Women’s Support for Republic on Rise

Published on the day that the royals arrive in town, the Fairfax-Nielsen snap poll shows 42 percent of women favour a republic (compared with 51 percent of men). In this poll, both results have shifted upwards from the late 1990s where women’s support was only in the mid 30 percents. The media chose to portray this otherwise saying that support was at a record low. The SMH describes this as a stunning repudiation (WfaAR begs to differ) demonstrating, “the failure of the republican movement to promote an abstract idea of national governance against the barrage of favourable royal coverage and a dominant celebrity culture”. The analysis is fair enough although we note that the Fairfax press was part of the unquestioning adulation of the royal visitors with not a dissenting journalistic voice to be heard. It was a neat Catch-22, were the journalists leading or following? The SMH also says that only 35 percent of poll respondents were in favour of knighthoods and 50 percent against so something doesn’t add up. [“As royals arrive, republic recedes” by Mark Kenny, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 April 2014; Nielsen Poll, 10-12 April, 1400 respondents, +/- 3 percent margin of error]. We consider the only data worth contemplating at present is that from the ABC’s 2013 Vote Compass data with 1.4m responses; snap polls seem to be fairly useless for predicting public support for proposals that require thought and judgement over time.