor right parties comprise just 3.1% of the adult Australian population.]

Given that minor right party voters are most likely to give their major party preference flow to the Coalition, the real concern for Coalition election strategists is to minimise first preferences going to a minor right party in the one or two electorates (if any) in which such a minor party win might even be on the cards.

The lowdown for election candidates

It’s been a firm belief among the political class for a long time that candidates openly supporting VAD would be punished at the polls on election day, with little to no downside for candidates opposed to VAD. That, however, is fake news.

A 2012 Newspoll survey asked voters if, all other things being equal, they would change their vote if their otherwise preferred election candidate’s stance was the opposite of their own (support vs opposition). (Full disclosure: as CEO of YourLastRight.com I commissioned the survey.)

VAD-supporting voters stated they would punish their preferred candidate (opposing VAD) at three times the net rate that VAD-opposing voters would punish a supporting candidate. I’ve subsequently published various other observations that are consistent with this finding.

Now that strong support for VAD amongst the Australian public is significantly higher than it was in 2016 (let alone 2012), it would be foolhardy for any supportive politician to hide their light under a bushel, or for an opposed candidate to effectively thumb their nose at the majority of voters.

I’m reminded of a favourite remark of Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorn) in the 1980s British political comedy series Yes Minister, who would gently point out his Minister’s policy folly (Jim Hacker played by Paul Eddington) with the light remark, “that would be very courageous, Minister!”

It’s now a very courageous candidate indeed who believes their personal opposition to VAD ought to trump the support of the vast majority of their constituency. And, given the ongoing abandonment of religion in Australia, such candidates will soon find themselves on the wrong side of history.

The lowdown for campaigners and voters

Given that most Australians — increasingly including the religious — are in favour of responsible VAD law reform, and with a growing proportion strongly in support, it’s more important than ever to determine election candidates’ real attitudes toward VAD.

Some candidates provide prompt and candid responses to help voters decide. But many candidates obfuscate, either failing to respond at all or responding with non-answers such as they haven’t seen specific legislation yet so cannot answer, or cynically stating only the obvious such as “opinions vary” and it can be “an emotive issue”.

The key action with obfuscators is to get a real answer to the question “could there be any version of a VAD Bill that could enjoy your support?” And assume those who still obfuscate would have said “no”, had they been candid.

 

Keywords: 

Assisted dying (AD) | Australia | Religion | Non-religious | Christian | Anglican/Church of England/Episcopal | Catholic | Analysis | Legislative reform | Poll / survey | Statistics

• Read more about Surging Australian support for VAD includes the religious
• Log in or register to post comments

How ironic it was that the very day after I quoted Keating’s slight against his then-hostile Senate, Keating himself, a conservative Catholic, would come out against voluntary assisted dying (VAD) reform.

Hansard record makes compelling reading

But, more importantly, the Hansard record of votes on the Victorian Bill in the lower house make for compelling reading.

Figure 1 shows Victorian voter support for VAD (from ANU Australian Election Study 2016 data) by political preference, and MP votes in support of the Victorian Bill (lower house, 2017).

Figure 1: Victorian electorate support and MP vote support for VAD (lower house, 2017)
Sources: AES 2016; Hansard

It’s quite obvious that Greens MPs (100% v 91%) , Labor MPs (86% v 84%) and minor/independent MPs (67% v 76%) approximately represented the proportion of voter support. (It’s unsurprising that all Greens MPs vote in favour of VAD Bills: it’s Greens policy; while it’s a ‘conscience’ matter for other parties.)

The yawning Coalition chasm

But the yawning chasm of Coalition MPs not representing their own voters (14% v 73%) is even more stark. That’s a gap of nearly sixty percentage points. Surely that would be enough to raise the eyebrow of any conservative voter?

Aside from a handful of Coalition MPs who voted in support of the VAD Bill, it’s clear that there’s generally no real ‘conscience’ vote across the Coalition benches.

The corridors have been buzzing with stories of threats to Coalition promotions and preselections, and threats to preference deals for the state election next year, though of course there’s nothing public and on the record. Just the serene statement that “our members have a conscience vote.” The discrepancy amongst Australian Coalition ranks has been formally uncovered before in university research.

It’s a national story

However, it’s not like this is confined to Victoria. Here’s the same chart (Figure 2) for all state VAD bills across Australia since 2000 which have had a division on the vote — so we know who voted which way.

Figure 2: Australian electorate support and state MP vote support for VAD (all state Bills since 2000)
Sources: AES 2106; Hansards

Again, the largest and most striking gap between voter desire for reform and MPs opposing their voters’ wishes is amongst the Coalition ranks, at a full sixty percentage points short of proper representation.

It’s a similar picture to that published by university researchers in 2008, who found just 17% Coalition voting support in favour of VAD in the federal parliament, too.

As I’ve explained before, the Party leader’s public statements can be ‘persuasive,’ and Mr Matthew Guy, leader of the Victorian Parliamentary Coalition, has made his entrenched opposition to this reform loud and clear.

Inform your own voting

As debate in Victoria’s upper house commences tomorrow, we’ll be watching who’s in favour and who’s against. And we’ll report the voting record to help inform how you cast your own vote at Victoria’s state election in November next year.

In the meantime, here’s the full record of the Victorian Legislative Assembly votes.

Full voting record – Victorian Legislative Assembly 2017 VAD Bill

Ayes	47		Noes	37
Allan, Jacinta	Labor		Angus, Neil	Liberal
Andrews, Daniel	Labor		Battin, Brad	Liberal
Britnell, Roma	Liberal		Blackwood, Gary	Liberal
Bull, Josh	Labor		Blandthorn, Lizzie	Labor
Carroll, Ben	Labor		Bull, Tim	Nationals
Couzens, Chris	Labor		Burgess, Neale	Liberal
D'Ambrosio, Lily	Labor		Carbines, Anthony	Labor
Dimopoulos, Steve	Labor		Clark, Robert	Liberal
Donnellan, Luke	Labor		Crisp, Peter	Nationals
Edbrooke, Paul	Labor		Dixon, Martin	Liberal
Edwards, Maree	Labor		Fyffe, Christine	Liberal
Eren, John	Labor		Gidley, Michael	Liberal
Foley, Foley	Labor		Guy, Matthew	Liberal
Garrett, Jane	Labor		Hodgett, David	Liberal
Graley, Judith	Labor		Kairouz, Marlene	Labor
Green, Danielle	Labor		Katos, Andrew	Liberal
Halfpenny, Bronwyn	Labor		McCurdy, Tim	Nationals
Hennessy, Jill	Labor		McLeish, Cindy	Liberal
Hibbins, Sam	Greens		Merlino, James	Labor
Howard, Geoff	Labor		Northe, Russell	Ind.
Hutchins, Natalie	Labor		O'Brien, Danny	Nationals
Kealy, Emma	Nationals		O'Brien, Michael	Liberal
Kilkenny, Sonya	Labor		Pesutto, John	Liberal
Knight, Sharon	Labor		Richardson, Tim	Labor
Languiller, Telmo	Labor		Riordan, Richard	Liberal
Lim, Hong	Labor		Ryall, Dee	Liberal
McGuire, Frank	Labor		Ryan, Steph	Nationals
Morris, David	Liberal		Smith, Ryan	LIberal
Nardella, Don	Ind.		Smith, Tim	Liberal
Neville, Lisa	Labor		Southwick, David	Liberal
Noonan, Wade	Labor		Suleyman, Natalie	Labor
Pakula, Martin	Labor		Thompson, Murray	Liberal
Pallas, Tim	Labor		Tilley, Bill	Liberal
Paynter, Brian	Liberal		Wakeling, Nick	Liberal
Pearson, Danny	Labor		Walsh, Peter	Nationals
Perera, Jude	Labor		Watt, Graham	Liberal
Sandell, Ellen	Greens		Wells, Kim	Liberal
Scott, Robin	Labor
Sheed, Suzanna	Ind.
Spence, Ros	Labor
Staikos, Nick	Labor
Staley, Louise	Liberal
Thomas, Mary-Anne	Labor
Thomson, Marsha	Labor
Ward, Vicki	Labor
Williams, Gabrielle	Labor
Wynne, Richard	Labor
TOTAL AYES			TOTAL NOES
Labor	38		Labor	6
Greens	2		Greens	0
Liberal	4		Liberal	24
National	1		National	6
Other	2		Other	1
TOTAL	47		TOTAL	37
Abstained	2
Asher, Louise	Liberal
Victoria, Heidi	Liberal
Did not vote	1
Brooks, Colin	(Speaker, Labor)

Note: The vote represents 87 of 88 seats. The seat of Northcote was vacant owing to the untimely death of its representative, Fiona Richardson, from cancer.

 

Keywords: 

Assisted dying (AD) | Australia | Victoria | Analysis | Legislative reform | Poll / survey | Statistics

• Read more about Coalition the 'unrepresentative swill' on VAD
• Log in or register to post comments