Locational and socio-economic variation in public perceptions of economics and the environment

Abstract

Government policies for the use of publicly owned environmental resources in Australia are often justified as being for the ‘economic good’ of the nation. Yet there has been little enquiry about how Australians perceive ‘economic good’ in the context of the use of environmental resources. The residents of five State government electorates of Perth and one in regional south west Western Australia were surveyed. Their perceptions of economics, the environment and resources in relation to public policy were assessed. The differences in the responses were greater between the different electorates, than between the different socio-economic strata within the same electorate. This paper examines the spatial variability of the results and raises the possibility of developing a ‘socio-locational’ indicator of attitudes which could provide a tool for policy implementation.