Dodgy Woolworths Australia Day Boycott Survey Results

A couple of weeks ago, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton called for a boycott of Woolworths supermarkets after they made the call to not stock Australia Day merchandise. Soon after, YouGov conducted a survey to see how Aussies felt about this (I’ll talk about these results soon). But the headlines were pretty much all the same, “Only 20% of Australians back Dutton’s call to boycott Woolworths”. On the YouGov website, they wrote, “YouGov’s public data poll has found that only 20% of Australian voters back opposition leader, Peter Dutton’s call to boycott Woolworths and Big W.” At best, this is a very misleading statement. YouGov should know better. They’re a professional market research and data analytics company after all, which leads me to believe they’re intentionally misleading people here.

Looking at the survey results, they asked recipients to “Please select the statement that most applies to you.” So let’s be clear, they didn’t ask, “Do you support Peter Dutton’s call for a boycott?” The options were, “I support the decision of Woolworths and Big W management (14%)”, “I support Mr Dutton’s call and will be boycotting Woolworths and Big W (20%)”, and, “My main concern with supermarkets now is excessive price rises rather
than this issue (66%)”.

Logically, is it not possible that both this statement and this statement could be true? That is, one could both think that supermarkets are overpriced, but also intend on boycotting Woolworths. It’s just that price rises are more important, and the survey doesn’t allow you to select both. To conclude that “Only 20% of Australians back Dutton’s call to boycott Woolworths” is misleading. They’ve just constructed the survey in such a way to sway the result.

It would be like if I asked people, “Please select the statement that most applies to you”, and the options were, “Australia must transition to net zero as soon as possible (14%)”, “Nuclear power should be considered for Australia’s base load capacity (20%)”, and, “My main concern is high electricity prices (66%)”. And then concluding that, “Only 20% of Australians Support Nuclear Power”. No, the survey was worded in such a way that people were more likely to select the third option during a cost-of-living crisis. The first rule of surveys is that the response options must be mutually exclusive. If you have overlaps like this, then the results will be skewed and should be considered invalid. Anyway, who am I to tell YouGov how to run their polls?

Also, it should be noted that not all the people who stated they will boycott Woolworths actually will. How you answer a poll question, and what you do in real life are two completely different things. Personally, I don’t care if people boycott Woolworths or not. I don’t particularly like what Woolworths have been doing regarding their divisive support for these political and social issues such as the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, or their snub of Australia Day. Personally, I think they should stay the hell out of politics and stick to groceries. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll boycott them, but I certainly will only go to Woolworths as a last resort if I can’t find what I need elsewhere.

YOUGOV POLL RESULTS – WOOLWORTHS BOYCOTT
https://au.yougov.com/politics/articles/48416-only-1-in-5-australians-back-duttons-call-to-boycott-woolworths

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