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”.
Apologies to Not Sure for accusing him of being Bemused.
Not sure @ 1:32
Oh, and if the owner of this blog;
a) Has even the slightest interest, and
b) Could be bothered checking.
He will see that my I.P. address originates in Queensland, not Victoria.
Although it is entirely plausible that I am in fact Bemused’s new husband and we are currently honeymooning in Port Douglas
———————
Aha! Exactly what Bemused would say…well actually no, it isn’t at all, but it might be, if Bemused was trying to persuade us he wasn’t Bemused… 😉 Not sure, you could start calling people numpties – that will really mess with their Bemused-radar.
beguiledagain says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:00 pm
“cupidity”?
Is that what the Christian fundies do when their love for us forces them to try and save us from our ignorance? 🙂
C@t – I for one welcome all your comments on this blog and the repartee with many of the other posters.
At least you are a rational human being; I cannot say the same for some of the others.
booleanbach @ #1754 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 2:47 pm
Thanks, boolean. Much appreciated.
One thing’s for sure, you’ll never get an ABBA lyric as a comment out of me. David Bowie, now that’s a different kettle of fish. 🙂
Albo can communicate in an engaging way Shorten never could. I hope he holds Govt to task. Albo can win in a canter.
Interesting piece on abc news website explaining that the Adani convoy protest was not a Greens political expression, in fact was unrelated to the Greens apart from having an ex-leader involved. Also points out that the Greens vote increased in Qld and 2.6% nationally. The fact that Shorten could not communicate why the protest was good or bad is certainly not the Greens fault.
I handed out HTV for the Greens hoping to get a Green or Labor candidate elected. There was goodwill amongst us on the ground. Being a Qlder I can never vote Labor again because my Prime Minister Rudd was knifed without my having a chance to vote him in or out. Then the bunch of over-sensitive little muppets popping up and saying pm Rudd hurt their feelings. Now a decade on Shorten crawls back asking for my vote. So piss off!
One thing Albo HAS got is Matthew Franklin as his Media guy. Brought up in the Murdoch stable he will be an invaluable asset in the daily cut and thrust for Albanese in the media.
itsthevibe @ #1748 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 2:38 pm
No, even three years of the Molan would be too much.
I have to tune out so much politics already – cannot watch ScoMo Cormann, Frydenberg, Hunt, Dutton, Birmingham, Canavan among others for more than 10 seconds.
Extracting less coal means that less coal will be burned, because there’s less extracted coal there to burn. Given we need to collectively stop burning coal altogether, it is a no-brainer that we need to stop extracting it, since the point of extracting it is to make it available for burning.
You’re like a smoker who says that they’re trying to quit, and still goes and buys smokes. And telling people that just because you buy them doesn’t mean you’re going to smoke them.
This is a really thoughtful photojournalism essay about Bill Shorten by Alex Ettinghausen:
https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/what-i-learned-about-bill-shorten-while-documenting-his-rise-and-fall-20190524-p51qts.html
Remember when LNP said it was just Labor’s “mediscare” and was untrue?
Think again. This is the AMA!!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-24/doctors-warn-private-health-sector-heading-towards-us-system/11147120?pfmredir=sm
I don’t understand why people say Albo has all this baggage and can’t be leader. In 94 and 95, John Howard was said to have too much baggage and was unelectable – and when Alexander Downer imploded they were left with no-one else. And of course the rest is history. The danger for Albo might be timing – it might be too late in a sort of Arthur Calwell or Joe Biden type of way.
You cant. As in you, or me, or the ALP cant.
Some will figure it out themselves. A lot of smart and nice and environmentally aware people voted for the LNP – many begrudgingly, probs out of habit combined with a dislike of the ALP and concerns over some of the ALPs policies (they find excuses). I know some who are almost as shocked as me that Morrison is back in. I sense some guilt. Many of these will keep leaning away and some rust will fall.
The rest? They will only listen to people they have high regard for. Change makers. These are the people who need to stand up and use their social capital. That isnt easy in the age of Murdoch – who will quickly try to turn you into mince for daring to have a conscience.
C@t:
Ellinghausen. I’ve also made the mistake of mangling his name with that hot ex rugby player 😀
Beginning to think we aren’t going to get a ministry announcement today. Scotty’s leaving it too late to make tonight’s news.
Watermelon – you are simply wrong.
Coal will be extracted to meet demand. We know that. With or without Adani there is more than enough supply to meet demand, and the economics, with or without Adani, won’t change how much coal is burned.
The only thing that will stop coal being burned is focusing on policies that reduce coal fired power and boost emissions-free alternatives, and fostering an international commitment to do this by doing our part and promoting efforts to getting as many others on board as possible.
The Adani mine is a big distraction.
Confessions @ #1765 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 3:00 pm
Oh jeez! Sorry about that. 😳
ICanCU
That ABC article you are quoting is already out of date, as Kevin Bonham explains here:
https://twitter.com/kevinbonham/status/1132475655566708737?s=20
I think this is an underappreciated factor when it comes to the QLD result. I have QLD relatives who have expressed a visceral negativity toward Shorten because of the “backstabbing” and I imagine they’re not alone in this
@Confessions
It would have been better for the nation if Peter Dutton had become Prime Minister. Because he does not hide his racism, much like Donald Trump, I am of the school that is best disinfecient is sunshine.
Scott Morrison is a lot like Donald Trump (my American friends made that observation), expect he is actually intelligent enough not to repulse too many people. That is very dangerous for the country in my opinion.
Literally the sentence before this whinge about oversensitivity:
Toughen up, snowflake!
Fun fact for Watermelon.
Countries other than Australia also mine and export coal!
Simon² Katich® @ #1734 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 2:17 pm
Kristy Hinze?
One good thing if Molan gets back into the Senate is that it will piss the Nats off.
C@t
The very name Hinze sends shudders down my spine.
Michaelia Cash is promoted to Minister for Employment.
lizzie @ #1777 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 3:13 pm
She is quite different to old Russ though. But wouldn’t it be ironic to have a Hinze on the Progressive side? 😀
Yeah I’m sure the WA Labor govt is very firmly still in the trickle down, neo liberal camp. I had a journo from Singapore (that renowned leftist hotbed) correcting me when I said our Treasurer, Ben Wyatt, was very conservative. The correction was that he was VERY VERY VERY conservative. And not in the good way.
On the whole with their closed club / faction selection process they are much worse than the US democrats because they can’t have an AOC. In Australia AOC would be forced to the greens and would then probably not get elected or spend all her time bagging Labor. You will note AOC could spend all her time bagging conservative dems, but doesn’t seem to she seems to be actively seeking to highlight failures in the system.
On coal yeah all those fights to shutdown industries and kill jobs are going to fail as they deserve to fail, it is stupid, small thinking that belongs in the libs, not in Labor or the Greens.
We need to replace coal with renewables and then wow we won’t burn any coal.
https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/lawyers-for-noahs-ark-theme-park-are-suing-its-insurance-company-for-rain-damage-20190526-p51r9z.html
So you’re saying that all the Adani coal that gets burned will be perfectly offset by reductions in the burning of coal from other projects. How convenient for people who want to open massive new coal mines while pretending to care about the climate!
The problem is that at this stage the only safe amount of coal burning is zero. And you just can’t get to zero while burning coal from new projects. As a matter of basic arithmetic.
Barney in Saigon says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:47 pm
beguiledagain says:
Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:00 pm
How do you re-program uncritical thinking, cupidity and greed.
“cupidity”?
Is that what the Christian fundies do when their love for us forces them to try and save us from our ignorance?
————————————————
Thank you Barney. You remind me of my first editor! I don’t know where the word came from in my post-election shattered mind. After reading several thousand posts in the past week, and writing more words than I like to remember because of events, I am numb. It actually fits–” Excessive desire, especially for wealth”–but that would have been redundant. I was looking for a synomym for gullibility. Perhaps some you more literary-minded can come up what I was trying to say.
Fifield replaced by Paul Fletcher in Communications.
Porter as the new Pyne plus AG.
I think that Australia will be a lot better off if the ALP embraces democratization reforms that make it easier for insurgents to win pre-selection. We need a lot of AOCs in Australian politics if we are to have any hope of acting quickly enough on climate change and inequality.
Sussan Ley is Environment Minister.
@Confessions
Fletcher wanting that job for ages…
It is the kind of basic logic that has seen the greens ‘nothing is better than this’ consistently deny a 7th or 8th order response consistently swapping it for a 900 or 1000x worse response. Because they just don’t do basic politics like grownups.
@WeWantPaul
The current state of the American political discourse is streets ahead of us. Some of the candidates in the Democratic Presidential Primary are advocating more radical stuff than what I have heard from the Australian Labor Party. Also you have congresswomen who have been elected such as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Illham Omar (who wears Hijab). It would be unimaginable that a Hijab wearing Muslim woman would be elected to any state or federal parliament.
In case anyone’s still interested.
https://www.theage.com.au/federal-election-2019/how-the-liberals-beat-labor-at-its-own-game-20190523-p51qki.html
The details are worth studying by Labor. Sorry. 🙁
@Confessions
God help us
And if that happened the wind would go out of the Greens’ sales quite fast, I predict. Some advice for the brieflys of the world.
Surely the only reason she’s remaining in the ministry is because of her gender? She was completely underwhelming as a front bencher.
Michaelia “The way out of poverty is to get a job, but I’m not helping you” Cash.
Canavan stays as resources minister. No surprises there. Wonder if there’s something for George?
Dan Tehan continues as Minister for Education.
Plenty of room there for his special talent. 🙁