Yesterday’s Essential Research release concludes what I’d normally regard in the off season as a weekly cycle of poll results, making this an appopriate moment for a situation report. News reports yesterday were full of talk of a shift back to Labor based on a three-point lift in their primary vote from Newspoll, which neatly encapsulates what’s wrong with mainstream journalism’s reportage of opinion polling. For all The Australian’s success in marketing it as the gold standard, Newspoll is not – and indeed, does not claim to be – any more immune to statistical noise than any other poll. This particular shift was undoubtedly more noise than signal, coming as it did off a below-par result in the previous week’s poll.
For a more meaningful read of the situation you should refer to a poll aggregate, of which the one most readily to hand is of course BludgerTrack. However, you can find much the same story being told by Julian King at Pottinger (who has the Coalition at 53.6%), Simon Jackman (53.5%), Mark the Ballot (52.7%), Kevin Bonham (52.3%) and the AFR’s Poll of Polls (51.8%) (with apologies to any I’ve missed, like Andrew Catsaras’s which only appears on Insiders). Much of the variation comes down to the weight given to Essential Research, which is excluded altogether by Mark the Ballot and downweighted by BludgerTrack for having gone off trend.
Mark the Ballot’s charts offer a better visual representation of what emerges from the numbers coming out of BludgerTrack, which is that the rate of Labor’s decline slowed this week. The current output of the BludgerTrack model has Labor down 0.4% since this time a week ago (note that this isn’t exactly the same thing as the “last week” comparison on the sidebar, which reflects the model’s result at that time rather than its current retrospective evaluation) compared with 0.7% in the week to August 17, 0.7% in the week to August 10 and 0.5% in the week to August 3. As Mark the Ballot and BludgerTrack concur, the rot set in around mid-July, perhaps a fortnight before the election was called.
Of course, it’s a little too late in the game for a mere slowing of the momentum against them to do Labor much good. It would take a black swan event to return Labor to parity in the 12 days still available to them, the potential nature of which is by definition impossible to foresee. Labor’s other hope of course is that the polls and the aggregates derived from them are fundamentally wrong. A favourite argument of those predisposed to this view is that the online polling of Essential Research is telling a different story from polls using other methods, having had Labor at a post-Gillard high of 50-50 for the past two weeks. Nate Silver, it is noted, gave online polling the highest collective score in his post-match report after the presidential election, finding an average error of 2.1% compared with 3.5% for live interview phone polls and 5.0% for “robopolls”.
However, I would observe that the pollsters at the top end of Silver’s list are a mix of live phone interview and internet polls, with the live phone interview average dragged down by a number of poor performers at the bottom end (the most spectacular example being Gallup). Given the strong performances of Newspoll and Galaxy at recent state elections, at least on two-party preferred, it would require a leap of faith to conclude that either belongs in the latter camp. If anything, the risk appears to be on the downside for Labor. Essential Research aside, the big anomaly of the polling picture is that national polls have been kinder to Labor than electorate-level ones, a phenomenon by no means unique to the robo-polls (and it should be noted that the disparity seems to be lower in the case of Galaxy’s automated polling, suggesting that “house” as much as “method” bias has been at work here).
Now to some observations on the state-level projections. Labor received a large bounce in New South Wales and Queensland after Kevin Rudd’s return, bringing them into parity with the 2010 election result in the former case and well in front of it in the latter. However, in Victoria the move to Labor was more subdued. Three weeks after the Rudd comeback, BludgerTrack had the Coalition’s national lead at 50.5-49.5 and pointed to swings in Labor’s favour of 0.6% in New South Wales and 2.4% in Queensland, while going 3.7% in the other direction in Victoria (remembering that the 2010 election gave Labor its best result in Victoria since the Second World War). So far as BludgerTrack is concerned, the decline in Labor’s fortunes since has been driven by New South Wales, where the swing has now caught up with Victoria’s. That being so, one could perhaps hypothesise that it’s the Daily Telegraph wot’s winning it.
As for Queensland, that 2.4% swing to Labor is still there as far as BludgerTrack is concerned, inconsistent as that may be with reports of internal polling, the weekend Newspoll showing Labor going heavily backwards across eight Liberal National Party marginals, and a series of grim results for Labor coming out of Griffith and Forde. I keep waiting for new data from Queensland to square the circle by showing the other recent results to have been anomalous, and it keeps not happening. Of the last nine data points available to me from Queensland, which go back as far as August 7, only one fails to show a swing to Labor. The one exception is the sturdiest result of the bunch – an 800-sample Galaxy poll conducted late in the first week of the campaign. The rest are sub-samples from national polls, some (but not all) with very small samples.
The samples are smaller still for Western Australia and South Australia, although there are enough of them that it would be hoped that aggregating them would get you fairly close to a real world figure. On this basis, Labor’s once promising position in Western Australia relative to the 2010 result seems to have deteriorated significantly. In South Australia, Labor is rating a little better than media chatter (not to mention the weekend’s Hindmarsh poll) suggests they should be, though not to the extent of indicating an improvement on the 2010 status quo in terms of seats.
One final thought. With Labor holding 72 seats out of 150, it seems very likely that they will need a swing in their favour if they are going to win the election. Out of 17 national and 39 electorate-level polls conducted during the campaign (not counting a small number of electorate polls involving Greens or independent sitting members), not a single one has shown such a thing.
Victoria Leone CTAR1 Boerwar
thanks just got up and had a shower a bit better now, but only on water at the moment
@oz_f: This preferences visualisation by The Global Mail is excellent: http://t.co/cSsZed1pDZ
[George Mega
. @gabriellechan Actually @TurnbullMalcolm your PPL is a transfer from consumer (all of us) to mum. Biz will pass on levy, scrap own scheme.]
mari
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2013 at 10:07 am | Permalink
Victoria Leone CTAR1 Boerwar
thanks just got up and had a shower a bit better now, but only on water at the moment
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Sorry to hear you are not well. Keep the fluids up and try something like Gatorade to keep the sugars etc up
the ALP could run a great ad savaging Dutton’s 3 years mute years.
Political tragics no this stuff but punters don’t.
@_AdamTodd: Wearing his @BrisbaneBroncos tracksuit, Rudd speaks with @BarackObama re: Syria (via @KRuddMP) #tennews #ausvotes http://t.co/QG1ZtX1aoI
Rosemour or Less
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2013 at 10:14 am | Permalink
the ALP could run a great ad savaging Dutton’s 3 years mute years.
Political tragics no this stuff but punters don’t.
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One of Abbott’s dream team.
Not a question about Health for over 1,000 days even though he was taking the extra money that’s paid as a Shadow Minister.
Rupert Murdoch makes Eddie Obeid look like a saint.
Abbott’s comments about the Howard govt being past its prime in 2007 are being replayed in news breaks. it should be seized upon by team Labor
“@latikambourke: Okay, #Abbottbus has landed at a business on the Central Coast called TrendPac. High-vis hair net territory! #ausvotes”
No doubt presser coming soon.
Mari bright side of bug keeping you home. No running into the Rabbott circus
An advert showing all the current shadow coaliton ministers and the caption with Abbott’s words that the Howard govt was past its prime in 2007, and showing the same people in 2013
another piece of wonderfull budget balancing by John Howard
[Michael Tull @Michtull 3m @zerogeewhiz @ben_hr Terrible deal for taxpayers. Airport sold for $5.6b. Raised $8b revenue since then. No tax paid. Now worth around $13b.]
@BBCWorld: US president & Australian PM discuss possible responses to #Syria’s reported use of chemical weapons over the phone http://t.co/m8GBzIejNt
Don’t bother to check the facts. Is this Iraq all over again?
Toff
A difference. We know WMD used this time.
@BernardKeane: How much do Australians trust the media’s election coverage? A handy guide from Essential: http://t.co/Sr2Jd26yYh
Aussie
thanks yes my daughter has been giving me Gatorade, good stuff
Guytaur 159
If I thought I could give the bugger it I would go no more worthy receptient I could think of
PMKR presser coming up from Sydney Harbour.
Betfair: Not much volume but the last price matched was $12.50 for ALP. Now “only” $12.00 on offer, $1.08 LNP. These odds are staggering 11 days out. Sportingbet is holding at 1.05/10.00 but adding in their margins would get similar to betfair’s underlying odds, namely around 92.5%/8.5%. And imo even this flatters the ALP.
@kimogrady1: ’24hr news cycle’ now means that everything you see on the interwebs will be in the mainstream news in 24hrs
Mari
👿 👿 👿
A few of us here would be cheering you on
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PMKR presser now
[One of former treasurer Wayne Swan’s toughest critics has turned on the Coalition, saying Australians should be alarmed by the possibility an Abbott government would take a decade to return the budget to a strong surplus.
Stephen Anthony, head of Canberra-based budget forecasting firm Macro- economics, said the opposition’’s fiscal strategy was “very troubling” given what he described as a “complete and utter lack of detail.”
……………..
Mr Anthony – who correctly warned last year of the vulnerabilities in Mr Swan’s ill-fated promise to deliver a surplus in 2012-13 – said Mr Abbott’s timetable was inconsistent with the Coalition’s bipartisan support for maintaining budget balance over the economic cycle.
Mr Abbott’s failure to provide a hard budget target meant “that essentially we’re rudderless for a decade”.
“That’s not good,” he said.]
http://www.afr.com/p/national/abbott_under_fire_over_surplus_4ugXfvsmNWGW6JWQ0lzXmL
‘ it should be seized upon by team Labor’
Unfortunately seizing upon stuff – and there’s been plenty of it – is not one of team Labor’s strong points.
‘rudderless for a decade’
Crikey, what a line.
Australia, do you really want to be Rudderless for a decade?
Rosemour I think Labor’s problem is that too many people only hear “blah, blah, blah” when the team talks. They have so badly handled selling their story that is the point we are at.
Kim Carr
Looks ready to bellow into the microphones
I’m not watching Rudd on TV but betcha that his press conference is all about Aust’s (ie Kev’s) importance to the world community. The events in Syria are appalling, beyond words, but he has dreamed of being internationally relevant for years and really thinks that the US will need him to determine action:
‘”For those reasons, the international community must now come together. We on the UN Security Council will do everything we can to forge a consensus.”
Mr Rudd says Australia will have a significant role in responding to Syria because it takes over the presidency of the UN Security Council on Sunday.
What poetic justice that this pompous fake fool will only get a week to play “look at me” in the UN.
[Australia, do you really want to be Rudderless for a decade?]
I can live with that just not sure I want to live with the current alternative.
guytaur
We also “knew” WMD were used in Halabja and it woz the mad mullahs wot done it.
“@kimogrady1: Rudd is moving the RAN to the north so Clive can get Titanic II into Sydney”
Abbott is right of course.
Not only was the Howard Government past its prime but many of the its past its prime ministers are six years older.
bit of a shame kim carr didnt last long in front of the microphones
poroti
We have seen video of the attack. I make no judgement on who made the attack. All I can say if there is any failure to ascertain facts that is where it will be.
https://theconversation.com/factcheck-labors-if-abbott-wins-you-lose-attack-ad-17262
it is not a scare campaign when it’s the truth.
I hope the US doesn’t act without UN approval. We don’t need to go down that route again.
Why should ABC Presenters be paid a full PPL Scheme… but not a janitor?
Why should the PM’s staff double dip on a PPL Scheme… but a factory worker misses out?
Why should a Labor politician get a full PPL Scheme… but the voters miss out?
Tony Abbott is right… Labor are all spin, don’t even believe in their own talking points.
sean
Janitor?
Putting aside Meguire Bob, I think most Labor people here are pretty realistic about what will transpire on September 7.
Rudd inherited a hospital pass from Gillard, too much damage had been done to the Labor brand beforehand, especially in NSW( you can not blame Rudd for Eddie Obeid/Ian McDonald).
The best Labor can do is try and limit the size of Abbott’s victory, and that means sandbagging their own marginal seats(and a few less marginal ones).
Meguire Bob: I admire his optimism, but honestly most of the stuff he puts on this blog is frankly bordering on the delusional.
As for Sean Tisme: He is just here to troll on behalf of Tony Abbott, very easy to ignore, ditto for Mick77
[sean
Janitor?]
well picked up Victoria. The question now is, is Sean:
(a) one of the US tea party republicans the libs get out to help at Menzies House?
(b) one of the far right lib loons who has spent time helping US tea party loons’ campaigns?
(c) Rupert Murdoch?
Evan
Internal polling is closer to what we have seen from Essential from what we hear. So its too close to call. PMKR on subject says watch MediaWatch
“@gabriellechan: Rudd: Sandbagging seats in the Oz? have a look at mediawatch last night and form your own conclusions about fairness of coverage.”
The punters just love Abbott’s Internet.
Watch this vid: http://abbottsinternet.com.au/
davidwh
[I hope the US doesn’t act without UN approval.]
Fortunately the UN doesn’t rule the world. If it did you’d have such luminaries as Togo, Pakistan and Rwanda, all fellow members on the UNSC, together with our very own pair of schmucks Rudd & Carr, determining world issues, plus of course those paragons of human rights and democracy Russia and China. Who do you choose – UN or US/UK etc?
sf
Yep. It was a dead give away. Dear Sean has been caught out
[Australia, do you really want to be Rudderless for a decade?]
I’d quite like to be Ruddless for all eternity.
“@gabriellechan: Rudd: Abbott’s cuts to hospitals, schools, NBN, to pay for PPL. Can’t believe he will whack pensioners, self-funded retirees. #ausvotes”
Dont knock Meguire Bob. I love his work.
Sure, he’s a bit like our very own Iraqi Information Minister, but he’s NOT FOR SURRENDER.
And I respect that.
“@MikeCarlton01: Bill Peach, star of ABC-TV’s This Day Tonight, great bloke and great Australian, died of cancer this morning at 3.30am. A good mate gone.”