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”.
Millennial @ #1858 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 4:23 pm
Right, that took longer than expected. 😐
So here it is:
I haven’t done PPVC booths, pre-polls or Hospital Booths, as I don’t think they have been all counted yet, or they are extremely small counts.
Booths that are coloured black means they have less than 500 votes total.
The election of the Morrison government is a lot like Brexit Referendum, in that the victors won through a campaign where they literally lied through their teeth. Although Scomo did not make any ridiculous promises like those who campaigned for Leave did.
I really fear that certain elements in the Coalition will literally go insane like the Brexiters have done over the last three years. Scomo being ideologically similar to them, will allow them to indulge a bit in this insanity.
Millennial:
I’m very impressed.
BK @ #1877 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 4:52 pm
P K should give him a call, just hello how’s it going kinda call.
Any of the assembled media press Scott Morrison on why he said Melissa Price would be his Environment Minister after the election, befoire the election, and why she isn’t, after the election?
Silly question?
Millennial,
It would be interesting to know whether it correlates to being susceptible to scare campaigns?
Thanks fellas for the reassurences.
All’s well with the world and Orstraya is back on track as tonight’s Newspoll will show.
Goodnight all. 😵💤💤💤💤
@C@tmomma
I would interested to see Millennial’s findings, because I have a hypothesis that those who were electorally disengaged and digital not terribly saavy, ensured that the Coalition would be re-elected in a majority. They were the most likely to be duped by one massive disinformation campaign waged by the Coalition and Clive Palmer.
Tristo @ #1902 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 5:34 pm
Well, he promised a stronger economy and ridiculous isn’t too big a stretch.
Tristo,
Labor have to do clapback on Liberal lies immediately and persistently.
No Arts Minister. Again.
C@tmomma @ #1910 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 5:48 pm
I suggest an opposition Spokesperson for Government Lies. It’s a full time position.
But at least the Minister for Women is actually a woman.
C@tmomma @ #1912 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 5:48 pm
Arts are subversive. No money for that.
@ItzaDream
Scott Morrison has another thing coming, because I have been predicting the worst economic crisis to hit this country since the Great Depression within the next two years. It will definitely totally discredit the Coalition’s reputation that they are superior managers of the economy to Labor.
I am fully with Doug Cameron that Labor should not move to the right. In fact it should totally reject neoliberalism and adopt a redistributionalist agenda, complete with something like a Green New Deal.
lizzie @ #1879 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 4:56 pm
Well they are the most likely invaders when their islands disappear beneath the waves.
https://10daily.com.au/views/a190526nmutw/sam-dastyari-voters-taught-bill-shorten-a-brutal-lesson-heres-a-kinder-one-20190526
https://10daily.com.au/views/a190518iwosb/a-letter-to-the-new-prime-minister-by-lisa-wilkinson-20190518
Angus Taylor gets Energy and Emissions Reduction. Seriously. I mean seriously.
@lizzie
I disagree with Sam Dastyari, the Labor party should have focused their campaign on the sheer incompetence and corruption of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. The policies should have come second, apart from promising to introduce a federal ICAC.
@ItzaDream
Clive Palmer will be able to get government subsides to get his coal mine and coal fired power plant built. Along with possibly getting funding for a nuclear power plant to be built (which he promised in the election campaign).
Thank God that God didn’t have anything to do with this line up. Could seriously erode your Faith.
Basically; instead of wandering up there and stomping all over their back yard the greens should have been talking about what the economy will look like after coal is finished; and finish it will.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/may/25/the-big-swing-to-george-christensen-should-be-where-the-lesson-for-the-election-is
The mine in all likelihood will never actually come to fruition. It is not a profitable proposition, it has no long-term future and most of the argy-bargy around it seems more about Adani not having to write the whole thing off than actually going into production. But it sounds like there will be work, and work that is easy to understand.
And worse, there was no real sense of “what else if not that?”
Why do I despise ( hate is to strong a word) the Greens; because I care about this stuff and believe in this stuff, and the Greens have done as much, if not more when it comes to stopping the much needed transformation of our economy happening.
@ItzaDream
The lineup sounds like a Theresa May government, expect if she was a member of the European Research Group (Brexiter fanatics) and her cabinet dominated by members of that group.
God help us
ItzaDream @ #1911 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 5:50 pm
They’ll be the busiest person in Shadow Cabinet! 😆
But seriously, what could be the harm in having one?
frednk,
But! But! The ‘Stop Adani’ earrings! What if they can’t wear them any more? 😯
Oh, and I bet they were made out of plastic. Which is made out of…petrochemicals…fossil fuels.
frednk
I saw Bob Brown on The Drum, trying to defend the Stop Adani convoy. He sounded out of touch. I used to admire him, but I think he is now yesterday’s man.
Abbott will become ambassador to the Holy See no?
Natalie ForrestVerified account@nat_forrest
28s29 seconds ago
No demotion but a portfolio switch for WA’s Melissa Price – set to become Defence Industry Minister #auspol #perthnews @10NewsFirstPER
This is a direct repudiation of a public promise made on live, national television, in a debate that Morrison demanded.
The promise was made in explicit response to a question by Bill Shorten, after Morrison had attempted, in turn, to bully Shorten into nominating Labor’s Home Affairs minister.
As much as the nation might celebrate the replacement of Price as Environment minister, it remains a clearly broken promise, the ONLY promise Morrison saw fit to make with regards to the post-election ministry.
Put this along with the other clear broken promise on tax cuts by July 1st: Morrison decided the date of the election, so obviously deliberately arranged for the return of the writs to be too late to allow for the implementation of the tax cuts.
Throw in Sinodinos – appointed to a diplomatic post BEFORE his Senate election is even confirmed – and a pattern of rank smartarsedness and cynical deception on Morrison’s part is already being established.
LOL come on down Sky After Dark crew.
@Bushfire Bill
I argue we live in a post-truth age, where you can lie as much as you want, so long as you tell the right lies. I believe Scott Morrison is smart enough to know this and being from an advertising background, he is the perfect politician for our times. It also explains why people like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are major politicians.
@Confessions
Well I was watching a video by an economist John Adams who advised the Coalition back during the Abbott government and still is in close touch with some politicians in Canberra. Adams said that the Coalition MP’s told him, they were expecting to be narrowly defeated.
ItzaDream @ #1920 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 5:56 pm
I think you should use his proper name: “Floodwaters” Taylor.
Tristo:
The mass retirements and glum faces at their campaign launch said exactly this.
I wonder if Chris Pyne would’ve retired if he’d expected he could have another term and a ministerial salary. He’s never had a career outside govt to rush back to.
@Confessions
I remember Peter Dutton sold his Canberra flat as well, he definitely thought he was facing defeat in Dickson.
I am really thinking Clive Palmer and his $60 million advertising blitz might have decided the election. If it is true, that is pretty disturbing, in that a Federal Election could be bought.
Well, Scomo better deliver the goods to Palmer, which are federal subsides for his Galliee Basin mine project, Coal Fired Power Plant and possibly a nuclear reactor.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/26/indigenous-afl-champ-michael-long-urges-pm-to-be-a-captain-we-can-believe-in?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Bushfire Bill,
When you read this outline of the Coalition’s campaign you will see that they knew months in advance both of the election date, the date of the Budget and what that would all mean wrt the promises they made:
https://www.theage.com.au/federal-election-2019/how-the-liberals-beat-labor-at-its-own-game-20190523-p51qki.html
In other words, they knew they were going to break the tax offset promise BEFORE they made it to the electorate, but they did it anyway, to neutralise a Labor advantage.
This, and the rest of the things done by the Coalition campaign team, just proves what a bunch of venal ratfuckers they are.
Tristo:
Perhaps Palmer’s insistence on standing candidates in all 151 HoR seats was the cover he needed for his advert expend to give ‘legitimacy’ to his claim he was trying to win seats in parliament. I mean 151 seats for a minor party? Not even minor parties that have been around for a while have been able to achieve that.
I imagine the churches will get their grubby hands on more filthy lucre:
“giving a substantial new role to Stuart Robert, who moves into cabinet to manage service delivery and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.”
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-names-new-team-in-cabinet-reshuffle-20190526-p51rah.html
antonbruckner11 @ #1935 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 6:20 pm
Who is the poster who leaves the ‘g’ out of Angus. Too funny.
C@t
Stuart Robert is a man beyond reproach. A fine Pentecostal whose unblemished record speaks for itself.
lizzie @ #1941 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 6:38 pm
Expensive earrings and hairdo on the ‘Retiree Tax’ model senior citizen. But I guess that’s what they were voting to protect by voting for the LNP in Longman.
BK @ #1944 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 6:41 pm
Um, BK, I have this bridge I’d like to sell you. 😀
BK @ #1948 Sunday, May 26th, 2019 – 4:41 pm
Whoa! So Scotty is a pentacostal, Lucy Wicks is a pentecostal. Stuart Robert is a pentecostal.
Who else? This govt feels like a happy clapper uprising.
Lol, in comments to David Crowe’s article:
Not mentioned, but obviously PM Morrison will be the Minister for Religion.