The super-sample poll published by Fairfax, covering 22,000 voters in 54 seats (about 400 each), turns out to have been conducted not by Nielsen, but an outfit called JWS Research whose automated phone polling on the weekend were widely noted at the time. The Sydney Morning Herald sells its managing director John Scales as “a renowned pollster” who was director of Morgan from 1992 to 1995, and research director at Crosby Textor from 2002 until earlier this year. However, its methodology is untried, at least in the Australian context: presumably pollsters go to the expense of hiring interviewers for a very good reason (UPDATE: Lukas in comments points to the assessment of legendary US polling analyst Nate Silver, that “there’s not really convincing evidence about whether IVR polls [robopolls] are inferior to regular ones”). Nonetheless, the general tenor of the results is in keeping with polling overall, give or take a few surprises. Taken together, the results point to 79 seats for Labor and 68 for the Coalition with three independents – curiously, the poll did not cover Melbourne.
Queensland. Labor to lose Brisbane, Bonner, Petrie, Leichhardt, Forde, Dawson, Flynn and Dickson, but hold Moreton, Longman and Herbert.
New South Wales. Labor to lose Lindsay, Bennelong, Macarthur and Robertson while gaining Paterson and Cowper; Labor to hold Greenway, Dobell, Page, Eden-Monaro, Gilmore and Macquarie.
Victoria. Labor to gain McEwen, La Trobe and Dunkley, but lose Corangamite.
Elsewhere. Labor to gain Boothby, lose Hasluck and Swan, and hold Solomon.
We also have Galaxy polling another 800 voters in four Queensland marginals – Bonner, Forde, Herbert and Longman – and found happier results for Labor than the Queensland sample from the weekend’s super-survey, with a swing of 3.5 per cent rather than 5.4 per cent. Morgan has also published small-sample polls from Bennelong (300) and La Trobe (200) conducted just this evening, which respectively have the Liberals leading 50.5-49.5 and Labor leading 53-47.
UPDATE: And now state-by-state breakdowns from the past two weeks of Newspoll, both of which had the national result at 52-48. The state two-party are results are 52-48 to Labor in New South Wales (a 1.7 per cent swing), 52-48 to the Coalition in Queensland (2.4 per cent swing), 55-45 to Labor in Victoria (0.7 per cent swing to Labor), 56-44 to Labor in South Australia (3.6 per cent swing to Labor) and 57-43 to the Coalition in Western Australia (3.7 per cent swing to the Coalition).
UPDATE 2: Recent state-level polling results in terms of Labor swing:
| TOTAL | NSW | VIC | Qld | WA | SA | ||
| JWS Research | -1.1 | -2.1 | 2.4 | -5.3 | -0.5 | -1.6 | |
| Galaxy marginals | -1.7 | -3.1 | 1.6 | -4.3 | -2.1 | 0.0 | |
| Newspoll (2 week) | -0.7 | -1.7 | 0.7 | -2.4 | -3.7 | 3.6 | |
| Nielsen (2 week) | -1.7 | -2.7 | 3.0 | -3.4 | -2.7 | 0.6 | |
| Essential (2 week) | -1.7 | -5.7 | 0.7 | -3.4 | 0.3 | 1.6 |
If there is a swing to ALP in SA to give Labor Boothby, then Sturt must be close too.
William – Would this be the computer phone poll that many of us did on Saturday?
frank
rewrite
[how the west won it]
Nielsen Poll Marginal Seats in WA: Husluck, Swan to LNP #ausvotes
Frank: Julia is in your neck of the woods tomorrow. 🙂
Have heard talk of some autodialling – ie voice recorded questions.
Doubt Nielsen would go online at this stage – nor wouold the SMH and Age bother with it. They know it’d be shot down.
Quick.. off to the betting websites!
Thanks Grog, I’d forgotten the robo-poll.
If this polling is accurate, there’s no reason that the 79 can’t be larger by a few…
The losses in New South Wales can’t be that horrendous.
Middle man,
It will be a joint effort!
Looks like they’ve only got Labor down for about two losses on NSW.
TSOP
What say you?
… or smaller by a few
they cant be Evan. It doesnt add up otherwise
BB
You are also limited in the hrs to get a decent sample, i.e. people being at home/not at work.
I guess you could do it on a weekend with 150 operators going flat out! Maybe the libs were onto somehting with workchoices if you could mobilise that sort of labor force.
Oh I despair for democracy….
Nielsen Poll Marginal Seats in NSW: 4 to LNP, 2 to ALP #ausvotes
Two gains to Labor in NSW! Against four losses.
11 to LNP – 4 to Labor NSW, Tas and territories?
Two it is in NSW
evan14@55
She’s already in town Tonight – quick bit of campaigning in the AM before Brisvegas 🙂
Tell me Maxine isn’t going to lose Bennelong – there’s been all these rumours that Alexander is going to win.
Can the other states vote to punt Queensland out of the Commonwealth?
This poll ruins my excitement, even though it points to a solid Labor win.
What are the NSW seats?
28,000 is still a humungous size, even if it is a online poll!
i don’t think any polling company has such a large online panel group.
Cowper to ALP? Glad I got on at 2/1
2 Labor gains in NSW?
Hughes and Macarthur?
This must be the robopoll; it would be the only way to get so many voters, using computer tech.
[Corangamite for LNP]
Man, I hate being right sometimes.
I’m not sure how reliable the poll is and would like to see less actual losses for Labor.
[TSOP
What say you?]
Dunno.
It’s a big poll which increases the odds of accuracy I guess. It’s a reasonable benchmark to aim at… either way, I’ll be very pleased if numbers like this transpire on election day.
Saying ALP will gain Hughes and Paterson?
its a bit weird. I think Labor has a better chance of retaining Hasluck than winning Dunkley, for example
Net -2 in NSW!! Woohoo!! Like I said a couple of nights ago – time to excise qld and then we can set up a regional processing centre there…
Nielsen Poll Marginal Seats in TAS & NT: Unchanged #ausvotes
TSOP
Have you been able to compare with your own predictions?
Had a bit of premature posting disorder, note to self, read all of the topic. Missed a few key words as I just saw this…..
[LNP 79 seats to 68. 28,000 voters polled]
Where are people getting the info on seats?
there’s no way it’s a face-to-face survey
Bushfire Bill..I do not believe Kerry wanted to go over the same old ground with Abbott. He used a completely different method of interviewing, namely..who are you? His method was to show Abbott as a person who changes his mind, depending how the wind is blowing. Who is happy within himself to admit he has had a rebirth on certain former principals. A person who doesn’t feel uncomfortable with bending the facts to suit a particular arguement…who has no regrets about shafting other people if it suits his agenda (as in Turnbull)..and KO’s final question in a very clever way took Abbott right into his catholic beliefs and Abbott failed.
As always Abbott will present himself at the confessional to purge his soul of the lies, the personal attacks, the deceptions and the discourtesy he shows to those he disagrees with (that will eat at his catholic belief of humility). But once forgiven, the slate is wiped clean. Game on again until the next visit to the man in a dress, who will again repeat the same words after nodding wisely and absolving him..”go in peace my son and try not to sin again”.
There you have the Abbott escape clause with his catholic beliefs.
It is pathetic.
I’d be really surprised to see 8 seats go in Qld.
ltep youre such a sourpuss. Labor is heading for victory and hopefully will do a bit better than this in qld
[I’m not sure how reliable the poll is and would like to see less actual losses for Labor.]
Well if it’s unreliable that maybe the case ltep.
8 losses in QLD?
I’d have to add Forde, Petrie, something else to my list of the existing 5 I did earlier.
Brisbane or Moreton or Bonner?
If the sample for the indvidual seats is around 800 each it is getting pretty good, no worse than the usual newspoll/nielsons
Labor supporters better pray that one of Nielson’s predicted Labor gains is NOT Gilmore.