Today's Australian Newspoll ranks the issues that voters find important . "Water planning" is nominated by 80% and "The environment" by 69%. When we ask about the environment, respondents don't differentiate between these two, which means for the first time ever, environmental issues are likely to be the most important issue in an Australian election.

When asked to nominate what environmental issues are the most important voters say either water or global warming. Labor voters are more likely to be associated with global warming, and Coalition voters with water, but the two are basically the same issue. Coalition and Labor voters just approach it from different doors, which is clear looking at the Leximancer map . While local issues dealing with iconic species, such as old growth forests, sand-mining or species extinctions used to dominate environmental concerns, the Tasmanian pulp mill is the only issue in that category to break-through this election. Drought and climate change are so potentially catastrophic that they muscle the other issues out of the way.

As with previous surveys on the issue, the economy becomes a dependent of global warming and water, suggesting that the government’s tax pitch will fail to convert votes because voters believe lack of action on the environment has put the economy at risk, so they see little point in arguing about souping it up a little.

Careful semantic analysis of responses reveals another problem for the government. Labor is framing this election as a choice between the past and the future, and the Coalition cannot avoid this frame. It needs to prove that it has plans for the future. So while it will run on its record, it must also run on the future Yet that word "future" is closely associated with these environmental concerns, meaning that any use of future is likely to reinforce concerns about the dominate future issue – the environment.

Not that the environment is an outright win for Labor. While clear majorities of the major parties think that their party is the best to handle the issue, less than 50% of Labor voters say that Labor is best. In fact, almost the same number of Labor voters (46%) nominate the Greens as the best, as nominate Labor as the best (48%). This gives the Coalition some room to maneuver, although it suggests that the more the future and the environment is mentioned, the higher the Greens vote will go in the Senate.

The figures also hide a backlash against the concentration on global warming and drought. A large proportion of Coalition voters who nominate the environment as important do so because, to quote one, "Rudd and the Laqbor (sic) Party have become consumed with global warming fundamentalism. They can't be trusted to be sensible."

To read more detailed analysis click here to download the report . You can also do you own semantic analysis on the issues using Leximancer by clicking on this link.

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