This is a piece of detailed analysis by JWS Research that uses multiple waves of quantitative data to cumulatively highlight the valuable role that public opinion research can play in assisting difficult budget management decision making by government.
Research and public expenditure
In research, as in life, it’s often all about the framing of the question. Here is something we think is worth contemplation: is it high time to pivot the economic reform policy discussion from ‘whether’ to ‘how’?
Observing Canberra from the balcony of public opinion surveying, it looks to us that there is no shortage of respected voices in the debate calling for a careful examination of government spending to accompany the emerging momentum around economic and productivity reform. What the policy debate seems to be missing though is a targeted focus on how to best navigate the choppy waters of reducing government expenditure.
A more determined focus on the practicalities of fiscal consolidation is surely now a condition of good national stewardship, given Treasury has confirmed the turn from budget surplus to deficit in 2024-25 and the Australian Office of Financial Management will soon confirm we have accumulated over $1 trillion in gross debt.
The ‘how to get it done’ question extends beyond the disposition of the Federal Labor Government and applies equally to the broader Parliament (noting of course the role of the Senate) to get on with approving the efforts of policy makers to tighten the nation’s budget belt in a responsible and calibrated way. It is also a matter for careful consideration by state and territory governments and their respective parliaments too, noting the accumulated debt positions that are starting to weigh heavily in several of our provincial capitals.
This is where community research should play an instrumental role. In plain terms, it is about establishing the overlap between what needs to happen and what the general public will cop.
Research starts with testing, through an integrated qualitative and quantitative approach, awareness and appreciation of the health of the budget, the broader economy, the public appetite for budget savings and the propositions that experts recommend. Throughout the research process, we identify which savings proposals the community is receptive to, both upon initial consideration and then again after exposure to key arguments for and against the savings measure.
We do not necessarily expect an enthusiastic reception, as making big savings in the budget is rarely welcomed with open arms by taxpayers. But we can find where the community is willing to, at least begrudgingly, accept the need for tough budget calls. That may be through an understanding of what is at stake by avoiding the issue and accepting the necessity of the move even if it is through collective gritted teeth.
An important point needs to be made about how the research can be commissioned. While the role of Treasury and the Department of Finance is obvious when it comes to budget management advice and policy design, contributions to this important debate are always made by a wide range of interested parties – industries, think tanks and not for profits, other departments – you name it. The key point is that we all own the fiscal challenge before us and all zones of our economy should at the very least register, to their own satisfaction, the valuable role that community facing opinion research can play. It ensures the budget management task is not only democratic but informed by evidence about the emotions and rationalities that inevitably accompany the complex subject of public expenditure and service delivery.
Research insights fed directly into the policy process from outside interests can be just as persuasive as research commissioned by those responsible for the final decisions. The only prerequisite is credibility. But credible insights of course sit out there in the general population just as much as they do within the realm of policy elites.
At JWS Research, for some time now, we have been calling the overlap of expert recommended policy reform that meets with electoral consent the ‘no excuses zone’. There is no ostensible reason as to why that policy decision should not be taken in the national interest. This principle applies wholeheartedly to the task of responsible fiscal management and budget savings.
The added value of rigorous research is that it will identify key persuasive arguments for policy moves, including countering of anti-budget savings arguments from any number of vested interests. This assists the development of an effective fiscal communications strategy that focusses on the simplest, most persuasive messaging.
Preliminary work by JWS Research has uncovered scope for proper economic reform action, and some striking levels of household concern about our fiscal circumstances. The following data points, gradually pulled out of multiple quantitative research surveys over the past 18 months, should encourage those who are focused on balancing the budget to concentrate on the task with renewed commitment as we look towards 2026 and beyond.
Our September 2025 True Issues research found that 73% of Australians are aware (38% definitely aware) of our federal government budget deficit and gross debt approaching $1 trillion. Of those aware, 79% are concerned about it, 42% either extremely or very concerned.
When then asked if they would back the task of making savings in the budget to address the deficit and reduce interest costs on our national debt, 58% of the community say they would give their support.
Now people who know how to scrutinise public opinion results like this might not unreasonably respond that the question is too abstract. Whilst we would tend to agree, there is more in the data to give greater confidence to those who do want to address our fiscal vulnerabilities. And here we find an especially important data point for policy decision makers in Canberra to clock: that solid majority figure of 58% pushes right up to 72% support – a sharp increase – among those who have definitely heard about our debt and deficit situation.
What this data shows is that the more the state of the budget becomes an increasingly prominent aspect of the national policy and political debate, is the more likely a higher proportion of the electorate is willing to entertain the need for budget savings to deal with the problem.
Furthermore, majority support for spending cuts is still present for lower income households, those without a university qualification, renters and the unemployed. Our topline research suggests therefore that those individuals at the more vulnerable end of the economy are still receptive to the argument of fixing the budget through less public spending. Outright opposition to the idea of budget savings is at a very low seven per cent overall, including eight per cent among ALP voters and 14 per cent for Greens supporters, indicating that the left of the political spectrum is also willing to entertain it.
The September 2025 True Issues research offers another reminder that the virtue of thrift is still alive and well in the Australian population. We deliberately say ‘another reminder’ here because there is a growing body of more historical data that suggests similar conclusions.
If we track back to May 2024, cost of living was burning even more intensely as an issue given the interest rate environment and it pre-dated the delivery of personal income tax cuts. Even then, Australians showed they were worried about government debt and what it is likely to mean for future generations. When asked around the time of the 2024 federal budget if they would prefer surplus money in the budget allocated to cost of living relief or national debt paydown, Australians opted for debt paydown (41%) well ahead of COL relief (27%).
That same research found a majority (55%) believed Government spending was placing pressure on future taxpayers and only one in five had confidence government spending was well targeted and not contributing to inflation.
Later in the year, come August 2024, when presented with the projected cost growth of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a majority of Australians (56%) supported scaling down the NDIS to be restricted only for people with severe and permanent disabilities.
And when asked about the officially forecast cost growth of the Scheme, twice as many people overall said they felt negative as those who were positive. The data also shows this negativity is consistent across almost all demographics.
Then later again in November of 2024, a majority (63%) of Australians indicated they were open to accepting some financial pain to help fund economic reforms that improve our national budget and reduce debt.
At risk of sounding monotonous, at the start of this year in February, twice as many people in the community said they felt government spending and cost of living policies were placing upward pressure on inflation (34%) compared to those who thought policies were putting downward pressure on inflation (15%).
Fast forward to our May 2025 Post Federal Election Survey, where the data illuminates a hunger for a more careful approach to using taxpayer dollars to address policy problems. Notwithstanding the ALP’s sizeable victory, the win has perhaps overshadowed some more nuanced truths about the community’s attitude to various key policy commitments made during the campaign.
The student debt relief policy and the policy for government to guarantee the mortgages for first home buyers are both good examples here. Awareness of the Labor commitment to cut all student HECS & HELP debt balances by 20% was a policy that received high awareness in the community (in significant contrast to many others). But support for this use of taxpayer dollars sat at 52%. In essence, the policy is welcomed by many, but it also has many Australians at best unpersuaded by it or actively bothered by it. Clearly some people out there are asking themselves why taxpayer funds should be wiping out student debt after people have chosen to study past school knowing the deal.
Nonetheless, HECS-debt relief was clearly popular among some key target demographic and voting groups as shown in the chart below. Our caution is that popular pre-election policies that achieve short term political ends may not meet the post-election community standard of addressing the nation’s economic and budget challenges.
The key housing policy of guaranteeing the mortgage of first home buyers is another example worth a look. In our 2025 Federal Post Election Survey, awareness of this policy effort to improve access to a home was a healthy 61%. But support for it is much lower at 43% and outweighed by those either opposed or unmoved by the idea.
The issue we want to bring to light here is not whether these are good are bad policies – indeed we acknowledge the intention appears noble. The issue we want to illuminate is that even popular election promises can have more complex undertones than expected. In almost every instance, policies acclaimed as delivering an election win are nonetheless demographically divisive. Given the sizable amounts of public spending required to deliver them, when sitting against the research cited in this briefing note, it is difficult not to draw the conclusion that a major factor is growing public concern about where cumulative government spending is taking us.
The question is how do we best respond to these concerns? We must appreciate that even what has been presented in this note only constitutes topline analysis of where the Australian community sits on the issue of public expenditure, associated polices and what they are prepared to accept should the nation move far more fulsomely into the task of fiscal response to debt and deficit.
Yet just as the political parties spend considerable time and effort researching how to prevail in a bruising election contest, public policy practitioners between elections ought to apply the same commitment to identifying the overlap between expert recommended reform and receptive public opinion.
Examples include the advice contained in the 2010 Henry Review or the far more recent fiscal warnings from the Parliamentary Budget Office and the International Monetary Fund. When we asked if the re-elected Government should tackle some of the more difficult reforms to grow our economy and balance the federal budget, an overwhelming 81% of the electorate agreed they should. These numbers need to be explored with greater depth, but they are likely to produce further results that can leverage reform action on the state of our budget. At 80%+ headline agreement, there is little excuse not to act in some way, and more reason to act than not.
There is a manifest difference between voting intention and preferred leader polling and thorough, exploratory community research. Furthermore, community research is about far more than just measuring levels of support for ideas. The task is to exhaustively probe awareness and comprehension of an issue. It is to identify which reform options do prompt open minds – or a gateway that whets the appetite of the decision makers but will also require a measure of proportionate courage. But this courage is proportionate and not politically reckless because the budget repair proposition gets backed by empirical evidence on how to tackle the persuasion task. Even more importantly it is about using high quality public opinion research to analyse which policy or budget savings arguments or messages are most adept at moving people from neutral to supportive, or at least from being oppositional to ambivalent (i.e. passing the test of achieving at least begrudging acceptance).
Our September 2025 True Issues research offers a solid starting example of what regression analysis can offer. In the chart below you can see that making the case for budget savings by emphasising the link between too much public spending and interest rates is a good place to start. It prompts high levels of agreement and builds the public audience’s confidence in listening to what you are saying. Driver analysis also isolates the best message to use to (positively) influence support for budget savings. As you can see, the argument that without savings, taxes on income or super will have to rise, is the most effective argument to bring more of the community onboard. The near-term threat is that too much Government spending puts upward pressure on inflation and interest rates.
Opinion research should never exclusively drive policy or indeed the advocacy ask of those outside of government knocking on ministerial doors and seeking a hearing. But it should be arming the policy practitioner to reach for the national interest options that may at first have seemed to be on too high a shelf. The essential ingredient is curiosity. Which is perhaps the most defining characteristic separates the human public service of today with the AI powered public sector which may emerge in the future.
JWS Research firmly believes that if long term, national interest driven, public policy elites are frustrated by the too-often transactional role of polling, focus groups and reactive cost of living populism in our politics today, the best response during this parliamentary term is this one: don’t get mad, get even.
Moreover, a serious deficiency in the public policy process is the all-too-often lack of deliberate and dedicated effort to carefully heed the views of the general community when public policy design is undertaken. And that’s before we even get to the inherently more difficult task of budget repair through cuts and savings. It is wrong to assume ‘consultation’ with key stakeholders constitutes the testing of awareness levels and depth of understanding within the community, let alone their level of support for a savings or policy idea.
Indeed, in the wake of the mid-August Economic Reform Roundtable, when we asked the public who they felt was most important to keep listening to when undertaking reforms, the clear top audience of importance was ordinary Australians themselves. In short, you have got to take the people with you on the policy journey by listening and communicating to them directly.
Professional stakeholders that do contribute written submissions, attend formal consultations and arrange meetings with public policy practitioners are by nature organised and have a vested interest within the debate. The unorganised, non-vested interest is the general community at large. The only way to empirically measure their perspectives is through well structured, rigorous community facing research that uses both credible quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
The real question before Australia today is less whether we must make some hard calls in order to protect future generations from inheriting an unreasonable set of fiscal circumstances, but more how do we actually make the right calls that the community will accept. Carefully commissioned research addresses the ‘how’ question.
The data series outlined in this discussion note hopefully offer some grounded confidence to the nation’s leadership that the public are perhaps more up for the job at hand than many assume. There is an old dictum about the English language that it has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference. Echoing that notion, we believe the data gathered by JWS Research over an extended period of 18 months now identifies a well-defined centre of public opinion on the important question of public expenditure – people do want it reined in. The task we encourage readers of this note to take up with us is to help define the circumference of what is achievable.
Further information
News updates and past releases of True Issues are available to download here or for any questions or assistance with your own research needs please contact us.
