Of swings and misses: episode three

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.

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.

1,256 comments on “Of swings and misses: episode three”

Comments Page 4 of 26
1 … 3 4 5 … 26

  2. nath says:
    Friday, May 31, 2019 at 9:04 am
    Shorten has reportedly told key allies that he one day intends on returning to the leadership:

    https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/pathetic-bill-shortens-excuse-for-election-loss-slammed/news-story/4f9b1e6644589ec0a05c8713e73458d7

    The author is Ben Graham who (I think) writes for Murdoch’s Oz. This is the same story being peddled by Latika Burke who, being in London, apparently reads stories from other journos and then writes opinion pieces based on what they say, not based on the facts.

  5. ltep says:
    Friday, May 31, 2019 at 10:11 am
    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.
    ………………………………………………………………………………………………

    I am not sure admirable policies are worth nothing if you cannot implement them (a good idea has a life of its own independent of its author) but I take your point.

    That said, good policies poorly explained will win no voters. Good policies well explained will win plenty of voters.

    I abhor your use of the phrase “death warrant”, and request you use the phrase “passing warrant” out of respect for the sensitivities of the many of us mortals who face an imminent (particularly on geological time scales) passing.

    As for a passing tax, it is easy to avoid. Don’t pass.

    And if you do pass, your assets must pass somewhere. It only makes sense that the Govmint should take its cut to ensure that your assets pass to your nearest and dearest (or the Cat’s Home).

    * There are Constitutional problems with the Cwth impementing a passing tax (as it should be called to emphasise the transactional nature of its imposition), but nothing a bit of muscle on the States can’t fix.

  6. nath

    I did qualify my statement with ‘largely’ dealt with. It is impossible to prevent branch stacking entirely, because the simplest form of ‘stack’ is to get your family to join up. It’s very hard to come up with a rule which prevents this happening and is legally sound.

    Victorian Labor has the strictest rules possible to control branch stacking. There was a time when these rules were so stringently applied* that it was almost impossible to join certain branches (wait times of over a year for memberships to be accepted was not uncommon) and starting up new branches was almost impossible. Whole branches were deregistered because they were deemed to have been stacked and their memberships cancelled (much to the indignation of ‘genuine’ members).

    Show me a state branch of any party which has been as ruthless in its efforts and I’ll listen to you.

    *They may still be, I simply can’t say so with certainty. I admit that I’m a few years out of touch with State admin matters.

  7. What is the constitutional problem? Wouldn’t such a law be a law wrt taxation?

    All of your arguments in favour of a passing tax are academic. Your argument that good policies will win if they’re explained well ignores the reality that most people do not pay much attention, and a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. Fear campaigns work because they are simple and quick.

    The other thing is Labor wouldn’t be able to get such a policy through the Senate anyway, so they’d be burning through political capital for something they couldn’t achieve. Even if Labor manage to win a majority in the HoR at the next election they will likely need the support of the Greens, One Nation and Lambie to pass legislation. On such a contentious policy as an inheritance tax, they might get the Greens on side but not One Nation or Lambie. Do you think there’s a point taking a policy to an election that would almost certainly be a drag on the Labor vote but they wouldn’t be able to implement even if they won?

  8. ..I started up a new branch once (admittedly over a decade ago). I was told that to start the new branch I had to have ten members sign up at the meeting, but if more than twelve signed up, it was branch stacking and they wouldn’t be accepted!

  10. If employers are putting together a legal team to defend the silicosis class action they could perhaps draft Julie Bishop. I am sure she would be happy to apply the skills she picked up fighting the claims of dying asbestos victims.

  11. @jacobgreber

    Holy shit.

    SEOUL, May 31 (Reuters) – North Korea executed Kim Hyok Chol, its special envoy to the US, and foreign ministry officials who carried out working-level negotiations for the second U.S.-North Korea summit in February, holding them responsible for its collapse

  13. Alpha Zero @ #153 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 8:43 am

    Dan,

    There is a simple solution. Infrastructure. People love it. People will vote for it.

    Good point, however it depends on what type of infrastructure. More roads isn’t going to do anything to mitigate the effects of climate change, in fact it’s only going to exacerbate it.

    Schools and hospitals on the other hand…

  14. ICanCU

    Probably not. Adani is just a coal mine. We have lots and lots of those. It’s a total beat up.

    The Greens always need an issue to totally beat up. Then they move on to another one.

    When I first started campaigning, it was all about uranium and how evil that was. Nothing’s changed as far as uranium’s concerned, but apparently it isn’t dangerous any more.

    Next election, Adani will be forgotten and something else will be Teh Evil which Labor is sitting on the fence about…

  16. According to Albo, he had a genius infrastructure policy. How many votes did that sway?

    If it was a genius infrastructure policy, and it didn’t sway any votes, then it must be the salesperson who was at fault.

  18. I wasn’t aware there even was an infrastructure policy. I think the only thing I knew of was money set aside for a rail corridor.

  19. It’s a tax on inheritance, payable by the person who is inheriting property. It is not a tax on death and it is not paid by the deceased.

  22. Interesting. There are EOI tenders out there for components of the Adani Rail line. On those, the ‘buyer’ has requested not to be named at this point.

  23. Nicholas says:
    Friday, May 31, 2019 at 11:18 am
    It’s a tax on inheritance, payable by the person who is inheriting property. It is not a tax on death and it is not paid by the deceased.
    ……………………………………………………………………………..

    Inheritance involves the ownership of assets being passed from the estate of the deceased to beneficiaries. The tax that does not exist is a tax on that transaction, only half of which involves inheritance, the other half involving “passing”.

    And true Itep, no Constitutional problem. My bad.

  24. Hugoaugogo:

    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.

    Bullshit.

    The only primary polling that was within a bull’s roar were NSW and SA.

    Victoria – 3-4% wrong.

    Queensland – fully 6-8% wrong. And in the ALP’s case this was on such a low primary figure it should have had a lower margin of error to begin with! (the MOE maxes out for a 50% statistic).

    WA – 7-8% wrong.

    Tasmania – 4% wrong on the ALP primary, and the miss on UAP is way out there too on such a small statistic.

    And most tellingly, all of these were in the same direction. Something smells funky all right.

  25. Latest from Libtard Bourke in SMH
    ‘Bill Shorten has told allies he wants to return as Labor leader, but is preparing to be denied his preferred frontbench positions as health or foreign affairs spokesman when Anthony Albanese unveils the opposition’s new-look frontbench this weekend.’

  26. Didn’t Latika Bourke also do the intial public softening up process on Bill Shorten so as to establish public dislike of him? So now we have the softening up process for Labor leadership instability. My contempt for this person grows every day.

    NOT ONE CRITICAL ARTICLE ABOUT THE COALITION FROM HER YET! NOT ONE!

  27. mundo

    Amazing is it not the meeja focus on the minutiae of Labor’s appointments yet the actual government and it’s appointments they pretty much just let through to the keeper?

  28. mundo

    Perhaps she should be named London Bourke. ASAIK she is still in London writing such crud for consumption by we colonials.

  29. Individual silicosis claims have been run and won for years with substantial damages.

    Why would you run as a class action which just adds to those who get a dividend – ie overseas litigation funders?

  31. poroti @ #176 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 11:38 am

    mundo

    Amazing is it not the meeja focus on the minutiae of Labor’s appointments yet the actual government and it’s appointments they pretty much just let through to the keeper?

    Well I’m reluctant to go there….but what the hell, I was hoping for a full out assault on Stuart Roberts return from Labor’s shiny new leadership, some commentary on Ley and a few other tidbits…..but sadly, nothing.
    Labor never learns.

  32. Sir Mundo
    A Mr Taylor’s friend and thirty million untaxed profit from the sale of properties with frontage to a dry Darling river doesn’t raise some brows among the MSM?
    Probably shouldn’t concern the voters with trivia!
    Or a Mr Robb, being well named! Or a Mr Hospitals!
    Mr Transparency seems to have disappeared?

  35. Alpha Zero @ #153 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 10:43 am

    Dan,

    There is a simple solution. Infrastructure. People love it. People will vote for it.

    Infrastructure spending is old hat. Along with schools and hospitals, it’s a thing that everyone already knows Labor will fund. Even a modern infrastructure policy like the NBN didn’t translate into swathes of votes for Labor (nor did its outright ruination by the Coalition translate into a backlash against them).

    Labor has to look beyond its traditional bread and butter if it wants to sway votes. Do a Federal ICAC. Promise The Voice. Get behind voluntary euthanasia. Come up with a serious proposal for an Australian Bill of Rights. Promise to hold multinationals to account tax-wise. Get way ahead of the Libs on policies that cost (next to) nothing, are broadly popular, and will trigger an ugly knee-jerk reaction from the Libs.

  37. Shorten blames the likes of Clive, Adani and Murdoch.
    In the cold light of day, have they benefited from the return of the L/NP to Govt?
    Are we likely to see approvals / funding of coal mining projects in the Galilee basin? Ask senator Canavan.
    Are we likely to see more of the same regarding tax minimization and the constant push to reduce company taxation? Not with our treasurer.
    So, the rich get richer.
    Overseas entities and Clive had good reason to swing all support to the L/NP. I think Shorten probably got it right. If the TEOT get the benefits, they will be back again next time their wealth is threatened.

  40. yabba @ #187 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 12:24 pm

    The Roman Paedophile Protection Society are up to their bastardry again. What a bunch of unmitigated arseholes.

    “Church’s astonishing defence ignores royal commission’s findings on notorious paedophile priest” ABC headline.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-31/catholic-church-royal-commission-abuse-astonishing-defence/11165522

    Well, they’ve got Connie Fierravanti-Wells in their corner now, so why the hell not go full bastard?

  41. yabba,
    Emma better get her skates on and flick the switch to vaudeville. Morrison has targeted Dobell for a full court press by Jilly Pilly from now till 2022.

  42. @Vic_Rollison
    17 hours ago,

    I agree @ItaButtrose that sometimes ABC reporters ‘unconsciously let their biases show through’ – but this isn’t left wing bias. According to my quantitative research it’s right wing bias framing news using capitalist class’s view of economy, capital versus labour.
    Article for reference here, where Ita is laying groundwork to bring more conservative voices into the ABC. In other words – doing what Murdoch/Liberals have been lobbying for FOR YEARS

    ***

    A great example is way ABC reporters mostly write/talk about tax through a negative frame. Framing expert George Lakoff describes the success neoliberal/conservative politicians have had in using the phrase ‘tax relief’ to frame tax as something you are afflicted by – a negative.
    Here is an article from ABC doing exactly this – framing tax cuts as a ‘relief’ – this is a right wing idea. Yes, this has become a dominant frame, but that nevertheless has a right wing bias. The capital class sees tax as a bad thing, and fight tooth and nail against paying it.

    “Budget to bring tax relief to people earning $37000-$126000″ by Andrew Probyn.”

    If ABC really did have left wing bias as Ita suggests, tax would be framed as a positive thing. Tax is redistributive. Tax creates government services and spending to benefit the whole society. This is a left wing idea – that tax is positive. Framing it as negative is right wing.

    So successful have the neoliberals been at framing policies they don’t like as bad for the economy, and perpetuating a myth that left wing governments can’t manage money, these ideas have become rules of thumb, otherwise known as right wing biases.

    The biases towards the interests of the capital class are subtle, yet important. For instance, interviewing someone losing from franking credits changes, without also interviewing someone gaining from a policy funded by this change is not a balanced report.

    I have found there is a structural bias across all media – sometimes subtle, sometimes overt – which benefits the views and interests of the capital class over the rest of society. The ABC exhibits such right wing bias. Not all the time. Not every report. But it’s there. End.

  43. Gary Fallon @GaryFallon2
    1h1 hour ago

    I spent a month in Queensland between Monday and Wednesday this week visiting one of my sisters. It was an experience I’m not going to rush to repeat. There are a lot of pensioners up there waiting for “Mr Morrison’s $30K franking refunds”, despite owning no shares…..#auspol

  44. I would like to congratulate the Greens in achieving outcomes well above their weight.

    By being the cheer squad for the LNP, we now have Adani full steam ahead and it appears the live sheep trade has got the green light.

    Well done.

  45. There is a pattern forming. There were three ‘boo Labor’ articles in the 8 most read SMH articles. Below are two, the other one dropped out during my reading of an article.

    1) Albanese caps off his first week as leader by making key mistakes
    5) Bill Shorten blames ‘corporate leviathans’ and the media for Labor’s shock election loss

    Scrolling down the online SMH’s front page I found the following political headlines.

    Labor failed to understand the ‘aspirational’ voter

    Labor leadership hopefuls to be grilled by unions

    Bill Shorten may not have abandoned his leadership ambitions

    Labor’s loss is not just the fault of its economic team

    Apparently we only have one party to report on and no government……………………..oh wait I found 1

    Government looks at tougher English standards for overseas students

  46. Lizzie, they seem to have short memories. The seem to have forgotten their $550 refund on their electricity charges.

  47. lizzie @ #192 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 12:47 pm

    Gary Fallon @GaryFallon2
    1h1 hour ago

    I spent a month in Queensland between Monday and Wednesday this week visiting one of my sisters. It was an experience I’m not going to rush to repeat. There are a lot of pensioners up there waiting for “Mr Morrison’s $30K franking refunds”, despite owning no shares…..#auspol

    Oh I do hope that’s true.

  48. poroti @ #194 Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 12:56 pm

    There is a pattern forming. There were three ‘boo Labor’ articles in the 8 most read SMH articles. Below are two, the other one dropped out during my reading of an article.

    1) Albanese caps off his first week as leader by making key mistakes
    5) Bill Shorten blames ‘corporate leviathans’ and the media for Labor’s shock election loss

    Scrolling down the online SMH’s front page I found the following political headlines.

    Labor failed to understand the ‘aspirational’ voter

    Labor leadership hopefuls to be grilled by unions

    Bill Shorten may not have abandoned his leadership ambitions

    Labor’s loss is not just the fault of its economic team

    Apparently we only have one party to report on and no government……………………..oh wait I found 1

    Government looks at tougher English standards for overseas students

    Maybe we should start a satirical version of the MSM for a bit of push back.

  49. I see Taylor is going to force AGL to keep Liddel going or making them build a new power plant with equal capacity.

    What is it with the free market party that loves to interfere with the market?

Comments Page 4 of 26
1 … 3 4 5 … 26

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *