Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the coming weeks, we will again be conducting Redland's biggest survey, which has been held four years in a row now and probably has the largest collation of electorate-wide data in the country, following a single electorate over time. The response rate now is in excess of 30 per cent of the entire electorate. As we see very high levels of response, we benefit from a longitudinal assessment of how opinions are changing and we are adding in some new questions that are particularly relevant to this year's situation. Obviously, there is economic uncertainty for Australians and there are social issues that were not around three to four years ago. What we will be particularly focusing on in this survey will be issues that are not necessarily federal issues. I have the form here that will be arriving in every letterbox in the next two weeks, it is important to remember that it is Australia Post delivered—so by law it must go into every letterbox—and it is branded with a very clear envelope. So do not throw it out; don't mistake it for the Reader's digest material. This has important stuff inside. It is reply paid.

We use of volunteers to process what is a large amount of data. Most importantly of all, we invite community groups in to be invigilators and to monitor and scrutineer the process. Obviously the big question at the moment will be same-sex marriage. There will be both sides of that debate in the office as we open those forms, so there can be comfort that the process we are applying is absolutely on the straight and narrow. That is important for trust, because those results are always within a few per cent of 50-50 in Redlands. The other areas will be the introduction of a sugar and sweetened beverages tax—always very controversial; legalised euthanasia—one that pops up quite often; and banning the burqa—a common debate but we really do not know just how deeply held some of those views are. And, should there be tougher laws on gangs and bikies—something that Queensland enjoyed under the previous state government; and better marking of Australian produce in supermarkets—always very strongly felt views. The questions here are not about everyone saying yes or no; they are about discriminatory questions that identify people's views when pressed into a difficult choice. An example of that is, would you pay more tax to fix the following problems? No-one likes paying more tax but some problems are big enough to deserve paying more tax.

We are looking at issues such as cheaper child care, better disability access, life-saving medications and child protection. Those are things we feel very strongly about, but we want to know whether people would pay more tax to see that done better, and that is a far harder question than the banal question, 'Would you like to have more and more services without actually having to pay for them? On foreign affairs, the simple question: is the US our best mate—a nice, simply-worded question? Should we be staying in Afghanistan and Iraq? Are we beating ISIS—getting a granular sense of how people feel about our foreign policy exposure at the moment? Is another global financial crisis just around the corner? These are all questions that people may find are quite deeply seated but are often not teased out. I am glad to say in Bowman that will be happening in the next couple of weeks.

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