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”.
I would also appreciate the candidate’s email so that I may confirm that he/she was the person denied the selfie.
Simon² Katich® @ #1634 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 12:27 pm
This started with the swing to Labor in Qld, and the loss of the much anticipated victory. They gotta chase the vote. It’s how that’s the problem.
C@tmomma says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 12:37 pm
nath demands that zoomster supply HIM with the personal phone number of a former ALP candidate so HE can prove zoomster is telling the truth!?!
__________________________
See c@tmomma (-1-2%), this is the problem you just launch yourself into other people’s conversations.
An attempt to censure Obeid in the Legislative Council in 2002 was blocked by Labor. Obeid’s pecuniary interest register at that time showed no property in Australia, no debts and the only income from his parliamentary salary. All Labor members who had received his largesse in Terrigal and Perisher must have known this was wrong and Labor would nave been saved a heap of trouble if they had taken the censure seriously.
Equally dealing with the allegation of sexual assault by Joe Tripodi in Parliament House in 2000 would have been wise in retrospect
WTF
Video footage of the proposed Bob HAwke college. Nice that it will use the now redundant Subiaco Oval as its playing fields and sports complex.
https://twitter.com/MarkMcGowanMP/status/1132459299567939584
Lars Von Trier @ #1656 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 12:42 pm
Hardly. It was a cogent observation. Needed to be made. There is no exclusivity to ‘conversations’ here. Because they aren’t. And you trying to construe that they are, in order to prove some point that you can score off against me, is disingenuous, Tryhard.
In any event, come tomorrow there’ll be a new paradigm to which we must all adapt. To those who have already threatened to whiteant and undermine Albanese to lessen his chances of remaining leader until the next election, and/or to vote Liberal in the event that he does last until then: you are perfectly entitled to these actions, but I hope you realise that in doing so, you abrogate the right to ever again castigate other posters for their perceived lack of loyalty. Ever again.
“ItzaDream says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 12:42 pm
WTF”
Indeed
LVT
You don’t seem to understand that this is an open blog. There are no threads.
nath @ #1652 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 12:38 pm
Superiority Complex, much?
itsthevibe – I have seen no one threaten to whiteant Albanese, nor have I seen any Labor supporters threatening to vote for the Libs if Albanese remains leader.
Quotes or you’re making shit up.
Confessions says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 12:13 pm
…”Yep, I called it the other day”…
You were also amongst ten dozen others here, who called the election for Mr Shorten.
Any other Pearl’s of wisdom, oh great Oracle?
So who is tipped to be environment minister in Scotty’s new cabinet? He’s already broken that promised, with News ltd reporting Price is set to be dumped from the ministry.
Oh great. Believing that Labor were going to win the election is going to be used as a stick to beat us with now for the next 3 years at least? *groan*
Confessions @ #1665 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 12:49 pm
Whoever it is, he’s already blurted out he’s making all the decisions. Scary mary.
There is a pathology with c@tmomma (-1-2%),
1) Boorishly dominating conversation, by always inserting herself into conversations or steering those conversations to boring Greens v Labor football team arguments.
2) Abuse and name calling of individuals who don’t agree with her.
3) Grandiosity – having secret information concerning Albo being the latest.
4) Angrier and more incoherent posts in the evenings
5) Playing the victim when called out for atrocious behaviour by multiple people on this blog.
Jackol, the offenders know better than to say so in as many words, but I was reading their comments during the 2013 campaign, and I’ve come to understand their code.
Confessions @ #1667 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 12:49 pm
You’d hope that all Scott Morrison’s hastily made-up answers, so as to deflect from an uncomfortable reality, would eventually catch up with the man?
This week – post election – I received a direct mail out from the ALP exhorting me to vote Labor in Chisholm. Did anybody else get direct mail post election? How much money did the ALP spend posting letters for nothing?
There seems to be some serious distortion of reality going on today. Has KillCat replaced KillBill?
(Sorry, C@t, don’t want to frighten you.)
itsthevibe –
‘code’ huh? Well, no one can accuse you of being misnamed.
And once again, maybe those warning us about the “dirt file” on Albo could have had to decency not to leak it to the press (or let their contacts in the party do so) in the first place!
itsthevibe, be careful with that language. You don’t want to be accused of being a part of the grand, wide-reaching conspiracy that is “Get Shorten/Kill Bill” 😉
Itza:
The one-man-Scotty-band? Let’s hope his trademark hubris causes him to over-reach and scare the crap out of voters.
Lars Von Trier @ #1670 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 12:51 pm
You really need to do something about your obsession with me.
Especially when you don’t apply the same degree of scrutiny, nor denigration, to other contributors who post as much, if not more often than I do.
Instead, when called out about your unnatural obsession with me, you adopt the go-to trick of doubling down on your denigration and attempted humiliation of me here.
May I repeat, it’s not going to succeed. So why keep doing it?
Is it because I simply am capable of identifying and targeting your, poorly-disguised, if you look closely enough, schtick, since you came to this blog? It is relentlessly anti Labor, and when someone calls you out on it, it becomes relentlessly anti them. Ie, me.
Of course you are allowed to have those opinions, just don’t think you can humiliate people here who disagree with you into silence.
The mute button is a glorious thing.
For what it’s worth, Jackol, I remember you explaining your rationale regarding your own voting decision, and I understood it, even if I disagreed with it. I don’t recall you ever being part of the Loyalty Lynchmob around here, so in no way did I have you in mind when I posted my warnings above.
lizzie @ #1674 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 12:53 pm
Thanks, lizzie. It’s an oldie but a goodie. However, I have been denigrated by the best of them. Far more effective than what I am copping now. But I survived that and I will outlast this. 🙂
Honestly, I have observed that a trick in the kit bag of the Alt Right, so as to take over a successful public forum of progressive voices, is character assassination of the strongest Progressive voices. It’s why I will never let it affect me. I see it for what it is.
itsthevibe @ #1682 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 1:03 pm
Who appointed you blog monitor?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/26/hindsight-is-a-wonderful-thing-how-getups-election-campaign-fell-flat
Sheesh! Apparently we aren’t allowed to be ‘loyal’ to the Labor Party now!
itsthevibe –
And I don’t think anyone should be posting warnings of that kind.
I would hope that anyone would feel free to post their thoughts about the political and polling landscape, regardless of whether the ideas are warmly received here or not.
Fine, I’ll rephrase: of course people are free to be hypocrites, but they won’t have the right to have their demands for loyalty taken seriously by any halfway sane individual with a decent memory.
nath
‘zoomster, if you are prepared to sign a stat dec detailing that it was not you denied the selfie by Albo and then scan it and post it here, I will apologize.’
No, you wouldn’t.
C@tmomma says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 12:49 pm
…”Oh great. Believing that Labor were going to win the election is going to be used as a stick to beat us with now for the next 3 years at least? *groan*”…
Claiming that I am a person called “Bemused” is a stick that has been used to attempt to beat me, by no less than four long term poster’s on this blog in the last couple of days.
Is that how the system operates around here?
Someone gets their nose out of joint, so accuses the person who has offended them of being some other, banished nobody??
Is it a cult?
Whatever it is, it’s quite pathetic.
Itza
‘To those who have already threatened to whiteant and undermine Albanese to lessen his chances of remaining leader until the next election, and/or to vote Liberal in the event that he does..’
As I can’t think of a single poster who has done this, I think we’re all pretty safe.
lizzie says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 12:56 pm
The Piping Shrike@Piping_Shrike
17h17 hours ago
2016: LNP 76 seats 42.0% primary
Turnbull is a disaster. Completely alienated the base.
2019: LNP 77 seats 41.8% primary
Morrison a miracle worker. Completely won back the base.
The Labor base was plundered in a number of places by theAlt/ Neo-Nazi Right, who served as detour for votes to the LNP.
This could occur because of dysfunction on the Left. Those of us who support social democracy and social justice got whipped in the places where it will be difficult to recover. It would have helped had we not campaigned against ourselves.
If the Left cannot assure working people that we will serve their interests, while at the same time the Right are declaring they will, we can hardly be surprised that financially-depressed working people choose the Right.
I’ve had a chance to think about Labor’s position and have concluded that it has had its opportunity to win government and blown it. Surely it should be time to rebuild the team with a new generation. Albanese and Marles do not fit the bill.
Itsthevibe
‘ those warning us about the “dirt file” on Albo …’
Um, saying that the Libs will have a dirt file on Albo is just common sense. Of course they will. They have one on every Labor pollie (and vice versa, of course).
Oh, Not Sure isn’t bemused.
BK:
Precisely why I thought Jim Chalmers would represent a good candidate for the leadership.
For the record, my nose is not out of joint. It’s in good form, flatter than some, and in reasonable working order.
Yes zoomster, but one side USES it.
Which vote? QLD? Yes. Petrie, Longmann and the like, yes. That Christensen increased his vote tells you there is only so much the ALP can do. I wouldnt sacrifice good policies for the sake of places like Herbert and I doubt that the most well meaning and comprehensive mitigation measures (on adverse effects from a serious emissions reductions policy) can sell when up against simplistic LNP slogans. Not that the ALP shouldn’t have those mitigation policies. But dont expect it to change peeps minds.
nath says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 12:38 pm
I remember zoomster posting the story and it was clearly about a candidate she was working with and his experience meeting Albo whilst visiting Canberra.
It’s irrelevant whether it’s true or not because it’s the posting of the story here that is the only relevant point. 🙂
Barnaby Joyce for environment minister?
or will they make it the department “Energy and Environment” and give it to Taylor”?
0r give it back to the sycophantic Hunt?
or someone hopeless such as Cash?
there is no way Morrison can give it to a moderate who might actually do something positive for the environment or effective on climate change. My guess is Cash or someone for the nation party – perhaps make it the dept of ag, water and environment and give Littleproud the lot. He appears to be sane, so this would be better than alternatives.
If Sindinous gets an ambassadors post rather than a ministry, it will say it all about how far to the right Morrision plans to take things and the moderates knowing their day is up. Would that mean Jim Molan back in the senate? Hoe can someone decide to quit the senate less than a week after the election?
Well, Not Sure, that’s not something I have ever accused you of. Not one single indulgent post about your granddaughters, if you have any at all. So you can’t be bemused! 😆
I’m just saying that accusing people here of indulging in the faint hope that Labor would win the federal election as a bad thing which needs to be mocked, before we knew of the full extent of the social media disinformation campaign and the like, is not a fair thing to do.