Yesterday’s Queensland marginal seat polling from Roy Morgan turns out to have been a teaser for today’s full suite, which also targets four seats each from New South Wales and Western Australia as well as one each from Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. With samples of 200 each, the electorate-level results are of little utility, but where results from four seats are available from a particular state we can combine them to get a meaningful picture from a margin-of-error of about 3.5 per cent. The swing of 4.8 per cent to the Liberal National Party in Queensland has not been borne out elsewhere: the four New South Wales seats collectively show a 1.0 per cent swing to Labor, while Western Australia produces an essentially status quo result with a 0.2 per cent swing to the Liberals. The single-seat polling for the other three states is less useful, but for what it’s worth the result from Hindmarsh in South Australia sits well with this morning’s Advertiser poll. Taken in their entirety, the results point to no swing at all from 2007.
| ALP 2PP | |||
| 2007 | POLL | SWING | |
| Macarthur | 50.1 | 38.5 | -11.6 |
| Robertson | 50.1 | 48.5 | -1.6 |
| Eden-Monaro | 52.3 | 59 | 6.7 |
| Macquarie | 50.1 | 60.5 | 10.4 |
| NSW SEATS | 1.0 | ||
| Hasluck | 51 | 50 | -1.0 |
| Brand | 56.1 | 54.5 | -1.6 |
| Perth | 58.1 | 57 | -1.1 |
| Fremantle | 59.15 | 62 | 2.9 |
| WA SEATS | -0.2 | ||
| Flynn | 52.3 | 45 | -7.3 |
| Longman | 51.7 | 43.5 | -8.2 |
| Dawson | 52.4 | 49 | -3.4 |
| Leichhardt | 54.1 | 54 | -0.1 |
| QLD SEATS | -4.8 | ||
| Corangamite (Vic) | 50.85 | 55.5 | 4.7 |
| Hindmarsh (SA) | 55.05 | 56.5 | 1.5 |
| Bass (Tas) | 51 | 62.5 | 11.5 |
| ALL SEATS | 0.1 | ||
morewest @ 132, Old Tom @ 151, scorpio @ 160 and Gusface @ 166
A minor correction – it is the Abrams main battle tank, not Abrahams, named for General Creighton Abrams, Vietnam War era General and US Army Chief of Staff.
The tank itself has been around for 30 years, although the US military has significantly upgraded their versions over the years with state of the art (and highly secret) ‘depleted uranium’ armour and sophisticated electronic upgrades and armament.
Australia has purchased 59 of the M1A1 versions and, I thought, the heavy equipment transporters required to shift them around, although I don’t know whether this part of the contract has yet been fulfilled.
At the moment, according to Janes DW, there is the capabilty of 16 seperate units to reach our neighbours
these assets range from subs,aircraft,ships and silos
NB none of these assets is australian but is part fo the USA shield
David Flanagan from Atlas whinging on Stateline WA:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/07/02/2943821.htm
And Last Look:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/07/02/2943835.htm
minimum time to deploy
3 mins
max
3 hours
In 1 hour no less than 5 seperate units could swung into oreation
at the 3 hour mark the potential for multiple hits is intensified by a ratiof 4
ie
at the 3rd hour up to 60 separate strikes could be enacted
Colin Barnett loves Legal Challenges:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/02/2943832.htm
Colin Barnett goes down the oft travelled path. If you can’t win a debate, wreck it (Fred Daly, whenever):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/02/2943832.htm
at the 12 hour mark inclusive of USA on;y assets
ie excluding any pac comm bases
1600 hits
inclusive of JKP
32000 hits
war is hell
Thanks TBS, I knew I had the spelling wrong of Abrams, but couldn’t remember quite how.
Gusface
In reality the BEST defence against, say, Indonesia for example, is their successful transition to democracy.
Difficult to ‘win’ conventionally with our population, but there is ‘nowhere to hide’ in much of the desert country. And for much of the time it is effectively impassible. Too wet – provided no drought – or too hot.
Bottom line is, no-one would want to face such an invasion. This is the issue at the root of the Fibs refugee meme. It is the old ‘yellow peril’ fear / prejudice.
John Marsden’s adolescent novels ‘the ‘Tomorrow’ series, was an adolescent what if of this meme.
Had not thought about it before, but these books have been read by virtually every school kid for the past 30 years. Perhaps the Fibs meme gets some of its ‘traction’ in the 25 – 45 age group partly as an ‘unintended consequence’ of these excellent novels. [Does this get the defence diversion back on track. ;P Apols William]
OT
the reality blows any invasion meme outta the water
its time we showed asia what the light on the hill means
🙂
last but not least
Pac Comm is not vested in any locality but based on the ranking officer of the 7th fleet
ie
It is not land based and is based on a devolving line of command
gnite
Gusface,
The ‘Light on the Hill’ has always meant a reasonable standard of living for all.
It is the basis of the ‘live simply, simply so all may live’ slogan. This is the model that offers the best hope for enough for all in their own homelands.
Of course one nation’s profligate excessive consumption creates poverty in how many other nations -> envy -> dissatisfaction and ‘border threats’.
At the same time, mimicking of our consumption levels leads to spread of excessive consumption, resource depletion, contributes to global warming, etc.). Remember when we used to say “Thank goodness the Chinese don’t drive cars? Now look at them, and why shouldn’t they, if we do?
Message :
“Sorry, this is a dead end, move along, back in the direction whence you came. There is no future here.” (Message for our society, I mean.)
*night*
Big Ship, I appreciate all this. My argument is not really a technical one (although connected to technical concepts).
Essentially I’m asking: when does “less meaningful” become outright dodgy?
In the polls the subject of THIS post, the sample size was 200, leading to an MOE of 7%. But the only mention of the word “margin” in Morgan’s post alongside the polls on his web site is in terms such as “marginal seats”. No mention is made of “margin of error” “MOE” or anything like it.
So why would a supposedly reputable pollster like Morgan put out a poll that has little meaning, without once referencing MOE? To my mind he’s trying to give his polls more weight than they deserve, knowing them to be almost useless He didn’t make up the numbers, but he may as well have.
I understand his commentary leaves a lot to be desired too, but my point is about the purpose of putting out poll data gathered with questionable methodology.
Take an extreme, hypothetical case. You can scrupulously collect 10 opinions as to who is going to win the next election. They can be perfectly randomly selected etc. etc., but I think we’d all agree that a poll with a sample size of 10 is useless.
OK, so now increase this to 20, then 50, then 100, then 200 (the present case), then 500, then 1000. At which point does the data become meaningful? And what business does a “reputable” pollster have putting out anything but meaningful data, if it’s not to give a skewed impression of a subject close to his heart?
I’m assuming the data in all cases in my hypothetical is collected according to the very best random sampling, so we can’t criticise the poll or its data gathering methodology there, as such. What we CAN criticise is the low samples, until we get to a point where the sample size is viable for the subject being surveyed.
So, back to my original question: if a pollster deliberately selects a low sample size that gives a skewed result (even if that sample is selected randomly), and then does not point out or otherwise discuss the small size by referral to the MOE, and if that pollster is polling on a subject that is dear to his heart (and he has said this publicly)… then why isn’t such a poll dodgy, even deliberately dodgy.
This is ahout the numbers themselves, completely apart from the pollster’s written commentary on his own poll.
200-vote samples are such rubbish. Although their margin of error is technically about seven points, I suspect they are worse than that more often than would be mathematically expected.
However when you have a few of them together things start to add up. Interesting to me that Bass has now been sampled four times – EMRS, Tas Lib internal, Labor internal, this one – all showing ALP retain, some very comfortably. I think what is showing through here is that Ferguson’s result to lose by so little was remarkably good and the seat is not really as marginal in reality as on paper – at least, not at this stage.
The Dyson cartoon her in the SMH is a little ripper!
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/cartoons
her = here
How to sell Julia:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/selling-julia-the-expert-view-20100702-zu6a.html
[How to sell Julia:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/selling-julia-the-expert-view-20100702-zu6a.html%5D
Or we could just let her do her own thing. She seems to be pretty good at that and, amazingly, people seem to like her all the more for it …
Psephos@171
That <sarcasm> well known military genius </sarcasm> Robert Hill may have intended to.
“Only One Man Brought down the Prime Minister. Meet the real Kevin Rudd”….ahhhh after a week of extra funding from on-line readers the Murdoch Press have done some real research, lifted their game and worked out that this particular political assasination was an inside job.
When Kevin revealed the truth to; Helen, Brett, Tom, Geoff, Dick, Annabel, Christian, Glenda, George & Michael I wonder what he told them this week?
By the way, the Abrams were bought second hand off the US for our soldiers to practice in. If and when they were needed on the Arabian, Korean or Mexican Penisula, or the steepes of Kajikstan, Mongolia or Canada we would send our troops the hardware would stay here.
I know its old (3 days old) news but I was amazed to discover that Philip Adams has resigned from the ALP after 50 years, in protest about Rudd’s dismissal. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/why-i-quit-the-labor-party/story-e6frg8h6-1225886243738. Such resignations are to be expected when you change the CEO. I think though there is less fallout from this leadership change than most.
[You can also rig an opinion survey by accurately, but invalidly using a crook technique, but presenting its results as meaningful (as in on-line opinion polls).]
BB carries on again with hit tinfoil hat on.
Of course anyone can rig a poll. But if you have another 3 or 4 pollsters out in the field measuring the same thing honestly then the rigged poll will stand out like the proverbial. Then it might be written off as a rogue. But if the pollster consistently produced dodgy polls inconsistent with everyone else’s results will reduce your polling company to a laughing stock.
The most common problem is the interpretation of the poll results and putting an unsupported spin on the numbers.
Now, have you found that bridge yet?
This from Philip Adams:
[Rudd and I talked regularly. The last time we spoke he was urging me to resign from The Australian to protest its editorial line, advice I declined to accept.]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/why-i-quit-the-labor-party/story-e6frg8h6-1225886243738
I’d have like to hear the rest of that conversation between Kev and Phil.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/02/2943780.htm?section=justin
[Media baron Rupert Murdoch’s plan to charge for online news has become a reality, with The Times newspaper in London placing its website behind a pay-wall.
For the last month would-be readers of the Times and Sunday Times have been required to register before seeing the paper’s content.
They will now have to get out their credit cards and pay if they want to keep using it.
With their traditional hard copy publications facing major drop-offs in circulation and advertising revenue, media companies have been forced to look at other ways to raise money.
The Times’ pay-wall is a key test of whether consumers will still pay for news in the internet age.
Danny Finkelstein, executive director of the Times, says “journalism has a fair price”.
“We want to charge a fair price and we can sustain the sort of … news operation that we want,” he said.]
I’d have thought that the benefits Murdoch receives from Governments by the power/fear he wields through his papers would more than offset the loss he incurs in publishing. This could go belly up rather quickly.
I hope we can look back in 5 years time and say that this was a great day for democracy.
BB @ 212
[So, back to my original question: if a pollster deliberately selects a low sample size that gives a skewed result (even if that sample is selected randomly), and then does not point out or otherwise discuss the small size by referral to the MOE, and if that pollster is polling on a subject that is dear to his heart (and he has said this publicly)… then why isn’t such a poll dodgy, even deliberately dodgy.]
I imagine for Morgans that the decision on sample sizes is a commercial one in that they have to pay interviewers to (in this case) sit in their call centre and make the phone calls, and as these interviewers are paid about $25 an hour, the smaller sample sizes cost less to complete. Either Gary Morgan makes the final decision on sample sizes, or his clients do, and they have to balance the cost of completing the research against the known MOE inherent in the results of such sample sizes.
Ultimately, the decision on whether this poll, or any other, is dodgy is going to be subjective. Gary Morgan would say ‘no,’ but many others would say ‘yes.’
As I have said before, in my view not dodgy, but suspect – perhaps a minor semantic difference, but let’s put that down to MOE!
Anyone know of any individuals or groups who are/will be active in fighting this? Tom @224, or do we all do the obvious and merely not give him any more money than we need to? (I get a good rate on the Aus and haven’t paid full price for it for about 3 years)
[Rudd and I talked regularly. The last time we spoke he was urging me to resign from The Australian to protest its editorial line, advice I declined to accept.]
i stopped listening to adams some 4 years ago could not understand his programs any more
[have thought that the benefits Murdoch receives from Governments by the power/fear he wields through his papers would more than offset the loss he incurs in publishing. This could go belly up rather quickly.]
a news paper on line would be the last thing on my pay for list.
[know its old (3 days old) news but I was amazed to discover that Philip Adams has resigned from the ALP after 50 years, in protest about Rudd’s dismissal. ]
i have heard of a few that have now joined?????
[ManundaGreen
Posted Saturday, July 3, 2010 at 8:38 am | Permalink
By the way, the Abrams were bought second hand off the US for our soldiers to practice in. If and when they were needed on the Arabian, Korean or Mexican Penisula, or the steepes of Kajikstan, Mongolia or Canada we would send our troops the hardware would stay here.]
My point precisely, Aussie armoured units reduced to being shoe-horned into a US battle plan that bears absolutely no relationship to local defence needs.
As an Ausie my fear is that it would be our boys ‘plugged in’ on point in a hot show, to reduce the adverse PR aspects in the US due to loss – i.e. literally being used as ‘cannon fodder’. Our troops, and our national interests, deserve better.
Would much sooner have purchased as many used Harrier jump jets as the same $ would’ve paid for. Much more useful as a close support fire platform in Australian conditions.
BK,
[The Dyson cartoon here in the SMH is a little ripper! ]
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/cartoons
I hope William doesn’t see that one. Suggesting that that particular lady was a “political operative” got me accused of defamation.
Although there is a wealth of links to pieced and it was clear from series like the “Howard years” etc that she was indeed, quite a political player behind the scenes. 😉
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=hyacinth+site%3Ablogs.crikey.com.au%2Fpollbludger&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&cad=h
[PRIME Minister John Howard and his wife Janette have launched a double-barrelled assault on Kevin Rudd, branding the Opposition Leader hopeless on economics, lacking in strong convictions, and not as good a campaigner as Bob Hawke.
“One thing we know is that he doesn’t know anything about economics,” said Mrs Howard, in an interview at Kirribilli House on Friday, alongside her husband of 37 years.
“No, he knows nothing about economics,” agreed Mr Howard. “He’s very uncomfortable whenever he gets questioned about economics, going back to the famous interview with (ABC radio’s) Chris Uhlmann about productivity,” when the Opposition Leader mistakenly denied productivity had increased.
“Economics is not his strong suit … We’re making a lot of it and we’ll be making a hell of a lot of it … because this election is now all about economic management.”
With just two weeks to go, Team Howard is remarkably confident, and full of plans to defeat Mr Rudd on the economic battleground.
“He’s different from Beazley,” said Mr Howard.
“I don’t think he stands for as much,” said Mrs Howard.
“I don’t think he stands for much,” her husband emphasised.]
http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/janette-plays-second-fiddle-with-gusto/2007/11/10/1194329568955.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
The funny thing about this is, that Howard went into the last election trying to bank on the Libs “economic” ability and Rudd’s supposed lack of it and lost.
Rudd proved by getting the country through the GFC, virtually unscathed, that the Libs claims to economic proficiency was hollow and now that seems to be the main platform for this election for Abbott & Co, that Labor is hopeless with economic management. (per the Lib web site)
Good luck with that one Tone.
Big Ship,
Thanks for taking the time to discuss the matter seriously. It’s Time has been too inattentive in reading what I was on about. It wasn’t tinfoil hat stuff, it was a serious question about the ethics of pollling.
First he agrees that anyone can rig a poll. Of course this is true. People rob banks, lie to each other. Cheat each other. They can rig polls. So we can cross that one out.
This poll is unique, so by definition there is nothing to compare it against. So there goes his next point.
And what if the pollster decided to risk it and rig just a few polls on his pet subject? That would get rid of the “reputation” argument too.
So there’s really no justification for his saying:
Because most of his points aren’t related to that I was asking about, which was THIS POLL on THIS SUBJECT, plus any other small sample, unique poll on a similarly pet subject.
It seems the Boolean AND function can be applied here:
1. DODGY METHODOLOGY + DODGY COMMENTARY > DODGY POLL
2. DODGY METHODOLOGY + HONEST COMMENTARY > DODGY POLL
3. HONEST METHODOLOGY + DODGY COMMENTARY > DODGY POLL
4. HONEST METHODOLOGY + HONEST COMMENTARY > HONEST POLL
A poll must be conducted honestly and be accompanied by honesty commentary to be an honest poll.
Example of 1.
on-line voluntary poll cited as evidence by Today Tonight tabloid TV news show.
Example of 2.
Low sample poll run by “reputable” company, on a specific issue dear to the proprietor’s heart.
Example of 3.
Almost any Newspoll.
Example of 4.
Standard research poll on soap powder preferences; election eve political polls (because these are important for establishing credibility).
If a pollster establishes his credibility with (4) then it is possible to rig a poll by method (2), while at the same time being clear of accusations to outright making numbers up.
No tinfoil hat required.
Yes, scorps, wasn’t she a lovely bit of work!
[conditions.
231 scorpio
Posted Saturday, July 3, 2010 at 9:35 am | Permalink
BK,
The Dyson cartoon here in the SMH is a little ripper!
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/cartoons%5D
from some one who lost his seat when are these two going to retire and go off in to the sunset.
scorpio, But isn’t Economic Management as a specific measure one of the issues that has the Libs in front or not far behind? I find that to be quite incredible considering the government steered us safely through the first wave of the GFC and with interest rates well below the Howard’s final year. It’s a really good thing that Abbott is such a self confessed dunce in economic matters as it seems that the electorate might respond if the opposition had a credible economic spokesman in their ranks.
Andrew Robb? 5/10
Joe Hockey? 3/10
Tony Abbott? 2/10
[It wasn’t tinfoil hat stuff, it was a serious question about the ethics of pollling.]
what is this silly tinfoil hat stuff ? new modern saying i suppose
The Dutch invented genever. It was thereafter spelled incorrectly by the rest of the world.
More to the point, the Dutch invented gutting fish!
As for the Dutch being cowherders, I am intrigued. In the olden days the ‘akkers’ or paddocks were generally islands of a couple of acres (note etymological link) surround by canals. The cows were kept in barns in winter (usually integrated into the great houses). In Spring they were taken to the akkers in praams which were a larger class of boat, motivated by sail and pole.
No herding required, or indeed, possible.
Tom Hawkins,
[For the last month would-be readers of the Times and Sunday Times have been required to register before seeing the paper’s content.
They will now have to get out their credit cards and pay if they want to keep using it.]
This is something that I don’t think that Rupert has taken into consideration and is something I pointed out to Laura Tingle of the AFR, that more and more people are moving to “DEBIT” cards to get out of the debt trap of holding credit cards.
Even to take advantage of the two weeks introductory, “free” viewing of web based “news” providers such as the AFR, requires you to provide a credit card number.
For someone like myself wishing to see just what they “do” offer, is not possible because we haven’t had a credit card for years and are much better off for that. It just increases the reasons not to be tempted to go there and will actually be a disincentive for people to go behind Rupert’s pay wall also. And a good thing too.
so the cows were kept singularly?
and all of the netherlands is a quilt of canals with a cuppla acre paddocks?
and aamoi when did the “dutch” come into existence?
Tom Hawkins,
[scorpio, But isn’t Economic Management as a specific measure one of the issues that has the Libs in front or not far behind?]
Yeah, it just goes to show what friendly media spin can do to prop up a bunch of total economic illiterates!
This is one area that the MSM is letting down the whole country by mindlessly supporting this mob and not at least, putting them under such severe scrutiny, that the Opposition actually are “forced” to come up with viable economic policies that won’t take the country on a path to economic ruin and join the rest of the bankrupt western economies.
Dutch is a dialect of Low German, and the Dutch were just a variety of Germans, like Saxons or Bavarians, until well into the Middle Ages. The Netherlands was part of the Holy Roman Empire (ie, Germany) until at least the 15th century. Then it was ruled successively by the Burgundians and the Spanish, and by the 16th century the Dutch no longer considered themselves Germans.
BK,
[Yes, scorps, wasn’t she a lovely bit of work! ]
I was fascinated by the role she played in the attempted coup on Howard during the APEC Conference in 2007.
She was a central figure in that episode and had a major role in saving Howard’s (and her own) political hide at that time.
Even Sinodinos made ir clear that Janette was busy at Kiribilli scanning multiple media sources constantly during the day and delivering intelligence and instructions on strategy etc to Johnny via 12 to 15 phone calls a day.
Not a political operative. Bah humbug. Go ahead and sue me Jannette.
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=hyacinth+site%3Ablogs.crikey.com.au%2Fpollbludger&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&cad=h
as for “gin”
various searches come up with the dutch source but intriguingly one mentions the italians back in the 12thC along with the arabs and persians as being responsible
two separate dutch inventors are claimed Boe and Sylvius
[Some legal classifications of gin are defined only as originating from specific geographical areas (e.g. Plymouth gin, Ostfriesischer Korngenever, Slovenská borovi?ka, Kraški Brinjevec, etc.), while other common descriptors refer to classic styles that are culturally recognized but not legally defined (e.g. Old Tom gin).]
So let the dutch take credit for bringing to market an already known product much like the tulip is falsely associated with the dutch
and we all know what happened to the tulip market
ManundaGreen,
[and we all know what happened to the tulip market]
Probably where the financial geniuses in Wall Street got the idea of credit default swaps from! 😉
They are based on similar lines to what developed in the tulip saga to some uncanny degree!
Tiny Tim did well out of tulips! 😉
scorps
i reckon they were on the gin as well
😉
BTW
[Traditional jenever is still very popular in the Netherlands and Belgium. European Union regulations specify that only liquor made in these two countries, two French provinces and two German federal states can use the name jenever.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenever
LOL! No mention of “Union thugs” here but it shouldn’t be long now. 😉
I think I would be much happier running Labor’s campaign this election than the Coalition’s. So far, they don’t seem to have much to run on except “fear & smear”!
[Abbott claims bosses bludgeoned into pact ]
[THE Coalition says the big mining companies were bludgeoned into accepting the government’s new minerals resources rent tax.
It has declared the election campaign will be a referendum on big new taxes.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the miners were effectively negotiating with a gun to their heads. “That’s not a situation they should ever have been put into,” Mr Abbott said.]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/abbott-claims-bosses-bludgeoned-into-pact/story-e6frg6nf-1225887319992
Gusface,
I’ve got a sister named Jennifer. I wonder if my parents meant to name her “Jenever” and got the spelling wRONg? 😉
ROFL, with a gun to their head? Now where I have heard that before, oh thats right, TELSTRA.