Election plus two weeks

A deep look at federal election swings, plus a few meagre snippets of post-election polling news.

Two points to emerge from our friends in the polling community, which passed notice while I’ve been diverted by close counts:

• ReachTEL has published a helpful table illustrating pollster accuracy, which is sporting of them given the attention it calls to the eye-watering accuracy of Newspoll. However, all concerned did very well in predicting a two-party preferred result which, by my back-of-envelope reading, will ultimately settle at around 50.5-49.5 to the Coalition. Essential and especially Ipsos overshot on support for the Greens, with the latter landing around 2% too low for both major parties, but the only other substantial errors involved the balance of support between the Liberals and the Nationals, which I don’t regard as particularly important. Electorate polls were a different matter, and will be looked at in greater detail when all the results are in.

• On the Tuesday evening following the election, Roy Morgan conducted an SMS poll poll from 3587 respondents on leadership approval. The poll had Malcolm Turnbull with a narrow 51-47 lead as preferred prime minister, which the Morgan release sets up for comparison with a 57-24 result from May. However, the May result was an interviewer-administered phone poll, a method evidently less conducive to a “neither/can’t say” response. The poll also found Malcolm Turnbull leading Tony Abbott by 71-25 as preferred Liberal leader, and Anthony Albanese leading Bill Shorten 49-48 for Labor.

Now to an exercise I’ve conducted to get a clearer sense of what sort of areas did and didn’t swing. The chart below shows results of a regression analysis on 6582 polling booth results in which two-party swing data was available, which excludes the 14 electorates where the AEC’s two-party count is not between Labor and the Coalition. The purpose here is to discern if the swing to Labor was more or less evident in areas with particular demographic characteristics. The results record a big move back to Labor in the ever-volatile mortgage belts; an apparent failure of the Abbott-to-Turnbull leadership switch to improve the Coalition’s standing in ethnic communities; and better swing results for the Coalition where voters were wealthier and better educated, and – perhaps more surprisingly – older.

2016-07-17-regression

After the constant and starting with “Age”, the table lists the associations between polling booth swings to the Coalition, which in practice usually means negative results recording swings to Labor, and five demographic variables for the census districts in which the booths were located. All but one of these variables, English spoken at home, records a statistically significant association with the swing, as indicated by a score of less than .05 in the significance column on the right. The “B” coefficient of .001 for “Age” tells us that areas with a median age of 40 would generally swing 1% more favourably for the Coalition than areas with a median age of 30. “MFY” stands for median weekly family income and is measured in thousands, so the coefficient means swings tended to be 0.3% stronger for the Coalition for every $1000 of average household income. “School” represents the percentage of the 18-plus population who had completed high school, every point of which associates with nearly 0.1% of swing in favour of the Coalition. Conversely, Labor did 0.02% better for every percentage point of mortgaged dwellings.

The five demographic variables are followed by geographic ones that are there to ensure the results for the demographic variables aren’t influenced by regional differences in the swing, particularly those from state to state. Sydney is excluded so it works as a baseline, so the coefficient for Melbourne tells us that the Coalition would typically do 2.6% better there than at a demographically identical booth in Sydney. Finally, two variables are listed to control for retiring member and sophomore surge effects, which prove to be significant in both cases. “LNPgain” was coded 1 where the candidate was a Coalition sophomore and -1 where a Coalition member was retiring; vice-versa in the case of Labor sophomores and retirees; and zero where neither applied. “ALPloss” was coded 1 where Labor lost the seat in 2013 and 0 otherwise, to measure the boost to the sophomore effect in seats where Labor had a sitting member defending last time. The results suggest Coalition members who won their seats from Labor in 2013 did 2.2% better in swing terms than other Coalition candidates, which reduces to 0.5% in seats where they were replacing retiring Coalition members.

To observe these effects in action, the four tables below identify the 15 highest and lowest ranked electorates by the four statistically significant demographic indicators, and show their two-party swings to the Coalition where available. The lowest education electorates, all of which are regional, were 4.0% worse for the Coalition than those at the top of the scale, of which all apart from Fenner in the ACT are near the centres of the largest cities. Median age was more of a mixed bag — old electorates are regional, but the young ones encompass inner cities, mortgage belts, enclaves, a defence town and the largely indigenous seat of Lingiari. Nonetheless, the distinction here is as great as it was for education, and not in the direction that might have been anticipated from a touted backlash over superannuation policy.

2016-07-17-tables-B

The lowest income electorates, all of which are regional other than two in Sydney, recorded an average 3.5% swing to Labor, only slightly above the national result. But the results for the Liberals were well above average among the wealthiest electorates, over half of which swung in the Coalition’s favour. The mortgage effect is more modest, with 2.8% separating the averages for the top and bottom fifteen. Electorates at the top end of the mortgaged dwellings table are all in the outer suburbs of big cities, but the bottom end is a dissonant mix of regional and inner-city areas, producing a wide range of swing results.

The extent to which this exercise actually explains the results is illustrated by the chart below. For each electorate, the result the model would have predicted is plotted on the horizontal axis, and the actual result is plotted on the vertical. The electorates identified by name are those where the Coalition most under-performed or over-performed the prediction. Keep in mind that this accounts for regional as well as demographic factors, so Lyons shows up as a strong Liberal performance because the swing there was lower than in the other three Tasmanian seats included (remember Denison is not included due to its lack of two-party swing figures). Most electorates’ results were within 2% of the prediction, but a good many had results where alternative explanations are substantially required.

2016-07-17-model-B

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.

1,112 comments on “Election plus two weeks”

Comments Page 5 of 23
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  1. ctar1 @ #171 Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    It was said that Turnbull’s $1,000,000 donation is not tax deductible.
    A commentor on here (C@?) suggested that this may be due to Turnbull paying the absolute minimum of tax here is delicious.
    Learnt from Kerry Packer?

    It is also out of his accumulated wealth isn’t it? And we don’t have a wealth tax as far as I am aware.

  2. IMHO Biden is not here just to have a happy time with his grandchildren.
    Something more serious is cooking with the J.Bishop & M. Turnbull meetings to come.
    Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will.

  3. If postal votes are expensive and a poor ROI, maybe the ALP could just confine themselves to a postal vote project targeting the near marginal seats only at the next election. It would still be worth seeing if they can diminish the LNP’s seeming hold on postals.

  4. Booleanbach

    IMHO Biden is not here just to have a happy time with his grandchildren.
    Something more serious is cooking with the J.Bishop & M. Turnbull meetings to come.

    He will no doubt report back that there is less to Turnbull than meets the eye.

  5. The level of Turnbull’s taxable income shouldn’t effect whether a donation is deductible. However if Turnbull obtains a benefit from the donation, which would be the case, then the deduction is not allowable.

  9. Card trick.

    PO is right about the black colour of the table cloth being critical. But wrong about the mechanics after that.

    It is a straight masking trick, but superbly done. If you could see it from the performer’s perspective or in the right light it would be obvious.

    Watch it at 1/10th speed. There are several clues in the first 45 seconds.

  12. I agree that there is something more to the Biden visit – it was rranged only recently. I imagine it has something to do with China and/or the TPP

  13. Just Me

    PO is right about the black colour of the table cloth being critical. But wrong about the mechanics after that.

    Not so. If you look carefully, you can even see some of the black cards left on the tabletop, since they end up hanging over the edge of the table.

    Of course, there are other things involved as well. But black-backed cards is the main one.

  17. “NewsPoll tonight or monday ?” Almost certainly the Libs won’t be ahead – similar to Essential, probably.

  20. zoidlord

    Ben Cubby‏ @bencubby
    PM Malcolm Turnbull accused of ‘betraying’ the poor. …

    😆 To use the word “betrayal” one would have to first be under the wacko idea that Truffles had and allegiance to “the poor” .

  21. My grand daughter is two years old, where did that time go? She had a good birthday party. Of course it is Summer in London now.

  22. I’ve reached for my tin-foil hat and I’m lining up with those who say the Turkish coup was a staged event. I mean, where are the “ringleaders?” Aren’t you supposed to parade the ringleaders before the cameras by this stage? Sounds like a few agent provocateurs got some idiots in the military to go overboard. Now we get the counter-coup.

  24. Turkey – I think it would be difficult to not be suspicious given the way the ‘coup’ unfolded. But if it wasn’t what Erdogan has made it out to be it doesn’t matter what we think – it would have been for domestic purposes.

    I worry for Turkey, though. Things look a bit (more) grim for a secular liberal democracy in Turkey.

  25. PO

    Three clues:

    1.
    Cards are not sitting right for the apparent geometry of the table, as defined by the edges.

    Check the first card he deals, the Ace of Spades. It is sitting high compared to the edges, especially when he later places it in the centre at 28.83.

    Also check the back edge, towards each corner. It is not completely flat. There is a slight rise that is inconsistent with the geometry of a plain rectangle table.

    2.
    A number of times, for just a few frames, the corner of a card suddenly has a cut out of it, that changes as the card moves, as though briefly moving behind something. The edge of the cut is much sharper than the blurred moving edge of the card, meaning the cut edge is stationary relative to the camera.

    In particular, check out the front/bottom left corner of the Ace of Clubs as it moves from 23.12 – 23.83 seconds. Note the slight curve of the masking edge right near the end.

    He is working with more than one edge too. Check same corner of same card at 26.16, and the two left hand corners at 26.29 – 26.58.

    3.
    You are right that he is flipping cards, sometimes. But I reckon the cards are pre-folded into the table cloth. He is flipping a fold in the table cloth to expose the card. Watch his ring and little fingers from 25.7 – 26.7.

    (He has two folds he can us , a back fold towards him, and a forward fold away from him. For a back fold he simply pulls the card from under it, leaving the fold in place, or for a forward fold he flips the fold back to expose the card.)

    That apparent flip at 22.45 – 23.10 with the Ace of Spades looks like a straight pull from under a back fold to me.

    Watch the movement of his left hand starting at 40 s, just before he deals the queen of diamonds. He is not turning that card after picking it up. That’s a straight pick up from under a fold.

    ——————-

    Those cut edges are weird. The table itself may be modified with some kind of shelves or hoods to mask stuff. Maybe a mirror or two.

    Pretty sure all the trick cards are ‘on’ the table before the trick even starts.

  26. Also the Ace of Diamonds at 26.54 briefly has a big chunk masked off the back/upper corner, which looks to me like black table cloth.

  27. JACKOL – I thought the whole purpose of a coup was to grab and neutralise the leader. These guys launched a coup when he’s on holiday and nobody, it seems, tries to secure him. Get out of it …

  28. There is not a shred of hard evidence that Erdogan staged the coup.
    There is evidence that Erdogan is systematically destroying democracy in Turkey.
    It is likely that Erdogan was prepared for a coup.
    It is likely that he had his lists of soldiers and judges ready and simply took advantage of the opportunity.
    All that said, Erdogan appears have majority popular support in Turkey…
    if you do not count Turkey’s Kurds in the anti-column, that is.

  30. boerwar @ #228 Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 8:23 pm

    There is not a shred of hard evidence that Erdogan staged the coup.
    There is evidence that Erdogan is systematically destroying democracy in Turkey.
    It is likely that Erdogan was prepared for a coup.
    It is likely that he had his lists of soldiers and judges ready and simply took advantage of the opportunity.
    All that said, Erdogan appears have majority popular support in Turkey…
    if you do not count Turkey’s Kurds in the anti-column, that is.

    I was a little bit surprised at how quickly the Kurdish Party denounced the coup. I would have thought they might have just waited a bit more before going to press.

  31. The failure of the coup was obvious fairly quickly, so I am not surprised that everyone worked out what was going to happen next and decided they needed to make sure they didn’t look like they were on the wrong side.

    Besides, history shows the Kurds get a raw deal whoever is in power. As far as it goes they probably see being on the side of democracy – as everyone, including Erdogan, is loudly proclaiming themselves to be – in the hope that the rhetoric survives whatever Erdogan has in store for Turkey.

  32. It wasn’t just unpopular. All the opposition parties condemned it too.
    And they would. If any of them gave legitimacy to this coup, they know when they’re in government, the same could happen to them.

    Erdogan didn’t need to make a fake coup when he could take advantage of one that was bound to happen.

  33. The HDP (not just a Kurd party 😛 more like a catch-all minorities party) is likely strongly pro-democracy as they can air their concerns more loudly about the massive issues occurring in Kurdish areas of Turkey. Under a military junta, would that occur? Likely not.

  34. Raaraa – Why was it bound to happen? Indeed, everyone is shocked that it happened. Everyone thought Turkey was over coups. It appears that a couple of thousand soldiers who had no support in the military (the chief of the military was kidnapped – oh, really?) did a bit of shooting and then got arrested. Then, all of a sudden, Erdogan arrests 6,000 opponents. Ah, how convenient. I mean, at the least, you would expect the leader of the coup to go on TV and announce his plans. But who the hell was the leader? We still don’t know. Where are the ring-leaders. At the moment, there is something very fake about the whole thing. The theory goes that Erdogan agent provocateurs in the military convinced a few idiots to launch the coup. That does (at the moment) seem to fit a lot of the facts.

  35. If any of them gave legitimacy to this coup, they know when they’re in government, the same could happen to them.

    I’m sure this thought was in the mix somewhere, but I doubt it was the overriding immediate concern.

    Erdogan didn’t need to make a fake coup when he could take advantage of one that was bound to happen.

    ‘that was bound to happen’ – not so sure on this; of course they would have been fools not to consider the possibility given Turkey’s political history, but the military had certainly been quite docile in terms of politics of late, and I doubt this was just an attempt to lull the government into a false sense of security. And the fact that the coup, if a genuine attempt, was so singularly and utterly inept. Sure, incompetence is always a distinctly plausible explanation, but this will have been in a league of its own as far as hopelessness goes.

    I can well believe that the government planned for a distinctly possible coup. The question is whether having done all that wonderful planning did the military fail to live up to expectations? Did they need a bit of a helping hand to kick things off? Yes, tinfoil hat. I don’t know. It certainly seems altogether too conveniently sewn up by Erdogan within 24 hours. Maybe we’ll get more impartial views somewhere down the track; maybe not. It probably doesn’t matter now because Erdogan has certainly seized the advantage and is playing the strongman hand perfectly.

  36. http://edbc.sa.gov.au/index.php

    There is a redistribution in SA occurring atm, and the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission has released some preliminary maps (before the official date, too!) mostly focusing on rural electorates. Port Pirie has been redistributed out of Frome (which will mean it’s harder for Brock to be reelected) and many boundary changes in the southeast of SA).

  37. “It was said that Turnbull’s $1,000,000 donation is not tax deductible.
    A commentor on here (C@?) suggested that this may be due to Turnbull paying the absolute minimum of tax here is delicious.
    Learnt from Kerry Packer?”

    Turnbull’s job with Packer was help to legally avoid tax. he made is first fortune doing this. his role as a merchant banker would have involved helping mega rich corporations making ‘tax effective’ investments (i.e. tax write offs that run at a loss for five years but have appreciating assets, and see the mug taxpayer subsidise the wealthy to accumulate more wealth). Labor did not make enough of his tax dodging ways.

  38. sustainable future @ #237 Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 10:15 pm

    “It was said that Turnbull’s $1,000,000 donation is not tax deductible.
    A commentor on here (C@?) suggested that this may be due to Turnbull paying the absolute minimum of tax here is delicious.
    Learnt from Kerry Packer?”

    I wonder if a politician giving money to an election campaign where their own job is on the line is tax deductible – not as a political donation but as a work-related expense.

  39. Watch the movement of his left hand starting at 40 s, just before he deals the queen of diamonds. He is not turning that card after picking it up. That’s a straight pick up from under a fold.

    Sorry I must have missed something up-thread. I know Bemused doesn’t like people coming late to a blog, and asking all kinds of questions they needn’t ask if they just read back 30 pages or so, but…

    Are you talking about some card trick magician or Malcolm Turnbull?

  43. ctar1 @ 3:02
    “It was said that Turnbull’s $1,000,000 donation is not tax deductible.
    A commentor on here (C@?) suggested that this may be due to Turnbull paying the absolute minimum of tax here is delicious.

    It’s because there’s an annual $1,500 limit to the tax deduction, which is obviously almost nothing compared to the actual $1m donation.

  44. Very well spotted, Just Me.

    I tend to let these things just wash over me. I’d be a perfect stooge called up from the audience.

  49. kevin-one-seven @ #234 Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 9:40 pm

    Raaraa – Why was it bound to happen? Indeed, everyone is shocked that it happened. Everyone thought Turkey was over coups. It appears that a couple of thousand soldiers who had no support in the military (the chief of the military was kidnapped – oh, really?) did a bit of shooting and then got arrested. Then, all of a sudden, Erdogan arrests 6,000 opponents. Ah, how convenient. I mean, at the least, you would expect the leader of the coup to go on TV and announce his plans. But who the hell was the leader? We still don’t know. Where are the ring-leaders. At the moment, there is something very fake about the whole thing. The theory goes that Erdogan agent provocateurs in the military convinced a few idiots to launch the coup. That does (at the moment) seem to fit a lot of the facts.

    Well not specifically in the nature of a coup, but there has been plenty of incidents along the way such as bombings by both separatists and IS sympathisers. Plus the fact that the constitution actually worded to allow a takeover by military…..

    There are too many unknowns and with the nature of the media control now, we won’t know for a while.

  50. Sorry, poor effort this morning.

    “What has the government learned from the election outcome? To listen better. Well, who’s it listening to?”
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/acoss-gears-up-to-fight-coalition-betrayal-on-superannuation-and-welfare-cuts-20160717-gq7j3t.html
    “When you think of how far we have come, and at what cost, and with what faith, to just turn it all over to this monstrous clown with a monstrous ego, with no experience, never served his country in any way – it’s just crazy.”
    http://www.theage.com.au/world/donald-trump-cuts-out-middlemen-to-become-the-uber-of-rightwing-politics-20160715-gq6ekc.html
    Bubup Wilam, “Children’s Place” in Woi Wurrung language, is one of 35 Aboriginal early childhood centres built around Australia through a national “Close the Gap” funding agreement.
    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/indigenous-disadvantage-aboriginal-childrens-centre-at-risk-20160714-gq5ysk.html
    Vanstone: Dragging a party from certain devastating defeat to governing in your own right and with a more manageable Senate seems like an incredible achievement to me.
    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/malcolm-turnbull-saved-the-coalition-from-an-election-wipeout-20160715-gq6ejr.html
    Taxpayers are shelling out for a $1000-a-month yoga teacher for politicians and Parliament House staff.
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/dharma-bums-politicians-charging-taxpayers-for-yoga-classes-20160714-gq5utv.html
    Gittins: It’s remarkable to realise that, while Labor has been working hard to house-train its left wing, the Libs have been drifting further to the right, allowing extremists to dominate its state branches and more and more hard-liners to be elected to the parliamentary party.
    http://www.theage.com.au/business/insight/liberals-ignore-the-moderate-middle-at-their-peril-20160716-gq761k.html
    The review of 224 snack bars identified brands like Kellogg’s and Aldi as some of the worst offenders, when it came to disguising excessive added sugars as fruit.
    http://www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/snack-bars-marketed-with-images-of-fruit-contain-minimal-actual-fruit-choice-20160715-gq6n7e.html
    Fairfax Media spotted farcical claims on labels, such as “Suitable for vegetarians and vegans” on Aldi’s Northbrook spring water.
    http://www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/bottled-water-producer-admits-consumers-paying-for-plastic-not-pure-safe-water-20160715-gq6oif.html

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