Of swings and misses: episode two

Talk of a new industry body to oversee polling standards gathers pace, even as international observers wonder what all the fuss is about.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – or the Herald/Age, to adopt what is evidently Nine Newspapers’ own preferred shorthand for its Sydney and Melbourne papers – have revealed their opinion polling will be put on ice for an indefinite period. They usually do that post-election at the best of times, but evidently things are more serious now, such that we shouldn’t anticipate a resumption of its Ipsos series (which the organisation was no doubt struggling to fund in any case).

This is a shame, because Ipsos pollster Jessica Elgood has been admirably forthright in addressing what went wrong – and, importantly, in identifying the need for pollsters to observe greater transparency, a quality that has been notably lacking from the polling scene in Australia. In particular, Elgood has called for the establishment of a national polling standards body along the lines of the British Polling Council, members of which are required to publish details of their survey and weighting methods. This was echoed in a column in the Financial Review by Labor pollster John Utting, who suggests such a body might be chaired by Professor Ian McAllister of the Australian National University, who oversees the in-depth post-election Australian Election Study survey.

On that point, I may note that I had the following to say in Crikey early last year:

The very reason the British polling industry has felt compelled to observe higher standards of transparency is that it would invite ridicule if it sought to claim, as Galaxy did yesterday, that its “track record speaks for itself”. If ever the sorts of failures seen in Britain at the 2015 general election and 2016 Brexit referendum are replicated here, a day of reckoning may arrive that will shine light on the dark corners of Australian opinion polling.

Strange as it may seem though, not everyone is convinced that Australian polling really put on all that bad a show last weekend. Indeed, no less an authority than Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has just weighed in with the following:

Polls showed the conservative-led coalition trailing the Australian Labor Party approximately 51-49 in the two-party preferred vote. Instead, the conservatives won 51-49. That’s a relatively small miss: The conservatives trailed by 2 points in the polls, and instead they won by 2, making for a 4-point error. The miss was right in line with the average error from past Australian elections, which has averaged about 5 points. Given that track record, the conservatives had somewhere around a 1 in 3 chance of winning.

So the Australian media took this in stride, right? Of course not. Instead, the election was characterized as a “massive polling failure” and a “shock result”.

When journalists say stuff like that in an election after polls were so close, they’re telling on themselves. They’re revealing, like their American counterparts after 2016, that they aren’t particularly numerate and didn’t really understand what the polls said in the first place.

I’m not quite sure whether to take greater umbrage at Silver’s implication that Antony Green and Kevin Bonham “aren’t particularly numerate”, or that the are – huck, spit – “journalists”. The always prescient Dr Bonham managed a pre-emptive response:

While overseas observers like Nate Silver pour scorn on our little polling failure as a modest example of the genre and blast our media for failing to anticipate it, they do so apparently unfamiliar with just how good our national polling has been compared to polling overseas.

And therein lies the rub – we in Australia have been rather spoiled by the consistently strong performance of Newspoll’s pre-election polls especially, which have encouraged unrealistic expectations. On Saturday though, we saw the polls behaving no better, yet also no worse, than polling does generally.

Indeed, this would appear to be true even in the specifically Australian context, so long as we take a long view. Another stateside observer, Harry Enten, has somehow managed to compare Saturday’s performance with Australian polling going all the way back to 1943 (“I don’t know much about Australian politics”, Enten notes, “but I do know something about downloading spreadsheets of past poll data and calculating error rates”). Enten’s conclusion is that “the average error in the final week of polling between the top two parties in the first round” – which I take to mean the primary vote, applying the terminology of run-off voting of the non-instant variety – “has been about five points”.

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.

2,078 comments on “Of swings and misses: episode two”

Comments Page 16 of 42
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  2. Simon Katich

    I might stop buying produce from Queensland. And if they dare to put their hand out for help with drought, flood or various

    Agreed. We had been considering a family holiday there…not any more.

  3. C@t
    Yes that was his argument. He felt that in the post-religious world that there was an ethical void which we had to fill in our own way and Sisyphus had a purpose so was spared existential angst. It gets back to my earlier argument that high IQ can be a curse.


  5. C@tmomma says:
    …
    Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

    In our time is was nuclear war. Try and remember that.

    Technology is marching on, we are starting to see solutions to the problems.
    It is very depressing, but you son is in a better position than I am, he will probable see the end of this and the beginning of a concerted effort to deal with it.

  6. Romper Stomper was a classic. Unfortunately it was embraced by Neo-nazi groups around the world. What can you do? Perhaps Russell Crowe’s performance was just too good. Anyway it was a brilliant movie that crossed a lot of genres. Part Dystopian, part horror, part love story with a nod to Hong Kong action films in that famous running fight scene between the skin heads and the local Vietnamese population of Footscray.

  9. Romper Stomper was a really good movie but Leni Riefenstahl also used to make great movies. Obviously artistic merit and intellectual quality are two dimensions.

  11. It was been my observation that high IQ families have problems. It has been my constant advise to my children, we are all crazy is some way, don’t worry about it. The real crazies are the one’s that believe they are sane.

  12. This is what Bjork had to say about von Trier

    Sexual harassment allegation

    Björk made a public statement regarding von Trier’s sexual harassment during the production of Dancer in the Dark,[90] in which von Trier remains unnamed, though the Los Angeles Times has found corroboration identifying him.[91] In the Facebook posting, Björk describes the difficulties in facing his retribution: “It was extremely clear to me when I walked into the actresses profession that my humiliation and role as a lesser sexually harassed being was the norm and set in stone with the director and a staff of dozens who enabled it and encouraged it. I became aware of that it is a universal thing that a director can touch and harass his actresses at will and the institution of film allows it. When I turned the director down repeatedly he sulked and punished me and created for his team an impressive net of illusion where I was framed as the difficult one.” She also stated, “And in my opinion he had a more fair and meaningful relationship with his actresses after my confrontation so there is hope. Let’s hope this statement supports the actresses and actors all over. Let’s stop this. There is a wave of change in the world”.[90][92] Von Trier has denied the accusations made against him,[91] and Björk responded by detailing the sexual assault episodes.”

  14. The song is about relationships. About giving part of yourself for a greater purpose without losing yourself to it. It is my favourite Bjork song

  15. Dan Gulberry @ #750 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 9:43 pm

    C@tmomma @ #734 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 7:33 pm

    Douglas and Milko @ #723 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 9:30 pm

    DG,

    You beat me. Stratton thought Romper Stomper was dangerous and refused to rate it. He still stands by that assessment!

    And he was absolutely correct. It was the progenitor of the Alt-Right and the revival of race-based brutality.

    I never looked at it that way. You may have a point.

    I just thought it was a crappy movie.

    Russell Crowe is too good an actor for it to simply be a crappy movie.

  17. Yep, IF Morrison was a proper Christian he would open the doors to every impoverished person in the world, and bring them all to Australia, all 4 billion of them. That’s the logic right?
    I mean, if he were a ‘real’ Christian that is what he should do right?

    Then again if you were a ‘real’ human being wouldn’t you being getting all those homeless people and putting as many them as you could into your home and looking after them, and i don’t mean just enough to make yourself feel good about yourself, but really squeeze them in, If you were a real human being that is. And if your neighbour didn’t do the same, go knocking on their door.

  18. frednk @ #754 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 9:49 pm


    C@tmomma says:
    …
    Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

    In our time is was nuclear war. Try and remember that.

    Technology is marching on, we are starting to see solutions to the problems.
    It is very depressing, but you son is in a better position than I am, he will probable see the end of this and the beginning of a concerted effort to deal with it.

    I’ll try and remember that one tomorrow morning when he wakes up. Thank you. 🙂

  20. Diogenes @ #748 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 9:41 pm

    C@t
    He didn’t say that. He wrote The Plague as an allegory of how a society responds to a calamity and some of the medical details weren’t all they could be. It’s a very beautiful book about humanity.

    It’s been a long, long time since I read it. That was simply my recollection. 🙂

  22. Salk @ #766 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 9:57 pm

    Yep, IF Morrison was a proper Christian he would open the doors to every impoverished person in the world, and bring them all to Australia, all 4 billion of them. That’s the logic right?
    I mean, if he were a ‘real’ Christian that is what he should do right?

    Then again if you were a ‘real’ human being wouldn’t you being getting all those homeless people and putting as many them as you could into your home and looking after them, and i don’t mean just enough to make yourself feel good about yourself, but really squeeze them in, If you were a real human being that is. And if your neighbour didn’t do the same, go knocking on their door.

    So, let’s do nothing for any of them and that will make us the best Christians then, eh?

  24. People not understanding cart and horse.

    Romper Stomper and all these seemingly causative movies/music/books, TV etc are not causative in the least, they are sign posts of cultural changes that have already occurred/evolved and show the direction in which the wind is blowing. They might be flags for the changed to gather to, but in no way are they the cause.

  29. Salk @ #773 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 10:01 pm

    People not understanding cart and horse.

    Romper Stomper and all these seemingly causative movies/music/books, TV etc are not causative in the least, they are sign posts of cultural changes that have already occurred/evolved and show the direction in which the wind is blowing. They might be flags for the changed to gather to, but in no way are they the cause.

    Well, duh. The Sharpies and the Skinheads preceded them in the real world and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ in the filmic world. Which doesn’t deny the fact that Romper Stomper inspired many to take it’s ideas forward more aggressively than ever before.

  30. Confessions
    says:
    Friday, May 24, 2019 at 10:02 pm
    Not getting the Bjork love. I always thought her music was appalling.
    _________________________
    Says it all.

  31. Now if Labor had learned any lessons from the past, then after installing a new LOTO – then STFU, and leave the leader alone.

  32. @zoomster
    Friday, May 24, 2019 at 9:02 pm

    “The trouble with this kind of analysis is that both leaders had stuff ups. It’s only to be expected when someone is on public display for an extended period of time.

    If you want to place the whole credit/blame on the leaders, the analysis then has to be along the lines of “Why were Shorten’s stuff ups more damaging than Morrison’s?” “Why did Shorten’s stuff ups not matter in certain kinds of electorates but did in others?”

    I simply don’t think that there’s an answer there (part of one, perhaps – but then, “X party would have performed more strongly under a different leader” is too hypothetical a game to really be of much use).

    Yes, Labor would have done better if more people liked Shorten. But the Liberals would have done better if more people liked Morrison.”

    Maybe I’m demonstrating my clumsiness with the blog medium, to which I am reasonably new.

    I don’t blame Bill Shorten in anyway. I think he and the ALP ran a campaign based on the ‘polling’. But with hindsight, I saw red some flags and let them through to the keeper, because the polls told me trust my head not my gut.

    I don’t ascribe to the ‘people just don’t like Bill Shorten’ view – that was the reification of lazy media, taking their cue’s from the Murdochracy.

    I think back to every memorable speech delivered in Parliament over the past six years – they all came from Shorten with some nods to Burke and Wong.

    In PPM Bill Shorten was about where were you’d expect an opposition leader to be in historical terms in the lead up to the election. During the election campaign, and, for the first time, being given something approaching equal time, Bill shorten made major gains as PPM and preferred party leader.

    I think Labor would better off sticking to their big target reform agenda because the scare campaign is going to carry over to the next election, they’ve done the heavy lifting (but need to knock off some rough edges) and the reforms were soundly based.

    Cheers

  33. You can CBT a person having a psychotic or depressive episode till the cows come home and you won’t improve them.

    And Diogenes, there are many psychoanalysts in Australia and they have their place in appropriate cases, especially with very young psychotic patients in the age range about 4-7.

    Mental health services in Australia are very problematic. They are not improved by widespread and ignorant use of DSM (much of which is crap, but that’s another issue) by practitioners who haven’t got a diagnostic clue about some patients, but would never admit this. So they send families on wild goose chases at great expense to Medicare.

  34. Kate
    Bjork refused to make any movies after Dancer in the Dark as it was such a horrific experience.

    My favourite Bjork song is All is Full of Love. Absolutely perfect.

  35. I liked a vox pop in Footscray at the time.

    Some youf was asked how real ‘Romper Stomper’ was and said that if sh*t like that was tried on in the Western suburbs, the Asians would put them in their place.

    Something similar happened at a school in NSW – some kids tried to start a white supremacy movement. I asked the teacher telling me this what happened and he said that the Aborigines and the Asians got together after school one day and sorted it.

  37. Psyclaw
    “especially with very young psychotic patients in the age range about 4-7.”
    You’re not serious.
    Genuine psychosis is very rare in young children.

  38. Its Time – 3.75% is below the historical average for a by election, which from memory is a bit over 5% and Braddon had virtually no swing at all, so I stand by my observation that these two by elections were a sign that important sections of the electorate had reservations about Labor long before the campaign even began.

  41. Actually the average swing against a second term government in a federal byelection is 5.9% so these two byelections were very very weak results for Labor, but you can believe what you like.

  42. C@tmomma @ #765 Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 7:55 pm

    Russell Crowe is too good an actor for it to simply be a crappy movie.

    Perhaps overrated might have been a better description. I have only seen it once, when it first came out.

    I was also stoned at the time (hey, don’t judge, I was in my early 30’s, and stopped “smoking” not long after that for unrelated reasons).

    To put things in perspective I saw Mad Max (the original) at about the time it first came out while stoned and thought it was pretty cool. I saw it recently on Netflix for the first time since then, and couldn’t get over how cheesy a lot of the scenes were, especially the ones featuring the bikies.

    Perhaps if I saw RompStomp again, straight this time, and a lot more mature, I might change my mind about it. I dd like the mini series sequel that Stan made of it last year, so it could be worth a re-visit.

    Edit to add: I’ve just realised the movie is actually on Stan, so that’s the rest of my evening taken care of. So, toodle pip, I’ll be back sometime tomorrow with my thoughts in it if anyone cares. If no-one cares, I’ll still be back with my thoughts on it anyway. So there. 😉

  44. simon did you check out the vid I posted of Bjork inspecting a tv?

    Yes.
    but multitasking.

    Come on swans. Stick with it!

  45. Millennial says
    I’ve been looking through some past elections to see if what happened in Queensland could have been forseen.

    No one can foresee QLD elections. That’s the beauty of QLD. Who could have predicted that Campbell would reduce Labor to seven seats and then loose the next election. I remember the state treasurer Tim Nichols grinning from ear to ear at the start of that election night because he thought Campbell would loose his seat and he would become Premier, only to have it dawn on him later in the evening that he would be in opposition! He was sitting on the ABC panel, until he disappeared at 10pm leaving an empty chair. Hahaha!

    QLD is the birthplace of Labour (according to some), home of Joh Belke-Peterson for 30 years, given rise to One Nation and Clive, had the first woman win a state election and the first woman to win from opposition to Premier, and a second term. It’s pretty unpredictable.

    But loosing a few seats in QLD did not loose the election for Labor. What about all those seats in NSW and VIC they did not win – why are you not complaining about them?

  46. Gene and Dean Ween . Two really weird dudes with mad guitar shredding chops.

    I was going to post ween! Daisies.

    Hyperballad is timeless. For me at least.

  48. Salk
    There is plenty of evidence that some art does increase violence and self harm such as the Werther effect. Nietzsche had the same effect. Whether it is a harvesting effect or not is another matter.

  49. Diogenes
    says:
    Friday, May 24, 2019 at 10:23 pm
    Salk
    There is plenty of evidence that some art does increase violence and self harm such as the Werther effect. Nietzsche had the same effect. Whether it is a harvesting effect or not is another matter.
    _________________________
    Some Neo-nazis watched Schindlers List and thought that horrible Nazi camp commandant was tremendously funny. What can you do about the way in which these people take in art?

  50. Swans are farked mate. Poor bastards have been training in this smoke-filled, congestion-trapped city all week. Their lungs will be shot.

    But hey, I’m not going to try to convince anyone here to start backing the Lions this week. Or year.

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