Before I dive into today’s glut of electorate-level polling and the picture of unmitigated disaster it paints for Labor, mention should be made of today’s declaration of candidates and determination of ballot paper ordering. I’ve finished labouring through the chore of uploading the candidate lists to my election guide, in the course of which I was unavoidably struck by one salient fact: there are far too many candidates at this election. The total comes in at 1188 for the House of Representatives and 529 for the Senate.
The former number is solidly clear of a previous record of 1109 in 1998, amounting to nearly half an extra candidate per electorate, and well clear of the 849 in 2010, a relatively low number thought to have resulted from the election being called three months ahead of time. The Senate number is still more unprecedented, blowing the lid off the previous record of 367 candidates. Remarkably – suspiciously, even – this comes despite a doubling of nomination deposits to $1000 for House of Representatives candidates and $2000 for Senate candidates.
Some might consider a greater array of candidates a boon for democracy, but in my view that’s entirely negated by the obstacle posed to the act of voting, at least under our present system. This is starkly illustrated by the metre-long Senate ballot papers that voters in the larger states will be required to grapple with on September 7, and the magnifying glasses that will be supplied in polling booths to assist in reading the small print crammed on to them. That will no doubt have all but the tiniest handful of voters opting for the above the line option, exacerbating one of the least attractive features of our system – the mass transfer of votes as dictated by preference deals.
As for the lower house, an analysis by the Australian Electoral Commission indicates that each extra candidate causes a 0.2% increase in the informal vote. If partisan advantage is what matters to you, it’s likely that this makes a large number of candidates disadvantageous to Labor. Labor’s surprise defeat in Greenway at the 2004 election may well have been influenced by an 11.8% informal vote, which was in turn influenced by what I believe to have been a then record (at a general election at least) 14 candidates. This time around there are 12 candidates in Corangamite, Deakin and Mallee, 13 in Bendigo and McMillan, and 16 in Melbourne. Notably, all these electorates are in Victoria, which seems to have the largest number of organised micro-parties – perhaps having been inspired by the example of Family First and the Democratic Labour Party in winning Senate seats over the course of the past decade.
So, to these opinion polls. There are 14 automated phone polls in all from three different agencies, with swings ranging from 0% to 15% and averaging 8%. This is enormously out of kilter with the national polling that was coming through before we hit a dry spell at the start of the week, which suggested a swing of more like 2%. So one might variously hypothesise that there has been a huge shift to the Coalition this week; that the polls have targeted areas where Labor is doing particularly badly; that there may have been something about these polls to bias them towards the Coalition, through some combination of their being automated, mid-week and electorate-level polls; that the national polls have been heavily biased to Labor and the automated polls have shown them up. The latter at least I do not think terribly likely, the truth probably involving some combination of the first three.
We have also had more conventional phone poll results from Newspoll, conducted from Monday to Thursday from samples of 504 each, which oddly target Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor’s seats of Lyne and New England. These respectively have the Nationals ahead 59-41 and 66-34, which if anything suggest swings to Labor. The primary votes from Lyne are 26% for Labor, 51% for the Coalition and 7% for the Greens, while from New England it’s 24%, 53% and 5%.
Running through the automated polls:
• Lonergan and JWS Research have both targeted Forde and Lindsay, with very similar results in each case. In Forde, the JWS Research poll of 568 respondents has Liberal National Party member Bert van Manen leading Peter Beattie 54% to 33% on the primary vote and 60-40 on two-party preferred, for a swing of 8.4%. The Lonergan poll, for which The Guardian offers great detail, covered 1160 respondents and showed van Manen’s lead at 56% to 34% and the Greens at just 4%, compared with 12% at the 2010 election. While no two-party preferred figure is provided, it would obviously be very similar to JWS Research’s 60-40. As low as van Manen’s national profile may be, JWS Research gives him a 49% approval rating against 19% disapproval, with Peter Beattie on 35% and 51%. Kevin Rudd’s net approval rating is minus 18% against minus 1% for Tony Abbott. The Lonergan poll has 40% saying Peter Beattie has made them less likely to vote Labor against on 22% for more likely.
• Longergan’s Lindsay poll, conducted on Tuesday night from a sample of 1038, has Liberal candidate Fiona Scott’s primary vote at no less than 60%, up 17% on 2010, with Labor member David Bradbury on 32%, down 13%. The Guardian quotes the pollster saying a question about how respondents voted in 2010 aligned with the actual result – I will assume this took into account the tendency of poll respondents to over-report having voted for the winner. I am a little more puzzled by the claimed margin of error of 3.7%, which should be more like 3% given the published sample size (UPDATE: It transpires that this is because Lonergan has, unusually, done the right thing – calculate an effective margin of error that accounts for the fact that the sample is weighted, and that cohorts within it have been extrapolated from sub-par samples). The JWS Research result has the primary votes at 57% for Liberal and 35% for Labor, with two-party preferred at 60.7-39.3.
• ReachTEL has four polls with samples of around 600 apiece, which have the Liberals leading 65-35 in Bennelong (a swing of about 12%) and 53-47 in McMahon (11%) and 52-48 in Kingsford Smith (7%), with Labor hanging on by 52-48 in Blaxland (10%).
• The other Financial Review/JWS Research results show the Coalition ahead in Brisbane (54.1-45.9 from primaries of 50% LNP, 36% Labor), Macquarie (55.1-44.9, 51% Liberal, 35% Labor), Corangamite (53.3-46.7, 48% Liberal, 36% Labor), Aston (63.4-36.6, Liberal 59%, Labor 29%), and Banks (52.8-47.2, Liberal 50%, Labor 43%). The one ray of sunlight for Labor is their 51-49 lead in Greenway, from primaries of 46% for Liberal and 44% for Labor. A full graphic of the JWS Research results is available from GhostWhoVotes, including some diverting results on personal approval. Bert van Manen in Forde and Alan Tudge in Aston appear to rate as very popular local members, while David Bradbury in Lindsay and Darren Cheeseman in Corangamite do not. And Fiona Scott in Lindsay, fresh from the publicity bestowed upon her by Tony Abbott, is easily the highest rating of the challengers.
William
[MB, I normally suffer your nonsense in silence, but this is just flat out wrong.]
perhaps for NewsPoll, but the last Galaxy had a list of “worst attributes” to choose from. For PMKR, 1. Hated by Colleagues, 2. Doesn’t deliver anything etc. They had the same for Abbott, but this is PushPolling poorly disguised.
SO TELL ME HAVE I BEEN BLOGGIN ON A SITE ALL THESE YEARS W
WITH THE OWNER WHO IS A LIB
Interesting stuff from William exactly 3 years ago.
[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.]
How apt.
TO US MB IS NOT NONSENCE TO U HE MAY BE
WE DONT ALL HAVRE DERGREES
My Say
Kepping talking up labor chances, that what the coalition and non labor supporters dont like
[TO US MB IS NOT NONSENCE TO U HE MAY BE]
Not only to William….
Does anyone know where the ALP campaign launch is going to be ?
AND GET THIS
I told me in
2010 I would get no solice from polls
well I damn well did ‘
‘JG won
bye mr bowe
liberals will ruin this country
I havent recieved newspoll since 2012
they got the hint i didnt like the way they were polling
[blackburnpseph
Posted Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 5:59 pm | PERMALINK
Now I ask you, what type of person in 18-24 age bracket would be at home with a landline on a Thursday night?
Do robopolls apply a demographic quota?]
yes they do weight by ABS data and other demographic info. However, of the 600 successfully robo polled, say they managed to get 60 18-24s (assuming people are not gaming) – these 60 results are then put into the weighted model.
If the 60 18-24s at home on a Thursday night with landlines are all YoungLibs or Hillsong types, then 60 votes to L-NP goes into the model.
and this does not go to refusal rates
Well well well, Australias next de-facto PM, the media baron who will run the LNP must be coughing in his rompers well and truly now.
Of course this will not be reported by their ABC to the public of Australia.
[Scotland Yard is investigating News International as a “corporate suspect” over hacking and bribing offences, it can be revealed.
The Independent has learnt the Metropolitan Police has opened an “active investigation” into the corporate liabilities of the UK newspaper group – recently rebranded News UK – which could have serious implications for the ability of its parent company News Corp to operate in the United States. One of Rupert Murdoch’s most senior lawyers has been interviewed under caution on behalf of the company and two other very senior figures have been officially cautioned for corporate offences. John Turnbull, who works on News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee (MSC) which co-ordinates the company’s interactions with the Metropolitan Police, answered formal questions from detectives earlier this year.
The development has caused pandemonium at the upper echelons of the Murdoch media empire. Shortly afterwards, executives in America ordered that the company dramatically scale back its co-operation with the Metropolitan Police.]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/exclusive-met-investigating-rupert-murdoch-firm-news-international-as-corporate-suspect-over-hacking-and-bribing-offences-8771560.html
My Say
You are getting hysterical – take Kevs advice – go and have a bex and good lie down.
[WE DONT ALL HAVRE DERGREES]
Clearly.
[I havent recieved newspoll since 2012]
Neither have I, says nothing.
[yes they do weight by ABS data and other demographic info]
How do they do that? By somehow linking phone numbers to exchanges? Do the phone companies even still do that in the digital age?
I was thinking last night about Nate Silver’s observations about the polling after Mitt Romney won the first debate, which showed a big surge to him in random survey polls but hardly any shift in the “panel” surveys which follow the same set of voters over the time. He theorised there was “potentially a problem whenever there is a news event that could affect voter enthusiasm and their willingness to respond to surveys”. I wondered if this might have explained the bloated Coalition leads in the Lindsay and Forde surveys. Conservative voters in Lindsay may have had their backs up about the flak Tony Abbott was copping over “sex appeal”, while in Forde there might have been a determination to stick it to Peter Beattie. Whereas Labor might perhaps doing better among the more apathetic voter who simply saw it as one more unwanted marketing call and hung up on them.
blackburnpseph
Posted Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 6:07 pm | PERMALINK
I havent recieved newspoll since 2012
Neither have I, says nothing.
———————-
Nope it says thank goodness thier biased polling stopped
I’ve never been polled in my life. My housemate has, but I haven’t. I am usually out of my house, so I rarely answer the phone.
However, I don’t dare say that means their fake, just that I have bad timing. (I really want to be polled, just once!)
No doubt he will be constantly coughing in his rompers.
He is propping up Abbott and the LNP to slash thousands of jobs in Australia if they get in but he is crying about his 46000 staff. I say fuck em all, they chose to follow him down the sewer.
[A News Corp analysis of the effects of a corporate charge, produced in New York, said the consequences could “kill the corporation and 46,000 jobs would be in jeopardy”.
Lawyers for the media behemoth have pleaded with the Met and the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute the company as it would not be in the “public interest” to put thousands of jobs at risk. Gerson Zweifach, the group general counsel of News Corp, flew in to London for emergency talks with the Met last year. According to Scotland Yard, he told police: “Crappy governance is not a crime. The downstream effects of a prosecution would be apocalyptic. The US authorities’ reaction would put the whole business at risk, as licences would be at risk.”]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/exclusive-met-investigating-rupert-murdoch-firm-news-international-as-corporate-suspect-over-hacking-and-bribing-offences-8771560.html
[Do robopolls apply a demographic quota?]
They cannot, they will get the quota in each age bracket on a Thursday night, but will this be representative of that age bracket? Probably not.
Were you at home on a Thursday night when you were 25, I never was.
We need a national poll and until then you just have to be a little cautious of these individual polls.
No Reachtel tonight so looks like we just have to be patient.
[By somehow linking phone numbers to exchanges? Do the phone companies even still do that in the digital age?]
That’s how they determine the voter’s physical location, and yes, in an age of phone number portability, it’s not without its problems.
If they get an age bracket quota why would it be less representative just because it way taken at any particular day or time?
Edward StJohn@1017
Peter is actually still tipping a Labor win the last I saw, but from the tone of his latest offering a week of 53s-54s to Coalition would probably switch that. I don’t buy that Gillard was actually losing at the stage in 2010 when he reckoned she was – there was just a lot of dodgy internal seat catastrophe nonsense flying around like there usually is.
William – I hope Mumble is slinging you something for the links – you know they can afford it.
Yes, this is a very telling point: how the hell does Robopoll know who has just answered the phone?
Mum, Dad, Nan? the 23 year old – well, not him, he’s probably out.
Gaffhook
Posted Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 6:10 pm | Permalink
No doubt he will be constantly coughing in his rompers.
He is propping up Abbott and the LNP to slash thousands of jobs in Australia if they get in but he is crying about his 46000 staff. I say fuck em all, they chose to follow him down the sewer.
——————————————————–
And the Liberals rant on about NSW corruption. Murdoch is not a supporter of the Liberal Party he is on the Board at the Institute of Public Affairs and lets never forget he gave up his Australian citizenship for money
AusieAchmed @1025
Ahh, Independent Australian. Makes the Murdoch press look like a noble cause. New witnesses right ? No names, no information. Lots of innuendo .. Please tell me you don’t fall for the same shit. I thought you were smarter than conspiracy theories.
And Zen Digital is also Binary Ninja. Banned to hell.
Well the robocall is probably being surveilled by the NSA lefty e.
[I’ve never been polled in my life. My housemate has, but I haven’t. I am usually out of my house, so I rarely answer the phone.]
Carey, this is my point.
Who is at home on Thursday night, not people taking advantage of late night shopping so they can clear the weekend, not singles out mating.
ruawake@1029
It’s not the strike rate that’s the problem at the moment, it’s the swing. Robo seat polls were wrong at the last election in a number of cases but they weren’t generally wrong in the same direction, they were wrong to forgiveable degrees considering their MOEs (which are larger than their sample size implies), and they weren’t conspicuously more wrong than landline seat polls.
The problem now is that we are getting large robopolls (so less sample error excuse) that are almost all showing whopper swings. Even if some of them are wrong the same way as last time, four points wrong this way and that on 8% swings gives you 4-12% swings gives you trouble.
Can’t use the last election to work out what is going on with the robo seatpolls this time. It won’t tell you.
[If they get an age bracket quota why would it be less representative just because it way taken at any particular day or time?]
Cos boring Liberal virgins aren’t out lookin’ for a bonk. Its a conservative thing you know. 😆
Thursday was pay day & Friday you just had to get through no matter how hungover. I was never home on Thursday nights when I was 25 either.
[Yes, this is a very telling point: how the hell does Robopoll know who has just answered the phone?]
Are you:
Male – press 1
Female – press 2
Aged:
18-24 – Press 1
25 – 34 – Press 2
etc
????
morpheus
Posted Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 6:20 pm | Permalink
AusieAchmed @1025
Ahh, Independent Australian. Makes the Murdoch press look like a noble cause. New witnesses right ? No names, no information. Lots of innuendo .. Please tell me you don’t fall for the same shit. I thought you were smarter than conspiracy theories.
And Zen Digital is also Binary Ninja. Banned to hell.
————————————————-
all I did was copy and post.
No comment as to whether or not I believe it.
I’ll wait until they name the witness etc before forming aview
[Well the robocall is probably being surveilled by the NSA lefty e.]
:p
[Can’t use the last election to work out what is going on with the robo seatpolls this time. It won’t tell you.]
Can’t use last election to tell you anything at all to be honest. Yet all pollsters seem to, bar Morgan (who is mad).
Ruawake official pb position is polls reliable ..but huge minority excluded ..this is supposed to be polling site, right? I will never be rung.
rua
[Cos boring Liberal virgins aren’t out lookin’ for a bonk.]
We most definitely are.
Material numbers of 18-24 virgins, yeah right.
I assume robocall companies call at night because it is cheaper, not more accurate.
[Material numbers of 18-24 virgins, yeah right]
10.4% of the electorate accordin’ to the AEC. 😛
Anyone seen the new “Third year anniversary of the Carbon Tax lie” ad, yet?
Going by the tone of the ad, you’d think that it was commemorating some sort of massacre.
And the message: “Three years of [SLIGHTLY] higher prices on food, electricity etc.”
Our grandchildren are going to despise us for what we are doing.
ru – classic come back. 😀
I suppose so, Confessions, though my 9 year old would do it as an 18 yo for laughs.
The question is whether that leads to a representative sample when certain people arent home See sprocket at 1060.
We have to ask: is what they are ‘weighting’ a reliable sample in the first place?
[We most definitely are.]
But you’re not getting one?
Mick77
Give up, you won’t get one. 😛
[Who is at home on Thursday night, not people taking advantage of late night shopping so they can clear the weekend, not singles out mating.]
I can assure you I am neither of those things. I am usually working, researching, or doing some other thing that often requires me to travel one end of the city to another. Things like posting on here are how I relax or occupy my bored mind while on public transport. If only I was just out getting laid…
They would be the ones who filled out the return while mum and dad were present Rua 🙂
@William/1096
bwahahaha lol.