From my paywalled article in Crikey yesterday:
In the wake of its most unambiguous failure at a federal election since at least 1980, Australia’s polling industry is licking its wounds.
The Nine/Fairfax papers have announced the Ipsos poll series will be put on ice, and those pollsters who do return to the field shortly will face catcalls whether they persist in recording a Labor lead we now know doesn’t exist, or only now start detecting a Coalition lead that eluded them through the entirety of the past parliamentary term.
Despite it all though, the pollsters’ performance hasn’t been without its defenders.
Spoiler alert: the latter refers to David Briggs and Nate Silver. But Peter Brent can now be added to the list, up to a point, following a review of the issues raised by the polling failure in Inside Story. Specifically, Brent observes that the primary vote miss was less severe than the two-party preferred; that the difference arose from a stronger-than-anticipated flow of minor party and independent preferences to the Coalition; that herding was less apparent on the primary vote (most markedly in the case of Ipsos’s reading of the balance of support between Labor and the Greens); and that the result was, if nothing else, no worse than the Victorian state election.
Another point noted is the strange consistency with which polls have pointed to extravagant gains for Labor in Queensland before and during election campaigns, only for them to fall away at the end. On this occasion, the falling away as recorded by pollsters wasn’t remotely on the scale needed to predict the result, with statewide polling published towards the end of the campaign landing at least 7% shy of what looks like being the Coalition two-party vote in the state.
The question of geographic variability in the pollster failure seemed worth exploring, so I have put together a table of state and electorate level polling published in the last fortnight or so of the campaign, available below the fold at the bottom of the post. Almost all of this polling was conducted by YouGov Galaxy, whether under its own name or as Newspoll. The only exception was a set of state-level two-party preferred totals from Ipsos, published at the tail end of the campaign by the Age-Herald (which performed rather poorly).
Below all this is a list of “average bias” figures, consisting of straight averages of the observed errors, be they positive or negative, rather than the absolute errors. This means combinations of positive and negative results will have the fact of cancelling out — although there were actually very few of those, as the errors tended to be consistently in the one direction. The national and state-level two-party results are estimates provided to me by Nine’s election systems consultant David Quin. With no Coalition-versus-Labor figures available from 15 electorates, this inevitably involves a fair bit of guess work.
A few points should be observed. Given that poll trends pointed to a clear long-term trend to the Coalition, pollsters may be excused a certain amount of Labor bias when evaluating polling that was in many cases conducted over a week before the election. This is particularly true of the Newspoll state aggregates, which cover the full length of the campaign.
Another issue with the Newspoll state aggregates is that One Nation was a response option for all respondents in the early part of the campaign, despite their contesting only 59 out of 151 seats. Their vote here accordingly comes in too high, and as Peter Brent notes, at least part of their failure could be explained by stranded One Nation supporters breaking in unexpectedly large quantities to the Coalition, rather than other minor party targets of opportunity like Clive Palmer.
In seat polling though, where the issue did not arise, the polls were remarkable in having understated support for One Nation, and overstated it for the United Australia Party. This was one face of a two-sided polling failure in Queensland, of which the other was a serious imbalance towards Labor in support recorded for the major parties. While Queensland has caught most of the attention on this score, the polls were just as far out in measuring the primary votes of the major parties in Western Australia. Things were less bad in Victoria, but Coalition support was still significantly underestimated.
The only bright spots in the picture are New South Wales and South Australia, where Newspoll just about nailed the Coalition, Labor and Greens primary votes, and got the big things right in four seat polls. While Labor’s strength was overstated in Macquarie, it does now appear Labor will pull through there – for more on that front, stay tuned to the late counting thread.
nath @ #89 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:29 am
Well then, acknowledge they do it on both sides of the aisle then. And the Liberal Party under Scott Morrison are coming for Labor’s ethnic minority voters at the next election. So I can’t really see the point of your criticism. Except to criticise Labor. Again. Multicultural ethnic minorities are a fact of life in Australia now, and they, like every other interest group, are organised to get the best deal for their people. Someone has to do the organising and be the go-between. So what!?!
Zoom – wasn’t referring to you … I was referring to the Rexes and naths who talk the big talk but are simply cherry picking Wikipedia and outmoded ‘memes’ about labor
Hugh Moran
It was fantastic.
The sound quality was excellent and Rob Smith’s voice held up really well. Amazing
Tristo @ #101 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:37 am
Exactly. And they won. That’s the point. That’s where the Australian electorate is at the moment. Trying to go further left on Climate Change will just further alienate those people that voted for what Labor offered this time.
jen
I realised that, should have made it more clear!
Victoria @ #69 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:18 am
And from the dim dark past……..Rudd wont return to the leadership …….Howard is finished……Malcolm will never return to the leadership……
Having said that, Downer, Turnbull, Beazley, Crean, Hayden, Peacock….all remained after leadership spills with front bench positions…..
zoomster @ #85 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:29 am
Labor are directionless.
They are directionless due to the demands from their factional union hack donors pulling them is different directions thus creating ridiculous policy wedges eg. coal
It’s led to Labor haveing the perception of being inauthentic.
It’s possible to engage with elements of multicultural Australia without using it as a form of branch stacking. All parties have internal problems, I don’t think it’s bad to look at how to improve how parties operate in the environment of slumping membership rates. How do political parties become more relevant in modern Australia?
Victoria.
The sound was really good, almost as good as being there. And the way he held that note in Prayers for Rain. He has such a great voice.
@C@tmomma
I would argue if Labor had been more forthright on climate change action and developed economic strategies to transition to a zero emissions economy. Labor would have been able to balance out lost votes in Central and Northern Queensland, with those in the leafy suburbs of the major cities (especially Melbourne).
Well, The Greens ‘Stop Adani’ = ‘Start Adani’ now. Good job boys and girls.
Zoom
“Your understanding of Victorian Labor is incredibly outdated. The reason Vic Labor is stronger than NSW Labor is that it has largely dealt with these issues.”
I live in SA and claim no inside knowledge, but friends in Melbourne tell me the same. If Vic Labor is so factionally riven then how did they get a successful state leader from the left?
The Greens Vic organisation seems in far worse shape, same in NSW. The Greens Qld and WA branches appear to be their only ones fully functional.
I assume the stuff about Shorten and leadership ambitions is rubbish. I am sure Peter Dutton still harbours leadership ambitions, but I don’t hear it reported.
But all this is beside the point. Scomo is breaking promises faster than Sussan Ley racks up parliamentary expenses on the Gold Coast. Labor needs to go back to basics, and that means highlighting that a corrupt government got reelected, and will now fail to deliver on promises to its voters.
mundo, although several of those challenged again for the leadership several times. I think Downer and Hayden were the only who quietly served in their ministerial roles weren’t they? The political and media landscape has moved on since those days.
Insiders panel Sunday. Motormouth Cormann is the interviewee.
Hugh Moran
It was amazing. He held that note for ages!
I saw them in Melbourne a few years back, and it was great too. They played for hours and a wider array of their stuff. Obviously this time the focus was on their disintegration 30 year anniversary. Which happens to be my favourite album.
Tristo @ #112 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:42 am
Wrong. They got as much as they could in Melbourne. For the reason I gave. Many economic conservative voters in ‘Melbourne’s leafy suburbs’ probably thought they were voting for a more conservative formerly Liberal CC policy, the NEG, with a few new bells and whistles. If they had wanted to vote for a more extreme position they would have voted for The Greens. They didn’t.
It is the biggest Labor Party branch in Victoria, with a membership that has leapt from 13 to more than 325 in the past decade.
________________________
Somalian-Australian branch in West Heidelberg controls the numbers in Jagajaga and associated State seats. The leader of the Somalian-Australian community there is one Dr. Haraco.
Dr Haraco is an electorate officer for Mr Somyurek, whose faction holds critical sway when it comes to preselections. Somyurek, known for his control over Turkish branches has some solid relationships with other ethnic ‘communities’ around Melbourne. I suspect he will have a large say in the preselection’s of around 12 seats.
Real Time is also back tomorrow, with Australia’s Jonathon Swan on the panel.
The Liberals of course have huge problems with branch stacking, with those huge sign ups of religious members in Victoria for instance. Haven’t they had to suspend preselection contests for the whole of Victoria for several elections in a row?
The Lib-kin have refreshed their anti-Labor campaign. They will keep Labor from office at all costs, including the costs to the environment of eternal LNP government.
Rex
Explain where the votes to get Labor across the line are going to come from. There could only be a handful of people on the Left whose preferences ended up with the Coalition – surely you’re not pretending otherwise! – and they’re not enough to swing the next election.
Fess
Things are heating up again with the Trump shit show. Will be interesting to see what happens next.
If I was an African Australian in Victoria, I would be muscling up against a Coalition government and Opposition in Victoria that has got it in for me as well. It’s no bad thing at all. They are lovely people and will be a credit to Australian politics. The Liberals have already started going after them in NSW.
So, nath, what have YOU got against them that you had to run to the internet and find that piece of information meant to blackguard them with?
ltep
says:
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 9:48 am
The Liberals of course have huge problems with branch stacking, with those huge sign ups of religious members in Victoria for instance. Haven’t they had to suspend preselection contests for the whole of Victoria for several elections in a row?
_________________________________
Indeed. The bar is probably lower in the Liberals because of a smaller membership and therefore relatively small numbers are required to stack.
The latest national polls in the UK have Conservatives and Labour both on 19%, each beaten by Brexit (22%) and Liberal Democrats (24%). Who ever thought we’d see this day? Labour should be taking a hard look at their leadership by now – surely even the membership would know it is terminal.
Confessions @ #120 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:47 am
Norman Swan must be so proud of his little boy. 😀
You would think that the likes of nath and rex would be happy to enjoy the result of the election. Talk about being the biggest sore
Losers to walk the earth.
Anyhoo talk later bludgers
And yet Kate Thwaites got preselection in Jaga Jaga. Of course, that may be a Somalian name.
Vic:
I’m getting very concerned the Democrats are going to split on whether or not to impeach Trump. And right at the time they need to group together in unity.
C@tmomma
says:
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 9:50 am
If I was an African Australian in Victoria, I would be muscling up against a Coalition government and Opposition in Victoria that has got it in for me as well. It’s no bad thing at all. They are lovely people and will be a credit to Australian politics. The Liberals have already started going after them in NSW.
So, nath, what have YOU got against them that you had to run to the internet and find that piece of information meant to blackguard them with?
________________________________________
Oh yes sorry should have linked to the article:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-18/labors-heidelberg-branch-concerns-stacked-with-somali-votes/10006816
And I thought everyone wanted political parties in Australia to get bigger and have a greater involvement of communities not comprised of political hacks, apparatchiks and union hacks? So why the complaint re a growing party?
C@t:
I had no idea they were related?!
Fess
Matters are coming to a head. The next week is going to be crucial going forward.
Talk later……
Nath – It is, he said, a triumph of Somali-Australians expressing the will to participate in democracy.
Nothing to see here.
Victoria says:
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 9:52 am
You would think that the likes of nath and rex would be happy to enjoy the result of the election. Talk about being the biggest sore
Losers to walk the earth.
Anyhoo talk later bludgers
They are sore winners. They will apply the adage ‘in victory revenge’. They will not be happy until Labor is destroyed.
Briefly
Oops I meant sore winners.
I really must go…. later guys
Confessions @ #134 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:53 am
Yep. 🙂
zoomster
says:
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 9:52 am
And yet Kate Thwaites got preselection in Jaga Jaga. Of course, that may be a Somalian name.
___________________________
Somyurek controls it, and deals are made for factional allocations based upon that.
nath @ #132 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:52 am
Lol. Emotive trigger words: ‘stacked’ Lol lol lol lol lol lol!
I suspect part of the problem was that so much of the media (and, indeed, so many of us) get a bit bewitched by the 2PP figure. However, with opinion polls, this is obviously just an educated guess based on the primary vote figures. After all, when people respond to an opinion poll, they may well be pretty certain about who they will vote for, but their preferences are probably less concrete.
As WB notes above (and, once again, terrific work, William), the primary vote estimates (and we should remember that that’s all opinion polling is) were, on the whole, reasonably close to the mark, albeit that no one really saw the cataclysmic drop in primaries for Labor in Queensland.
To be sure, this was probably the worst result for opinion polling in Australia that I can remember, but it wasn’t quite as bad as the hand-ringing might suggest. It could be a case of that we are normally lucky to have very accurate polling in this country, so that when goes wrong we think it’s worse than it actually is.
nath @ #140 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:59 am
And Bastiann and Sukkar ‘control’ the religious vote in the Victorian Liberal Party. And Lee Rhiannon and Hal Greenland control a faction of The Greens in NSW. And Matthias Cormann controls the Conservative faction in WA. So your point is? Labor are like all the other political parties in Australia? However, if you seek to single them out, I guess you CAN make them seem sinister.
*golf clap* nath 😐
Two posters today (cut and paste below) have worked out the election was won/lost on very discrete issues.
Individual voters will have a range of reasons for voting for one candidate or another. The determining factor will often be little known and barely justifiable even to them within a fortnight of voting.
Ascribing motive to the collective voting public from the incoherent individual data becomes no more than an exercise in barrow pushing.
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure Labor lost because Shorten was uninspiring and swinging voters couldn’t stomach his tax policies. Equally, Labor lost in spite of Shorten’s inspiring leadership (for those of us who despise the charismatic pollies like Trump and Hawke) and his visionary tax policies (though stopping the rort that is franking credits for non-tax paying superannuants is hardly visionary).
Likewise the LNP won because Morrison appealed to bogan Australians who like to see PM’s pouring beer over their heads. And the LNP lost in spite of voter distaste for Morrison pouring beer over his head.
As long as you get your basic fact right (LNP won and Labor lost) you can push your preferred wheelbarrow all over the place. And it contains less nutrient than actual bullshit that is ordinarily so conveyed.
Matt Canavan with some justification claims a mandate for inaction on climate change and the construction of new coal powered electricity generation in what was roundly dubbed as “the Climate Election”.
How many PB commentators want to put that in their wheelbarrow and push around the idea that all Labor had to do was drop their targets, oppose “Tony Abbott’s treacherous Paris concessions” and sweet Government benches would be for the taking?
My point, if it is not clear enough, is that a policy is worth having or not worth having, because of net benefits, not because it is a vote winner or a vote loser.
A pollie is worth having as leader of a party if he can organise the development of constructive coherent policies and explain them (sell them) to the public.
Shorten was worth having, had his chances, and is now past his best buy date.
Let’s keep good policies and hope Albo can pour enough beer on his head to convince the swingers his explanation of those policies is worth listening to. While we are at it how about an inheritance tax? I know it is a “death” tax (or a “passing” tax for those of us fastidious in our deceptive phraseology) but as death and tax are the 2 inevitables why not put them together? And surely the obverse – a tax on the living – should be the harder sell. Unless Hawke really did caste a vote on election day.
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meher baba says:
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 6:50 am
I know many posters on here simply don’t want to believe it, but this outcome seems to me to be entirely consistent with the idea that it wasn’t that the Coalition won the election but that Labor lost, because swinging voters couldn’t stomach the tax package and Shorten’s uninspiring leadership.
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zoomster says:
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 8:42 am
I repeat: it was mining communities threatened by action on climate change what done it.
We might have won (or retained) a handful of seats here and there if we didn’t have the franking credits/negative gearing policies but not enough to offset the ones lost in Queensland to WA.
The story about Heidelberg is wrong in at least one respect – it had over 100 members in the 2000s, not 13 (I was a branch secretary elsewhere in Jagajaga at the time and looked up my old notes when the story first surfaced). The branch with 13 members was a different branch which folded and effectively merged into Heidelberg.
I was just merely responding to zoomster asserting that the Vic ALP has put all that behind them and there’s nothing to see here.
C@tmomma @ #103 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 7:40 am
And therein lies the problem. Climate change is an existential crisis. It is not going to be solved by pragmatism or “going where the voters are”.
Yeah, I know, first you have to win an election before you can do anything. The problem with that is it feeds into the same-same meme. Plus Labor will lose votes to the right because the people who want to vote for a “Right” party will continue to vote for the real thing rather than a party moving to the right just to win votes. Secondly, they’re going to lose far more votes on the left than they’re ever going to win on the right.
I don’t have any solutions to this dilemma, but then again neither does anyone else. Basically we’re fvcked.
A tad amusing that the pollsters, the punters, the commentators, the bludgers and the excessively compulsive were all wrong about the election outcome, yet have very quickly established that the outcome was obvious!
Windhover, the ALP can have all of the admirable policies in place in the world but it’s worth nothing if they can’t win with them. An inheritance tax policy would be a death warrant for the party’s electoral chances – you may not agree and be willing to experiment but I highly doubt the parliamentary party would be so risky.
Tristo @ #74 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 9:22 am
WTAF? Shorten would be ideal as a quiet backbencher who retires at the next election. Give Labor a fighting chance in 2022 ffs!
Goll @ #145 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 10:10 am
Arise concern trolls your day has come….
Why does Greg Jericho think the Australian Government needs to borrow its own currency? Government spending supplies the currency that investors use to buy bonds. Government spending supplies the currency that taxpayers use to pay taxes.