Victoria election 2014: Most Victorians want jumps racing banned, Vote Compass reveals

Updated

As the deaths of two horses in the Melbourne Cup cast a spotlight on animal welfare in the racing industry, it has emerged a clear majority of Victorians support a ban on jumps racing.

Fifty-five per cent of people responding to the ABC's online election survey Vote Compass said they either agreed or strongly agreed with banning the sport.

Only 20 per cent of the 15,000 people surveyed opposed a ban.

The survey results were compiled on Monday before Admire Rakti and Araldo died after the running of Tuesday's Melbourne Cup.

The Vote Compass figures reveal a jumps racing ban has support across the political spectrum, despite the Coalition strongly opposing any ban.

The figures revealed 45 per cent of people identifying as Coalition voters in the survey want to stop jumps racing.

Among people who intend to vote Labor there was clear support for a ban, with 63 per cent supporting a ban compared to 14 per cent opposed. The party has previously said the future of jumps racing should rest with Racing Victoria.

Among Green voters, 67 per cent of people supported a ban compared to just 6 per cent opposed. The Greens Party wants jumps racing banned.

There was also a clear gender divide in the results with 63 per cent of women supporting a jumps racing ban compared to 47 per cent of men.

FAQ

What is this?

The ABC launched Vote Compass Victoria on Sunday November 2, in the lead-up to the state election.

It is a tool that allows voters to see how their views compare to the parties' policies.

The data has been weighted across a range of demographic factors using the latest population estimates to be a true representation of opinion at the time of the field.

These findings are based on 14,689 respondents to Vote Compass from November 2 to November 3, 2014.

Vote Compass is not a random sample. Why are the results being represented as though it is a poll?

Vote Compass is not a poll. It is primarily and fundamentally an educational tool intended to promote electoral literacy and stimulate public engagement in the policy aspect of election campaigns.

That said, respondents' views as expressed through Vote Compass can add a meaningful dimension to our understanding of public attitudes and an innovative new medium for self-expression. Ensuring that the public has a decipherable voice in the affairs of government is a critical function of a robust democracy.

Online surveys are inherently prone to selection bias but statisticians have long been able to correct for this (given the availability of certain variables) by drawing on population estimates such as Census micro-data.

We apply sophisticated weighting techniques to the data to control for the selection effects of the sample, thus enabling us to make statistical inferences about the Australian population with a high degree of confidence.

How can you stop people from trying to game the system?

There are multiple safeguards in place to ensure the authenticity of each record in the dataset.

Vote Compass does not make its protocols in this regard public so as not to aid those that might attempt to exploit the system, but among standard safeguards such as IP address logging and cookie tracking, it also uses time codes and a series of other measures to prevent users from gaming the system.

Topics: elections, state-parliament, melbourne-3000, vic

First posted