Pauline Hanson has emerged as the country\u2019s most trusted leader in a new survey that has found confidence in Australia\u2019s future has plunged to a five-year low. <\/p>\n
The Australia Project 2026 \u2013 a report collated by research firm The Lab \u2013 surveyed 2000 participants from April 1 to 14. <\/p>\n
The fortnight-long survey captured a cost-of-living crunch defined by domestic fuel shortage anxieties \u2013 triggered by the US and Israel\u2019s war in Iran \u2013 and the fallout of back-to-back interest rate rises in February and March. <\/p>\n
79 per cent of Australians believed society was \u201cstacked against ordinary people\u201d – up from 58 per cent last year – while 65 per cent of participants thought they could not get ahead no matter how hard they worked. <\/p>\n
The Lab director Paul Labagnara warned the results of this year\u2019s report \u2013 the firm\u2019s twelfth edition \u2013 were some of the \u201csharpest changes in terms of confidence\u201d he had ever seen. <\/p>\n
50 per cent of Australians were also \u201cexhausted\u201d with politics.<\/p>\n
Mr Labagnara described this as a \u201ccumulative result\u201d of a lack of confidence in the economy, unaffordable housing, a sense of \u201cself-interest\u201d over community and increased polarisation online. <\/p>\n
He noted respondents in a qualitative portion of the study talked about \u201chow we lurch from \u2018catastrophe to catastrophe\u2019\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cAbove all, (the major parties) need to provide clarity \u2026 have a vision for where Australia is heading as a country. This clarity has felt absent from major parties, particularly when it comes to the cost of living crisis,\u201d Mr Labagnara said. <\/p>\n
This disillusionment also played a role in Australians\u2019 wider mistrust in with established systems, Mr Labagnara said, pointing to the finding that 38 per cent of respondents trusted Senator Hanson as a political leader, followed by Anthony Albanese at 33 per cent and Angus Taylor at 20 per cent. <\/p>\n
The One Nation leader\u2019s popularity was most prominent with Australians aged 45 and over, and those living in regional areas. <\/p>\n
However, The Lab chief executive Neale Cotton warned this did not reflect the participants\u2019 desires to vote for One Nation, but that Senator Hanson\u2019s anti-establishment \u201cnarrative\u201d was resonating with every day voters. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe important clarification was that the question was not about who you would vote for, but who you trust,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw that Pauline ranked the highest, above Albanese, and I think the interesting thing is that she\u2019s been around for 30 years, talking about the struggles for ordinary Australians. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow that Australians believe that things are stacked up against them, the consistency of her narrative over time, I think, is one of the reasons that we\u2019re seeing the trust in her. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut these findings are not to say that they\u2019re going to vote for her. That\u2019s a very different question.\u201d <\/p>\n
Riding off the success of the Secret Harbour by-election \u2013 in which One Nation clinched its first WA lower house seat \u2013 the latest Newspoll showed the populist party holding 30 per cent of the primary vote, edging past Labor at 29 per cent and the Coalition trailing behind at 19 per cent.<\/p>\n
But in a three-way contest, Mr Albanese held onto his lead as preferred leader with 46 per cent of support, followed by Senator Hanson on 31 per cent and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor on 23 per cent.<\/p>\n
After preferences were distributed between the Labor and One Nation leaders, Mr Albanese sustained this lead with a margin of 56 per cent to 44 per cent.<\/p>\n
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