The only new federal polling result we look to be getting this week, the regularly fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research, has Labor up a point on two-party preferred to lead 53-47, as the bad result which saw them drop two points a fortnight ago washes out of the system. On the primary vote, Labor is up two to 40% and the Coalition down one to 39%, with the Greens and Palmer United steady on 9% and 6%. We also have Essential’s monthly leader approval ratings, which have Tony Abbott down one on approval to 34% and steady on disapproval at 58%, Bill Shorten down two to 36% and down one to 39%, and Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister shifting from 40-36 to 37-34. Other questions find approval of the government’s handling of boat arrivals up two since March to 41% and disapproval down three to 35%, with 27% thinking the government too tough, 18% too soft, and 36% “taking the right approach”. Another result suggests paring back the disability support pension to be a relatively popular cost-cutting measure, with 46% supporting recent recommendations to that effect and 37% opposed.
zoomster and Astrobleme
In other words if you are going to argue past results to indicate trends use definitive data provided by election resulis
Surely Bludgers cannot be serious that all polling and elections from the past hold the same value.
There are many different factors, variables and circumstances that relate to each election.
I believe that an assessment of that the Greens will poll lower in an election than in polls is a deadly accurate one 😎
According to Wikipedia the “Contiguous Zone”, supposedly where picked up , is described as.
[The contiguous zone is a band of water extending from the outer edge of the territorial sea to up to 24 nautical miles (44.4 km; 27.6 mi) from the baseline, within which a state can exert limited control for the purpose of preventing or punishing “infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea”. ]
deblonay
The high Greens vote in the WA senate re-election was due to two things:
1 The Greens having a high profile, popular candidate in Ludlam, and
2 The ALP having a complete dud of a candidate in Joe Bullock.
I also had a look at the proportion of Newspolls that overestimated the Greens vote in each federal election cycle:
1998 – 12.8%
2001 – 3.8%
2004 – 18.1%
2007 – 6.3%
2010 – 26.2%
2013 – 98.6%
So for all elections before 2013, the Green actually get a higher vote in the election than in the majority of polls – 2013 is the outlier. It’s possible that things could continue in the future as in 2013, or return to how they had been before, or somewhere in between – but it’s not really possible to tell from the data alone. The state election results may give a clue, however.
Centre
What you are saying is that polls have a bias to the Greens. Thus when discussing past results elections count polling does not.
Where there is a difference its the pollsters who are out not the election result
Guytaur
[In other words if you are going to argue past results to indicate trends use definitive data provided by election resulis]
Well that’s not really Zoomster’s theory, which was that the Greens tend to poll lower at elections than the Newspoll polling for some prior undefined period of time (apparently we don’t need to define a time).
And that the Greens vote tends to decline over the electoral cycle, from a peak near the start.
I think that is what she is saying.
And they do that, guytaur, because the closer we get to an election, the more we think about the way we’re going to vote and the more serious we are about it.
Which is part of my argument – when your answer doesn’t really matter, and you’re asked how you’re going to vote, you’re more likely to say “Green”.
When you’ve thought about it, when it’s more serious and when it actually does matter, you’re less likely to.
Thanks Dendrite.
Interesting.
I would suggest that there are events that happen during an electoral cycle that changes peoples voting patterns. AND that the future events that will change peoples voting patterns are not currently known.
Guytaur
No.
I am saying that when people walk into a voting booth they decide to either get fair dinkum or that they want their vote to count 😎
sohar
[All these polls Fredex posted re the Libs over the past 7 years have a ’4′ in front, lately a ’3′ has become the norm. The trend is not Tony’s new best friend, that’s for sure.]
So I had the Newspoll page still open so here are the COALition primary results for 2014, starting with Feb -> now
41
39
41
40
43
38
36
36
37
35
Astro
I hope you realise that you’ve actually contradicted yourself – you say I don’t specify the period of time and then admit that I’ve said ‘over the election cycle’ – which is a period of time.
Zoomster
[Which is part of my argument – when your answer doesn’t really matter, and you’re asked how you’re going to vote, you’re more likely to say “Green”.
When you’ve thought about it, when it’s more serious and when it actually does matter, you’re less likely to.]
So you actually need to look at the data, or conduct interviews etc. Otherwise you are just re-stating what may be a common myth.
Dendrite did above.
Zoomster gets it.
The Full Mooners don’t 😛
Leaving aside WW2, the major issues today are:
(1) is the FTA with Japan in the national interest?
(2) is Abbott’s foreign policy with respect to Japan in the national interest?
With respect to (1), as with so much done by this Government, we don’t know because the devil will be in the detail.
With respect to (2), Abbott’s foreign policy with respect to Japan is arguably not at all in the national interest: the reasons are:
(1) Japan is undergoing a lurch to the militaristic right. It is re-arming. It has changed its pacifist constitution and there are some ultra-nationalistic ratbags with screws loose. While it is arguable that Japan is behaving with commendable firmness in the face of Chinese assertiveness, it is equably arguable that Abe’s repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and, de facto, honouring convicted war criminals of the worst sort, are extremely provocative to everyone in Asia and the US but, not, apparently, to Australia. Abbott should find it provocative. But he does not.
(2) The hypocrisy of Abe giving his condolences to those who died in WW2 in a joint-sitting of our parliaments is breathtaking. As a true gesture of condolences, peace and reconciliation, Abbott could have asked for the Burma Railroad locomotive to be removed from the Yasukuni Shrine, for example. Abbott, instead, sleazes along with it because he is so desperate to look that which he is not: a decent prime minister with appropriate gravitas. However, it is consistent with various other approaches to war crimes and the like by this Government: recall the comments about Sri Lanka, for example.
(3) Calling Japan Australia’s ‘best friend’ in Asia immediately downgrades our relationship with every other Asian nation.
Zoomster
actually you contradicted yourself. I suggested you needed to define a time period.
Me:
[Just thinking about this, you also need to frame it in time. So is it in relation to the polling just before? Or a couple of months before? Also you may need to look at each polling method.]
You:
[No, I don’t. As a simple statement, it holds true.
I have already shown the data I’ve based it on, including a spread of figures over time, and made a general rule about it – that Greens tend to poll better (at least on Newspoll) a couple of years out from an election, and then decline.]
I guessed from this you meant over the electoral cycle. Even though you say firstly that you don’t need to define a time, then say ‘a couple of years’.
Cor Blimey, the Greens and their one per cent here and their one per cent there: most of that stuff is within the MOE.
I liked it better when rummel, tinny, Ron and Psephos were livening the place up.
@BW/115
It also links us up with America.
Zoomster
I have no idea what you are talking about. i was using Williams data (on this blog – and making a rough estimate visulally)
What is dishonest about that
The vote data is senate data – from Wikipaedia
Thanks, Fredex @ 111. You’d think a few Libs would be getting nervous by now.
Norm of Non-Refoulement….
1 Does the Norm Apply?
“Under the Coalition’s policy, Australian officers, acting on behalf of the state, will be asserting control over asylum vessels and the individuals on board. This continuous physical control will extend to dictating the direction in which the vessels travel and may result in the removal of individuals onto Australian flagged vessels. This conduct amounts to an assertion of effective control and triggers the obligations flowing from the extraterritorial norm of non-refoulement.”
https://law.anu.edu.au/sites/all/files/acmlj/turning_their_back_on_the_law_v2.pdf
Boerwar
[Cor Blimey, the Greens and their one per cent here and their one per cent there: most of that stuff is within the MOE.]
Thanks, that’s pretty much my point. The apparent ‘under performing’ is simply MOE.
And any changes that happen during the electoral cycle are almost entirely driven by events during that cycle. The ‘general decline’ is not something that just happens.
Not sure how dendrite calculated those figures – I can’t even work out where they’ve come from.
As I’ve shown, I went through the figures leading up to the last two federal elections. Polling on Der Tag was lower than at any point during the election cycle (to recap, for example: 9% was the lowest the Greens polled prior to 2013; in 2012, their polls were in the 11/12% range, and they polled higher than this in 2011).
dtt
you started this discussion by emoting about what the Newspoll quarterly figures meant – predicting a rise in both the Green and PUP vote using them.
You’ve now apparently switched to Bludgertrack, which is fine by me.
I assume you now also admit that neither PUP or the Greens are anything for the ALP to worry about?
Zoomster
PUP is getting the protest vote not Greens.
therefore that affect more likely to apply to PUP than Greens now. Only election results will tell us if that is right or not.
A nice Kudelka cartoon. Couldn’t get a large version. Abbott and Morrison in a light house.
.
Abbot: What did the High Court say ?
.
Morrison: They said “Stop The Boats”
Astro
and the biggest event during the cycle is the election itself.
When they get to it, people don’t worry about what they’ve told the pollsters, and get serious.
Zoomster
Do you agree with Fredex’s figures? He had the last three elections and the three newspolls before polling day.
guytaur
a rise of 2% in the Greens vote versus 1% for PUP doesn’t bear that out.
Zoomster
[When they get to it, people don’t worry about what they’ve told the pollsters, and get serious.]
AHhhhhh so this is the point of this ‘analysis’
Right.
Fredex,
It looks like the first five polls of the year had the Libs averaging 40.8, and the last five 36.4. A very substantial drop over a short period.
zoomster
I disagree. We will see come an election. Last was WA Senate next Victorian State. Hard data to test against your claim now their is a new player in the game
Zoomster @123
I’m using the federal Newspoll green vote from the same place you linked to.
For 2013, one poll (Newspoll 31 August – 2 September 2012) before the election was at 8% (hence my 98.6% overestimation rate).
There were many, many polls before the 2010 election that underestimated the Greens vote (which was 11.8%: during the 2008-2009 period, most polls were in the 9-12 range, only seriously rising above this range after May 2010).
For my post at 105, all I did was count the number of Newspolls in each election cycle that overestimated the Greens result and divide by the total number of Newspolls.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/asylum-seekers-face-court-in-sri-lanka-20140708-3bkrg.html
Note the small child in the photo!
Regarding Greens polling, and without having read every comment on the subject: there is a general tendency for the Greens to fall short of what polling predicts for them. There are a number of ways you can interpret this. There could be a bias towards them in the polls – a “loud Greens” effect, perhaps, to counter the supposed “shy Tory” effect, since people who are of the left are generally pretty happy to let you know about it. Or it could be that people who tell pollsters they will vote for them either get cold feet or don’t show up on the day, perhaps owing to the effects of chronic marijuana usage. To the extent that it’s the latter, Zoomster may have a point.
There seems to be legal argument that the “arresting” of the ship by Australian authorities means they have a right to be assessed (on shore) even if they have not entered Australian territorial waters.
link to book here
At least compare some kind of similarity with similarity?
What were the Greens polling some 2 years before the 2013 election on Newspoll?
I think around 10-11% and Labor were in real trouble (leadershit) which means the Greens vote should have gone up.
So what happened to the Greens vote on 2013 election day?
Yeah, peak puny!
As a rule of thumb for now, just deduct 15% off Newspoll for an election estimate 😎
*stay loony
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/gosford-anglican-churchs-father-rod-bower-and-his-signs-of-the-times-20140707-zsz5z.html
Father Rod Bower is a gem with his signs outside the Anglican Church in Gosford.
The happy clappy Christian? Immigration Minister could take a look out of his book.
Thanks, dendrite.
I admit my methodology – because I wasn’t trying to write a thesis! – was more hit and miss. I didn’t bother looking at every poll result, but sampled half a dozen from each year, and used that as a guide.
Astro
as for Fredex’s figures, using the last three or four Newspolls before an election is a bit misleading, as they poll much more frequently. So the last four newspolls leading up to the election in 2013 are all from August.
I’m really not sure why you’re making such a fuss, and all the more if you think what I’m saying is meaningless.
I can only think I’ve hit some kind of nerve.
Puff, the Magic Dragon @ 85
[the Japanese tropos act of machine-gunning the nurses has to be particularly heinous.]
As reprehensible as it was, that is the past. The problem now is that the Japanese people do not acknowledge that past. They have whitewashed it all from the consciousness and that is heinous now.
It is said that those who can’t/won’t learn from their past are doomed to repeat it. This is why I think we should be very wary of Japan rearming.
Zoomster
[and the biggest event during the cycle is the election itself.]
I would disagree with this too.
Who knows what the biggest event would be in an election cycle.
William
I am happy to go with the excessive marijuana usage – a point which had not occured to me..
Astro
as I’ve said, if you’re not willing to accept that polls mean anything at all, you shouldn’t be on a pseph site.
William
[there is a general tendency for the Greens to fall short of what polling predicts for them.]
You’d need to define a time period for this. So is it they fall short within the average of the last three months before the election, etc. Otherwise it’s just vague and arm-wavy.
[There are a number of ways you can interpret this.]
I would suggest there are more than two. You’d probably also need to consider the spend by parties on advertising. The presence at polling booths too. This is why you’d need to look at a time period.
Also, it doesn’t seem to bear up to either Dendrite or Fredex’s data.
Zoomsetr
[as I’ve said, if you’re not willing to accept that polls mean anything at all, you shouldn’t be on a pseph site.]
Well, actually I never said that. I just said you couldn’t use these polls to predict the outcome of the election.
[Jason Koutsoukis Significant embarrassment for Sri Lankan authorities that one of its own elite police commandos among those remanded in custody.]
Zoomster
I am actually simply having a conversation.
[@BW/115
It also links us up with America.
by zoidlord on Jul 8, 2014 at 5:30 pm]
IMHO, not any more than we are already linked to America – although that entanglement has been enthusiastically pursued by, notably, Howard, Gillard and now Abbott.
[One of the organisers was a police commando in the elite Special Task Force supposed to prevent boats going to Australia.]
In the past, one possible reason that the Greens (or any other minor party) would do better in opinion polls than actual elections might be that they didn’t contest every electorate (although these days the Greens do). Another might be that they are thoroughly outspent by the major parties.
One tendency that I have noticed fairly consistently is a late swing to the Coalition in most elections, especially when Labor is leading. Labor landslides become comfortable wins (as in 2007), comfortable wins become cliffhangers (as in 2010) or losses (as in 1980). Whether this might be owing to the Coalition outspending Labor, a population of conservatives who flirt with the idea of switching sides but then don’t, or maybe more effective last minute campaigning on the part of the Coalition I don’t know.