JWS Research: Victorian Labor to lose seven to 10 seats

The Herald-Sun reports an automated phone poll by JWS Research, such as the one it conducted a week before the federal election, shows the Liberals “on track to win Mount Waverley, Forest Hill, Mitcham, South Barwon, Mordialloc and Burwood” and the Greens “likely to gain Brunswick”. The Labor-versus-Greens contests of Melbourne and Richmond and the Labor-versus Liberal contest of Prahran too close to call. On the worst of these scenarios for Labor they would hold a bare majority of 45 seats out of 88; on the best, that would go up to 48. I will review how well the JWS Research federal poll performed when I get time.

UPDATE: Full results from JWS Research:

ALP 2PP
Sample 2006 POLL
Brunswick (vs GRN) 300 54.6 47
Richmond (vs GRN) 285 53.6 51
Melbourne (vs GRN) 222 52 49
Ballarat East 345 56.7 54
Ballarat West 339 56.6 59
Bentleigh 351 56.4 57
Bendigo East 420 55.4 54
Ripon 288 54.4 53
Burwood 373 53.8 43
Prahran 269 53.6 50
Mordialloc 325 53.6 42
Frankston 324 53.3 54
South Barwon 384 52.3 44
Mitcham 376 52 48
Forest Hill 357 50.8 47
Gembrook 349 50.7 52
Mt Waverley 372 50.4 44
Ferntree Gully 283 49.9 36
Kilsyth 318 49.6 47
Hastings 296 49.0 42
Narracan 350 47.3 40
Bayswater 324 47.1 44
Box Hill 380 44.7 40
Gippsland East (IND vs NAT) 580 58.5 (IND) 43 (IND)

UPDATE 2: From Roy Morgan: “Labor surge in Inner City Melbourne Means ALP Set to Retain Four Inner City Seats. Full results available tomorrow from a special telephone Morgan Poll of the key inner Melbourne Seats of Brunswick, Melbourne, Northcote & Richmond.”

UPDATE 3: John Scales of JWS Research writes:

To confirm/explain a couple of questions for your readers:

• Yes, we do weight by age and gender according to ABS stats, they are the first questions asked after the introduction and eligibility question.

• We only accept data for respondents who have completed the entire survey, drop outs are not included.

• We did include mobiles where that was the only number available at the address.

• We also surveyed DNCR registered numbers and when I have time I would like to publish an analysis of the results and profiles for landlines v mobiles and DNCR v not.

• We surveyed in all 88 seats State-wide and final sample in each seat was targeted weighted to the same proportion, so boost sample seats contribute the same proportionately as non boost seats to the overall State-wide results.

• It’s ironic that people still complain about low sample sizes where I have surveyed 300+ in 24 seats on top of a State-wide representative poll – this is exponentially more useful and reliable than relying on low sample, grouped seat swings in other published polls. We funded this poll ourselves and yes, it gives us publicity but the information is out there for the public interest too so I believe that’s a fair trade. If people would like to make financial contribution, I would be happy to survey larger samples on a seat by seat basis. I also believe there are other Labor seats in play further up the pendulum, such as Seymour, Carrum, Bendigo West, Bellarine, Macedon and Geelong, but without financial support, there are limits to what I can do.

• Let’s also be very clear that this poll, just like my poll the weekend before the Federal election, is not a prediction. It is a poll of voting intention at the time – people are asked how they would vote if the election were held ‘today’ – and I will no more claim “I was right” if Saturday’s results are the same as this poll than I will accept out of hand criticism of this poll or the Federal poll if it is different to Saturday’s result. In the Federal election, the numbers changed in the last week and I would expect the same to happen here.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

116 comments on “JWS Research: Victorian Labor to lose seven to 10 seats”

Comments Page 2 of 3
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  1. The Greens should simply dump Cheryl Wragg.

    Firstly, she’s wrong about the right policy (in which she might not, on the face of it, be as bad as the Country Alliance, who actually think she is right with respect to that part of the deal) but more importantly perhaps she is obviously playing games (the CA are most certainly right about that).

  2. GG 49

    CA has said no home truths, the wording states “it’s been reported” which means that like most propaganda it has little to no truth in it.

  3. Glen,

    Ever seen the movie Gremlins. There were three rules. Never expose the Greens to proper scrutiny, don’t let the Greens sneak in to Parliamentary representation, and never give it media exposure.

    The rest is history.

  6. Rod 54,

    I stand corrected in realation to my asumption re: CA.

    It does not look like that big of a deal though unless you live in that electorate where at some stage you will lose your job if you work in one of the power stations if labor gets back in.

  7. GG 55,

    Thanks for the link, it would seem that Wragg has a “shtick” and she is sticking too it.

    Boy does she have her work cut out for her.

  9. Time for psephological predictions. Its close enough and there’s been polls enough. 🙂

    I tried this yesterday but the comment was lost in the ether. Here goes

    A bit of an upset as more voters vote Liberal in the LA and Labor in the LC than expected. The greens polling about 15% in both houses.

    LA: ALP 42 Lib 42 Green 2 Independent 2

    LC: ALP 22 Lib 15 Green 3

    Although the Independents might have preferred a Liberal government over a Labor government, at least to clear the decks, the fact that the ALP has an LC majority meant that stable government for Victoria meant throwing their lot in with the ALP and encouraging The Greens to do the same. 😀

    Its a fine Government, but at the 2010 election the Liberals recommend preferencing The Greens last only in the LA. 😉

  10. 59

    No in 2006 the Liberals preferenced the ALP except in the inner 4 LA seats. This however as it turned out did not cost the Greens any seats. The ALP will not make gains in the LC. It is likely to go backwards.

  11. In The Age today Prof. Michael Buxton of Melb. University paints a grim and bleak picture of the way in which Madden and Brumby are privatizing the regulations on development,and taking power away from local councils, and local groups will be silenced and sidelined

    In a way he sees the situation as worse than under Kennett…
    There is evidence of much community angst over these matters and like the light meters and the anger over their installation, it is under the radar of the more rabid Labor boosters..
    Still we must wait and see.
    Such issues are corrosive and work at the deep local level,but may be fatal!
    Wait and see !!!

  12. 60

    Sorry for confusion, I meant 2014 in my final para. Rest is about 2010 sorry for tense confusion.

    Still, thats not the game Tom1.

    You need to give some hard numbers to your counter-prediction for anyone to take your psephological credibility seriously. 🙂

    LC, I hope you are right, but predicting what you want rather than whats interesting is boring psephology. 🙂

  13. This was an extensive automated poll. It has a high credibility.

    Question:
    How many people today nolonger have a fixed land line or a number that is n longer in the area assigned to the prefix? What impact does the shift away from fixed lines affect the demographics and as such the validity of a phone poll? Unless they had access to the phone providers account information how accuarte could it be?

  15. The problem with planning is we have two difference debates happening.

    One the one hand we have people against urban spawl calling for higher density and on the other we have people against urban development.

    Bascially the Government is caught between a rock and a hard place and this is not helped by councils that bascially act as anti development even in cases that clearly fit within the set state policy.

    Under the Melbourne 2030 policy both the Camberwell and Mitchem re-developments should have gone ahead but instead we had people claiming that the Government was being corrupt and in bed with developers.

  16. Predictions ALP 47 Green 1 Lib/Nats 39 Indie 1
    TPP ALP 52.5-47.5

    Gains
    Greens 1 –
    Melbourne

    Liberals – 7
    Mount Waverley
    Forest Hill
    Mitcham
    Prahran
    South Barwon
    Mordialloc
    Burwood

    Seats to watch but I think the ALP will just hold

    Frankston
    Seymour
    Bendigo East
    Brunswick
    Richmond

  17. I would think (not knowing how it’s done, but presuming that whoever answers the phone is the person polled) that the trouble with automated polling is that it doesn’t weight according to demographics.

    (Has anyone here been polled this way? Is there a question about age?)

    By some statistical quirk, I’ve been polled several times (which I believe makes me something like 400 years old). Every time the very first question asked was which age group I fitted in to. If I belonged to one that they already had a large enough sample for, they simply hung up.

    This is because good polls weight their samples so that they reflect the voting population.

    If automated polling does this, then it might be reliable. If it doesn’t, it isn’t.

  18. Firstname Lastname: don’t read Vexnews / Landeryou links, they’re almost as poisonous as the blog-destroying venom GG has been spewing out to anyone to the progressive left of him for yonks now. The Age article Rod posted is fair game, though.

    Bleh. The rest of this post was brought to you by about two minutes on Google.

    I’m surprised a Greens candidiate from Moe didn’t know what the Greens policy on Hazelwood was before she became a candidate. I’m neither a Victorian nor a Green, and I know what Hazelwood is and roughly what the Greens over there think about it.

    I’m more surprised it hasn’t been mentioned, either in that awfully biased media I keep hearing about or here, that: Wragg is the #2 candidate on the Greens list in Eastern Victoria, and therefore will not be elected in any case. Even the #1, Samantha Dunn, is gonna have a tough time getting elected in a region that’s half Labor-friendly coal mining towns and half National-bolted-on farming towns, with a bit of Liberal-leaning Melbourne suburbia. With Labor preferring the latest pale version of One Nation, I doubt even Dunn will get elected. Wragg, meanwhile, has been used by enemies she didn’t even know she had.

  19. Bird of paradox

    [
    I’m more surprised it hasn’t been mentioned, either in that awfully biased media I keep hearing about or here, that: Wragg is the #2 candidate on the Greens list in Eastern Victoria, and therefore will not be elected in any case
    ]

    From vexnews

    [
    Meanwhile, Wragg as the second candidate in eastern Victoria province is regarded as very unlikely to win, and we suspect is unlikely to ever be endorsed again by the notoriously hard-line and intolerant Greens party leadership.
    ]

    Vexnews more on the ball than the Age. Who would have thought

    http://www.vexnews.com/news/11648/greens-split-on-coal-upper-house-candidate-cheryl-wragg-defies-party-leadership-on-hazelwood-closure/

  20. Not still watching Gembrook, mexicanbeemer?

    A single poll of 349 people isn’t much to hang one’s hat on, especially in a seat where the preference flows could well be very messy. I’d certainly still be worried bout it.

  22. blackburnpseph:
    [Does anybody know where on the VEC website they show the number of enrolled voters per electorate? I have looked for it and cannot find it.]

    I haven’t looked on the website, but I remember an article saying that there is a large disparity in the enrolments between some electorates. This is apparently the result of some loophole that has meant that it’s been a long time since there was a redistribution. From memory, both sides benefit from the disparity in various seats, but Labor benefits overall.

  23. Greens disendorse Cheryl Wragg

    [
    The Greens have disendorsed one of their candidates for the Upper House seat of Eastern Region, three days before the Victorian election.

    Cheryl Wragg, from the Latrobe Valley, was disendorsed last night in a row with Greens MP Greg Barber, over the proposed closure of the Hazelwood Power Station.

    Ms Wragg will continue to appear on the Greens list on the ballot paper but says she will be running as an Independent.
    ]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/24/3074737.htm

  24. BOP,

    You’re another precious petal of a Greens who wilts under the pressure of robust debate. As always, you Greens want to pick the source of their criticism and the form it comes in.

    I don’t regard the Greens as particularly progressive.

  28. madcyril, I believe Cheryl Wragg has joined the Judean People’s Front, where she will continue the fight.

    Actually I have noticed amazing apathy in the community concering this election.

    Normally this would be a good sign for a government (so-called “sleep-walking to re-election), but last night I wondered if we might be about to see a 1999-like election – a moderate swing in SE Melbourne giving a few seats to Libs but a big protest vote in “inner rural” circle of seats delivering minority govt to Baillieu!

  29. Reading comprehension not your strong point, eh GG?

    [ I’m neither a Victorian nor a Green, ]

    I’m not a Green. Used to vote Democrat, lean towards independents, with a particular fond memory of Peter Andren; would have more time for Labor if it weren’t for the likes of you.

  30. I think without all the tea leaf reading we can safely say ALP to lose:
    Mt.Waverley, Forest Hill, Mitcham and Gembrook
    Then these are all 50/50
    Sth Barwon, Mordialloc, Burwood, Prahran, Frankston.

    And put Brunswick in there for good measure.

    So best case scenario ALP -4, and worse case Scenario -10

    Morwell is in play too.

  31. Me on the federal JWS poll:
    I was very critical of the JWS marginals poll. However it performed better than I predicted, the R-Sq between their predictions and the outcome (using the ABC figures from the close of election night) was 0.58. However it predicted five ALP victories wrongly and 3 Liberal victories wrongly. However the average Labor across all the electorates surveyed was almost equal to the average vote on Saturday.
    http://www.geoffrobinson.info/?p=1023

  32. BOP,

    I’m what you call a hard Centre.

    If your so enamoured with progress views why are you so afraid/disconcerted of independent sources of information or critique? Too infatuated with your fringe dwelling position in the world?

  34. For all the hype this will be a Melbourne suburbs election it seems with not one real rural seat to swing, South Barwon is hardly the country. Will Labor be saved by the 1999 rural realignment?

  36. geoff,

    Labor Ministers are out in the regions today which at this late stage of the election campaign tells you where they think they can harvest some votes.

  38. Ha Ha GG!

    You are not hard centre my friend – you quote IPA and Landeryou as your inspiration for an ideal society! That makes one a member of the loopy right brigade.

    And when the Greens win lower house seats off the ALP this weekend without Liberal preferences you will transform into a frothing mad hard right stalwart.

    Looking forward to it.

  40. LLP,

    Another poster afraid of different views across a broad spectrum. You clearly only seek out views that re inforce your perverted view of the polity.

    Looks like you’re the one frothing at the mouth, comrade.

  41. ALP to retain inner city seats. They will also lose a swag in the east and south east of Melb. They will drop in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. This will go right down to the wire. Baillieu still has a better than 50/50 chance. The undecideds will say “its time”.

  42. Is Geelong a particular problem for Labor? I live in Geelong electorate and swamped with Lib direct mail much more than Labor. Could be bad for Greens in Western Vic?

  43. geoff,

    This dumping of Wragg will chrystallisein the bush and elsewhere that the Greens are a city centric cabal more than happy to ruin the life of working families in order to preserve their ideological purity.

  45. [The undecideds will say “its time”.]

    No, they won’t. ‘Undecided’ seems to be a code word for ‘too apathetic to bother thinking about it’ or ‘I’m a swinging voter because I see through all the c**p and that makes me better than all those other people who know what they’re doing’.

    In both cases, on the day they tend to vote exactly the way they always have….which is why elections in Australia, despite large numbers of undecideds in the polling leading up to them, are won or lost on 2% or so.

    It’s not the apathetic or so called swinger who brings down governments, it’s voters shifting their allegiance from one party to another…and they tend to make a lot of noise in doing so!

    ’99, remember, was not a thumping victory for the Labor party, but a cobbling together of a minority government, and could have gone either way depending on the otucome of the by election.

  48. Geoff Robinson 81

    Thanks for your regression curve on the Federal “robopoll” – I was trying to remember how it all panned out. As then, this one is probably a better guide to overall result than actual seats.

    Psephos 97

    Yes, not too much “caring and sharing” when it gets down and dirty is there?

  50. 99

    I think you will find that People power lost its political party registration when the re-registration came around. Same with the Democrats.

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