The latest Roy Morgan fortnightly (I think) face-to-face survey of 1772 voters has the two-party vote steady at 55-45, with the Coalition primary vote remaining at 40.5 per cent and Labor down 0.5 per cent to 47 per cent. There are also supplementary figures on strength of voting intention, which at first look like splendid news for the Coalition – their vote is 34 per cent “strong” and 6.5 per cent “soft”, compared with 30 per cent and 17 per cent for Labor. However, I am slightly dubious about the method here, which involved asking respondents if they felt Australia was “heading in the right direction” and marking their Coalition support as “strong” if they said yes. For what it’s worth, the survey records a sharp rise in expectations of a Labor victory.
the bit where only ~29% thinks the coalition will win is an eye opener
The punters are 2 to 1 against JWH at Sportingbet.
Did someone say Haneef would give Howard a bounce?
The “direction” question is a bit of a beauty: “do you feel that things in Australia are heading in the right direction or would you say things are seriously heading in the wrong direction?†The alternatives are asymmetric and there’s a big gap in the middle – what do you say if you think things are heading in in the wrong direction, but not “seriously”. Also, what’s the reason for the difference between “do you feel” and “would you say”? The question seems so deficient that it surely can’t be much use.
Morgan has a built in proLabor bias, Face to Face adds greater pro labor bias, margin for error is 15% + or -, opinion polls mean nothing, Howard is wonderful and will win by a country mile.
Now that we have got that out of the way, sensible comments anyone?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again if I was asked that question I would have to say Australia is heading in the right direction but it will be a cold day in hell before I’ll give Howard my vote. I just wonder how many of the so called “soft” ALP voters feel the same way.
OK, I’ll bite.
How does face to face add 15% for Labor?
Fulvio, how’s this for a comment.
Now that so many people think JWH is going to lose they’re getting a bit sympathetic towards him so they’re lying to the face to face interviewers by pretending they’re going to vote for him. Morgan face to face therefore now has a 2% pro-coalition bias.
Optimist, it’s hard to convey sarcasm on the net but believe me that was sarcasm at its best.
Gary,
I had a sneaking suspicion.
Its common knowledge that Morgans f2f surveys are mostly conducted in the electorate of Grayndler.
On these solid figures, we might well be seeing a 15 per cent swing towards the coalition from the ’04 election.
If Morgan actually did his job properly, he would diligently show that the coalition is polling well over 100 per cent in most areas.
The simple fact is that any poll is inherently inaccurate, because a poll is only a sample. And of course they can be manipulated to generate the result wanted, which usually accords with the pre-conceived biases of those conducting the poll in the first place. The only way of really determining what the electorate is thinking is a federal election, which is a census. The election is the true determinant of the democratic will of the people, and once it is said and done there is no use in crying over the result, accusing the voters of being ’stupid’ or being ‘duped’, or coming up with ridiculous claims about the winner using ’scare campaigns’ or ‘appealing to fear and racism and xenophobia’ The simple fact is that the election result is the true reflection of the democratic will of the people, and I for one do not accept the proposition that the people are, in general, ’stupid’ or capable of being ‘duped’. We are a great people, and a great nation. So says Cerdic Conan.
Sorry Conan, no dice.
We all know that the changes to electoral legislation is set to disenfranchise potentially hundreds of thousands of citizens. This is almost certainly going to benefit the incumbent.
I suspect there will be many stories of young people being turned away on election day, and for the social cohesion of this nations future, one can only hope the ALP wins to ensure the protests of those unable to vote (mostly Labor) are muffled by the consolation that their prefferred party prevailed.
AS for the whole “soft” voter thesis – getten sie real, Morgan!
Scuse my French but zee party in front will have zee more swinging voters in support, by definition, ne c’est pas?
Zats how elections are won in zees town, mes amis…
In sum: Any election winning party will have so-called ‘soft’ support.
Drivel Cerdic. You comment displays an astonishing ignortance of statistics. A sample is not ‘inherently’ inaccurate. A correctly conducted sample is accurate, within a measurable statistical bound. If you think a sample is inherantly inaccurate, well, lets stop issuing economic statistics, and let’s stop doing medical trials, and lets stop doing television and radio surveys, and lets stop all market research, as all these rely on sampling methods.
Whatever the merits of one poll or another, to call sampling ‘inherently inaccurate’ is just plain and verifiably wrong.
Antony – there’s an old saying: “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
If you think samples are so accurate, why do political opinion polls diverge so sharply?
So says Cerdic Conan.
Antony – read back a bit.
You’ll find it’s not really worth instructing Cerdic on these matters – logic isn’t a driving force if you get my drift.
For every reaction there is a reaction. 2 sides of the same coin I think.
Since voters think the government will lose, I now think the country is headed in the right direction. 😛
By the way, are you the Antony Green who works for the ABC? And used to work for a polling company? If so, it would explain your defensiveness of opinion polling. So says Cerdic Conan.
[Troll Baiting]
Sir Dick, show me a political poll from the last eight months that doesn’t say that the government is going to get the shit kicked out of them come the election.
No divergence there.
[/Troll Baiting]
Optimist, with slogans like that you could join the coalitions campaign team.
The coalition: ‘who needs a fork in the road when logic isnt a driving force?’.
Mind you, Cedric would need to be boned!
# Cerdic Conan Says:
August 3rd, 2007 at 2:13 pm
By the way, are you the Antony Green who works for the ABC? And used to work for a polling company? If so, it would explain your defensiveness of opinion polling. So says Cerdic Conan.
What if he is Cerdic ?
His work speaks for itself.
That would make him would be one of the few who I would trust for a non-biased opinion.
Here, here Anthony!
without the development of modern statistics you would not have:
Genetics
Economics
Basically all of Modern Physics.. ie the list of modern applainces is endless..oh and nuclear of course.
Modern health care..
etc
etc….
OMG Cerdic lol R U dissing Antony Green? He’z genius, unlike u!
I’m beginning to think you guys all inhabit that same fantasy world that Phillip Adams lives in, where he believes Paul Keating is still PM ! If you believed opinion polls, Kim Beazley would have been PM for much of the last decade, with Mark Latham occupying that position over the past three years. If that doesn’t give you pause for thought, perhaps you should go and talk to Jeff Kennett about where putting faith in opinion polls gets you. So says Cerdic Conan.
Haaaha – I think Cerdics “exposure” of the mysterious Antony Green is hil-bloody-arious.
I don’t think Cerdic realises what this site is actually about. Probably more at home on the Australian website, but since they’ve restricted their comments to defend their lame-duck commentators, he’s moved over here.
To summarise, the guy comes to a psephology site to start a dicussion about how meaningless polls are – as Homer Simpson said…”the ironing is delicious.”
Cerdic, please feel free to tell me that the word is irony and that I’m not very bright.
Cerdic or whoever you are: Mate, go and find some crazy right wing/Howard Lovers blog! Or, I’d recommend for you Howard’s official MySpace page, he could do with some friends there to add to the existing grand total of 9.
Antony Green is a Labor Party stooge: LMAO
Speaking of polls, which I’m meant to do here(HA HA), I’ll admit my prediction is wrong, I thought it’d be more like 53-47 because of the Haneef stuff. I’m a terrible psephologist LOL
Optimist – I think your level of ‘brightness’ speaks for itself, and requires no further comment from me. So says Cerdic Conan.
Evan – that’s the way mate! Filter out any views that don’t accord with your own. Good work Comrade! So says Cerdic Conan.
55-45 with Morgans ALP bias its more like 52-48
The election will be a close one by the sounds of things especially when morgan phone polls have 59-41 thus from Morgans point of view the Coalition has made up 4 percent. Thus expect a further strengthening of the Coalition at the next newspoll 53-47…
Delicious I say!
No more name-calling for today, I think.
I’m not sure what’s up with this poll. Before July, it was clearly about 2% more pro-Labor than the other polls, but in the last two fortnights it’s been about level with the main phone polls. The Haneef affair has evidently had a significant negative impact on the right direction/wrong direction number. I don’t think that’s such a good guide as to how people will vote, as you can feel that the country is going in the right direction now, but be worried about the future, or about your own personal economics.
Interesting that at 2.30pm Sportsbet now have the ALP at $1.56 and the Coalition on $2.40. Somebody’s putting some big money on the ALP.
Could people please stop responding to Cerdic etal.
On the Morgan poll, I note that the combined minor party/other vote in Morgan has changed over the last 12 months from 20-25% to 15-20%. One of the features of the last 30-odd years has been the decrease in the major party vote from over 90% to around the 75%. If the major party vote now returns to over 85% it will mark a shift in Australian electoral politics, with significance for the entry and maintenance of new/existing minor party players federally. While it would still be possible to win a Senate seat on 6, 4 or 2% the likelihood of this decreases as the available votes diminishes. Has anyone else noted this trend? Even in the NSW State election the major party (ALP-Lib-Nat) vote was 76% in the LA and 73.35% in the LC.
In July, at one extreme we’ve got Morgan ph, which has Labor 48-36 PV on average. At the other, Galaxy has Labor ahead 45-41 PV average. Morgan F2F and Newspoll both have Labor ahead 47-40 or therabouts.
Sampling is ‘measurable’ innacurate, not inherently inaccurate. All the polls this year have been consistent, with one or two outliers, exactly what you would expect if they are measuring the same voting intention. Like all sampling, the quality and accuracy of your sample has to be traded off against the cost of measurement. In some industries, such as quality assurance in the food industry, the other risk has to be considered, the cost of your sampling technique failing to detect an error.
I can think of one major case where opinion polls were wrong because of sampling error. In 1992, British survey companies continued with their past practice of street interviews and picked the Major government to lose its majority. In a major report released afterwards, they admitted their sampling practice was wrong.
If this year’s polls are wrong, it is more likely to be because the focus of voters minds changed once in the campaign, and related to change in events and issues. If every poll this year is wrong, it is because the way voters view the questions is different once they are in the campiagn.
As Cerdic said, an election is like a census. After every census, anyone using sampling techniques re-assesses their methods based on the population measure produced by the census. The same with opinion polling. All the polling companies will look at the election results, and break apart their surveys, and asses where they think their sampling methods did and did not work.
But we won’t know whether the polls are currently right or wrong until after the election.
Yes, BenC, I think the commentariat are so inured to the 2001/04 comeback that they havent yet picked up on how poorly received Howards “tough on 12 things at once” confusing, scattergun agenda is.
Is it really ‘resurgent political genius’ to be all over the shop like a mad woman’s poo, day after day? Haneef, Ministerial cockups, Devonport Hospitals, gay adoption, state-bashing, IR backdowns, policy reversals – woah there bessy!
Rudd seems sober, focussed and on message by comparison.
You know, like a government ought be.
Stewart J – see my comment above to Evan. So says Cerdic Conan.
Just to flesh that out more: recall 01 (border protection) and 04 (interest rates)
One simple message. Bang bang bang.
Now its like the Rodent has Policy Attention Deficit Disorder.
Antony Green – thank you for your admission: “But we won’t know whether the polls are currently right or wrong until after the election.” EXACTLY the point I am making. There is no guarantee any of these polls are right. Only the election itself will tell us who the Australian people are prepared to trust with the government of our great nation. So says Cerdic Conan.
Cerdic,
As long as governemnt supporters dont take a favourable poll and bang on about it, I am happy with your position.
BenC – happy with that. My view doesn’t change. Whether the polls are in favour of the government or otherwise. So says Cerdic Conan.
Cerdic
your points (1. silencing ‘dissent’; 2. only poll that counts is election) still beg the question as to what you are doing on a blog dedicated to discussing polling, when you think all these polls are useless.
Wasn’t Morgan using the 1992 English election to warn us that this election is not over because of how Major won despite the polls? Morgan didn’t mention the polling companies used a method that proved to be questionable. As Antony tells us “In a major report released afterwards, they admitted their sampling practice was wrong.”
Bungs – it’s a free country, isn’t it? So says Cerdic Conan.
Antony, what do you think of Morgan’s strategy in determining “soft voters”?
First some facts, then some observations.
June ALP 47.3 L/NP 39 Others 13.7 (8 polls~10,000 sample)
July ALP 47.3 L/NP 38.9 Others 13.8 (8 polls~10,000 sample)
First 13 polls conducted since Rudd became ALP leader (Dec/Jan/Feb/early March) ~ 18,000 sample
ALP 46.8 L/NP 37.7 Others 15.5
Last 13 polls conducted (mid-June/July) ~ 17,000 sample
ALP 47.5 L/NP 38.7 Others 13.8
The monthly tallies show there has been little change between June and July.
The first 13 polls vs the last 13 polls comparison shows that both parties have increased their vote; the ALP by 0.7% and the L/NP by 1.0%, both at the expense of the Others.
The votes have polarised and continue to remain firm.