ANU post-election survey and Essential Research poll

Comprehensive new research suggests a telling shift from the “others” column to the Coalition through the campaign period, while Labor were either consistently overrated by pollsters or fell off a cliff at the end.

Some particularly interesting post-election research has emerged in the shape of a paper from Nicholas Biddle at the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods. This draws from the centre’s regular online panel surveys on social attitudes, which encompasses a question on voting intention for reasons unrelated to prediction of election results. The study compares results for 1692 respondents who completed both its pre- and post-election surveys, which were respectively conducted from April 8 to 26 (encompassing the start of the campaign on April 11) and June 3 to 17 (commencing a fortnight after the election). Respondents were excluded altogether if they were either ineligible to vote or failed to answer the voting intention question.

The results are, to a point, consistent with the possibility that pollsters were confounded by a last minute shift to the Coalition, particularly among those who had earlier been in the “others” column. The changes can be summarised as follows, keeping in mind that a “don’t know” response for the April survey was at 2.9%, and 6.5% in the June survey said they did not vote. Since the disparity leaves a net 3.6% of the total vote unaccounted for, the shifts identified below will err on the low side.

The Coalition vote increased an estimated 2.6% from the time of the April survey, suggesting the polls were right to be recording them at around 38% at that time, if not later. However, no movement at all was recorded in the Labor vote, suggesting they were always about four points short of the 37% most polls were crediting them with. The exception here was Ipsos, which had Labor at 33% or 34% in all four of the polls from the start of the year. The Greens fell very slightly, suggesting a poll rounding to whole numbers should have had them at 11% early in the campaign. Newspoll consistently had it at 9%, Ipsos at 13% or 14%, and Essential fluctuated between 9% and 12%.

The biggest move was the 5.9% drop in support for “others”, although a fair bit of this wound up in the “did not vote” column. Even so, it can conservatively be said that pollsters in April should have been rating “others” at around four points higher than their actual election result of 15%, when they were actually coming in only one point higher. This three point gap is reflected in the size of the overestimation of support for Labor.

The results also point to a remarkably high degree of churn — an estimated 28.5% did not stick with the voting intention expressed in April, albeit that a little more than a fifth of this subset did so by not voting at all. The sub-sample of vote changers is small, but it offers little to suggest voters shifted from Labor to the Coalition in particularly large numbers. The Coalition recorded the lowest rate of defection, although the difference with Labor was not statistically significant (I presume it’s normal for major party supporters to be more constant than minor). Conversely, 49.4% of those who left the “others” column went to the Coalition (which comes with a 9% margin of error), and most of the remainder did not vote.

The survey also features statistical analysis to determine the demographic characteristics of vote changers. These find that older voters were generally less likely to be vote changers, and that young vote changers tended not to do so in favour of the Coalition, presumably switching for the most part between Labor and the Greens. Also particularly unlikely to budge were Coalition voters who lived in areas of socio-economic advantage. Those at the other end of this scale, regardless of party support, were most volatile.

Also out this week was the regular fortnightly Essential Research survey, which is still yet to resume its voting intention series but will do so soon. A question on the anticipated impact of government policies over the next three years produces encouraging numbers for the government, with 41% positive and 23% negative. A question on racist sentiments finds 36% agreeing that Australia is a racist country, and 50% saying it is less racist than it was in the past. Breakdowns record no significant differences between those of migrant and non-migrant backgrounds, although the former may include too many of British origin for the results to be particularly revealing.

A question on political interest finds only 15% professing no interest in federal politics, with 53% saying they follow it closely or “enough to know what’s happening”. A big question though is whether polling has gone astray because too many such people are included in their samples. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1075 respondents drawn from an online panel.

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.

1,483 comments on “ANU post-election survey and Essential Research poll”

Comments Page 22 of 30
1 21 22 23 30
  1. Player One says:
    Saturday, September 7, 2019 at 8:09 pm

    briefly @ #1043 Saturday, September 7th, 2019 – 8:08 pm

    The splitters keep the Reactionaries in power.

    No, it is Labor’s disarray that keeps the Reactionaries in power.

    Whatever disarray there is, the Greens work hard to create it and highlight it. Making it a little but harder for Labor to win and a lit bit easier for the Liberals. The Greens got what they wanted, “not a Labor government”.

    Obviously Labor must do something about it otherwise the destruction of the environment will continue apace. And for all their destruction the Greens attract around 10% of the vote. The solution is not to be found there.

    The Greens environmental stunts and talk, aim, no action”

  2. I think when your adviser responds thus your screwed.

    Asked why the president was obsessed with Alabama instead of the states that would actually be affected by the storm, the strategist said, “you should ask a psychiatrist about that; I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment.”

  3. P1
    first rule of politics, if you want to see things done you have to work with people with different views.
    second rule of politics, nothing without a majority.

    Edit
    And like it or not, the Greens preventing climate change action has to be dealt with.

  4. nath says:
    Saturday, September 7, 2019 at 8:37 pm

    Labor will continue to shed its primary vote every election. This is inevitable. They will be dissolved and replaced. Amen.

    As the Greens are not picking up the vote; if the prediction is true; the mad right has taken over the country. I truly hope your wrong and I think you are.

    But then I believe the Greens have to be dealt with before there can be serious climate change action, so I disagree with at east 10% of the population.

    And as the right wing vote is increasing the % I disagree with is increasing.

  5. Oakshott

    As outlined in Peter Fox’s book, two of McAlinden’s many serious offences were against HS own two nieces, over years.

    Have yet to read Cunneen about McAlinden/Wilson. There may be better evidence than Fletcher/Wilson. Cunneen’s report says (in today’s Newcastle Herald) “he knew”, and not “he maybe knew” or “shoulda known”. Hope so.

  6. P1
    -1 rule of politics. If what you are trying to explain is being attacked from both sides with nonsense you have no hope.

    We now have the Liberals telling the voters Labor are going to close down their jobs because of the Greens. We have the Greens telling the voters they are going to close down their jobs ( to help the Liberals out). Oh and wind farms kill eagles and are an eyesore along with transmission towers.

    You can’t put policies in place to deal with the reality ( demand is falling) until the reality is accepted.

    And please P1 we have been around your little tree a couple of times, I do not accept your view ( we are fucked if we don’t go gas, I think is where your at) and you do not accept mine ( absolutely nothing wrong with renewable energy, it is happening and coal is fucked). Unlike the Greens I have no issues with wind, solar and the technologies that are coming on line to store energy.

    As all the Labor state government are pushing renewable solutions along I have absolutely no issue with Labor policy.

    I also have no issue with Labor supporting the NEG, it was not perfect, but Labor had spent a decade trying to get a price on carbon and failed (the failure helped along by the Greens at several turns of the sorry story).

  7. Shell bell

    There are at least 4 witnesses who gave direct evidence about Wilson’s knowledge of McAlinden’s activities, all of whom are well alive. In addition there are numerous documents between Wilson and (living) others indicating that Wilson knew about McAlinden.

    Further, Wilson’s own diary entries at the time indicate that Wilson knew!

    That wealth of evidence gleaned by Cunneen is far more powerful than the Wilson/Fletcher evidence.

    As to his dementia, that was put up but dismissed in his first case.

    Whether or not the DPP will act I don’t know, but if they do not act it will not be for lack of evidence.

  8. Oh. I just heard the commentators talking about Australia maybe enforcing the Follow On. I thought that might have meant they were in a wining position. I say this knowing that I know naff all about cricket.

    Which commentators?

  9. As you’ve heard, President Trump displayed a chart that appeared to be doctored with a Sharpie to retroactively demonstrate that he had been right when he falsely warned that Alabama was threatened by Hurricane Dorian.

    This has set in motion a very D.C.-style mystery, though with a Trumpian twist: Who, multiple news organizations have asked, doctored the chart? It’s a good question.

    But it’s also illuminating to look at this as part of a much larger pattern: Again and again, government officials have wheeled into action in an effort to make Trump’s lies, errors and obsessions into truths, in some cases issuing “official” information explicitly shaped or doctored to do so.

    By my count, this has happened at least seven times:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/05/not-just-sharpie-gate-other-times-officials-tried-fabricate-trumps-truth/

    If Trump loses in 2020 you can just imagine public servants singing like canaries/leaking to reveal the Stockholm Syndrome like cloud they’d been under the past 4 years.

  10. And a leader who stands out as a competent, decent, intelligent, natural, sincere individual who attracts wide community support.

  11. Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Another slow Sunday I’m afraid.

    Boris Johnson said he “will not” carry out the British Parliament’s instructions to seek an Article 50 extension if he fails to agree a new Brexit deal by the deadline, adding he was only bound “in theory” by a law passed on Friday. Stand by for constitutional fireworks!
    https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/boris-johnson-says-he-will-defy-law-over-brexit-extension-20190907-p52oxn.html
    Boris Johnson would trigger a legal and constitutional crisis that would force his resignation as prime minister if he failed to obey a law mandating him to seek another extension to Brexit, according to high-level legal advice obtained by Labour.
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/07/boris-johnson-could-trigger-constitutional-crisis-over-brexit-law
    And just now Amber Rudd has quit the cabinet and Conservative Party saying she cannot “stand by” while “loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled”.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49623737
    “Has Scott Morrison’s government failed to plan – or is it actually planning to fail?”, asks Greg Jericho. Ouch!
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/sep/08/has-scott-morrisons-government-failed-to-plan-or-is-it-actually-planning-to-fail
    Zimbabwean author Peter Godwin DOES speak ill of the dead as he details life under Mugabe.
    https://www.smh.com.au/world/africa/the-anti-climatic-death-of-a-man-who-ruined-the-country-i-call-home-20190907-p52oyi.html
    Here’s Peter FitzSimons’ Sunday column.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/all-bets-are-off-as-star-casino-finds-itself-behind-the-eight-ball-20190906-p52osv.html
    A former secretary of the Australian defence department says the country cannot justify selling weapons to militaries involved in the five-year war in Yemen, which now stand “accused of gross violations of human rights and likely war crimes by the UN”.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/08/australias-arms-deals-ignoring-gross-violations-of-human-rights-ex-defence-official-says
    Things are not good inside the NSW Rural Fire Service.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/fire-volunteers-ignore-calls-to-help-fight-bushfires-due-to-toxic-relations-with-rfs-20190907-p52oxx.html
    This is a great contribution from John Silvester about the career and work of Victoria’s Post Sentence Authority head, Michelle Williams QC.
    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-keeper-of-the-keys-20190905-p52o7u.html
    Ben Schneiders reports that High-profile chef, author and TV presenter Shane Delia is the latest high-end restaurant owner to be accused of underpaying staff.
    https://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace/high-profile-chef-shane-delia-probed-for-wage-underpayment-20190906-p52opq.html
    But making wage theft a crime could distract from more effective ways to tackle the systemic underpayment of workers, says Sally McManus. Schneiders examines the government’s motives.
    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/union-leader-says-libs-might-criminalise-wage-theft-for-marketing-reasons-20190906-p52opg.html
    When a judge says a bank’s borrowers could afford its loans if they cut down on Wagyu beef and fine shiraz, the accusation that the judiciary is out of touch is not a hard one to make, writes Ben Butler as he examines the comment from ASIC chief Rod Sims who is calling for new consumer protection laws following a series of controversial court cases.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/08/not-fair-why-judges-have-been-accused-of-failing-australian-consumers
    It’s been easier for the Government to punish refugees until now, when a family has put human faces to their struggle, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/cruelties-unconfined-humanising-refugees-and-the-biloela-tamil-family,13084
    The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has praised the far-right prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, and warned a conference in Europe about “military age” male immigrants “swarming” the continent.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/06/tony-abbott-attacks-migrants-swarming-europe-praising-far-right-hungarian-pm
    Hundreds, if not thousands of people are still missing after Category 5 Hurricane Dorian blasted its way across the Bahamas and the US east coast last weekend.
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/09/07/bahamas-missing-people/
    The words of three young girls have carried more compassion and wisdom than what our world leaders seem capable of showing, writes Lyn Bender.
    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-lessons-our-leaders-can-learn-from-voices-of-the-young,13083
    A rare event that took place 30 kilometres above the South Pole last week is expected to impact upon Australia’s rainfall outlook. The upper atmosphere above Antarctica warmed by as much as 40 degrees Celsius in the course of a few days – and it is continuing to warm. This rare phenomenon, known as sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), could deepen one of the worst droughts in Australian history.
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/09/06/australia-weather-antarctica/
    Matthew Knott tells us how US health officials are investigating 450 cases of lung illness associated with e-cigarette use, an outbreak affecting young and otherwise healthy patients. Is this a canary in a coalmine?
    https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/canary-in-the-coal-mine-us-e-cigarette-lung-disease-epidemic-a-worry-expert-20190907-p52oye.html
    With a boss like Trump, you have to feel sorry for the US Fed chief says Bloomberg’s Brian Chappatta.
    https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/where-did-i-find-this-guy-jerome-with-a-boss-like-trump-you-have-to-feel-sorry-for-the-fed-chief-20190907-p52ox2.html
    Today’s nomination for “Arsehole of the Week” goes to this upstanding citizen.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/driver-who-struck-and-killed-schoolboy-was-serving-community-jail-sentence-20190907-p52owv.html

    Cartoon Corner

    From Matt Golding.



    More on Coalition economics from Mark David.

    Zanetti on Queensland political fortunes.

    Great stuff from Alan Moir.

    From the US.



  12. Boris Johnson looks ridiculous! He’s in full on election mode but there is no election!

    Of course in Bizarro World in politics in the 21st century it may be the case that a national leader who goes around the country looking like a goose will win any eventual election.

    It certainly worked in Australia for Scott Morrison. And the same team has now decamped to Britain to advise Johnson.

    My hope is for the British electorate to be the last bastion of sanity and the first post in the turnaround that starts getting us away from Clown Prince politics.

  13. ‘And a leader who stands out as a competent, decent, intelligent, natural, sincere individual who attracts wide community support.’

    Anyone who the media decides to take down will go down, no matter how competent, decent, intelligent etc they may be.

    Julia Gillard went from overwhelmingly popular to barely scraping through in the space of three months.

  14. Insiders ABCVerified account@InsidersABC
    11m11 minutes ago
    Coming up at 9am on #Insiders, @frankelly08 interviews Finance Minister @MathiasCormann & @mpbowers talks pics with @markhumphries.

    On the couch are @annikasmethurst, @CroweDM and @KarenMMiddleton. See you soon! #auspol

  15. zoomster @ #1085 Sunday, September 8th, 2019 – 8:26 am

    My point is that you can start out with wide community support and the media can change that, as they did with Gillard.

    Well why the feck are we bothered then. The political cycle will change when the media decides it’s time to back someone from Labor. Like Rudd.
    Forget political strategising and all the tea leaves and prognostications.
    Sit back and watch the show.
    There’s nothing we can do about it.
    What a relief.
    It’s the media stoopid.
    Or is it the Greens.
    I’m so confused.

  16. mundo

    Well, recognising the realities of the situation is important if you want to change it.

    If you work off false premises – which, in the last election cycle, included inaccurate polling – you can’t.

  17. Rebecca Powell from Monash University’s Border Crossing Observatory says New Zealanders now make up the majority of people held in Australian immigration detention centres, and are the largest nationality group to have their visas cancelled under the new amendments. New Zealanders of Māori and Pacific Island descent are over-represented.

    “There is evidence that increasingly people’s visas are being cancelled on suspicion of criminal activity, and there is definitely evidence that the minister is personally cancelling visas that don’t allow appeals,” Powell says.

    Deportations have picked up in the past month. About five arrive in New Zealand every week.

    Many of those sent back have lived and worked in Australia for decades, paid taxes, bought houses and raised families there. Deportation orders often arrive out of the blue, and appealing against them has proved fruitless for most, no matter how many ties people have to Australia or how long they have lived there.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/08/i-was-petrified-the-new-zealanders-deported-from-australia-despite-decades-working-there

  18. The true costs of Trump’s irrational winding back standards for light globes – apparently at the behest of a group of anti-regulation, IPA type zealots, and light globe manufacturers.

    The Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which advocates stronger national efficiency programs, on Wednesday provided a sense of the potential cost: “Eliminating the 2020 standards for all light bulbs would cost US consumers up to $14 billion annually, which works out to more than $100 in lost bill savings every year per household. The rollback would increase annual climate-change emissions by about 38 million metric tons per year, or approximately the amount emitted by 8 million cars.”

    True, many consumers would choose to buy better bulbs in the absence of federal standards. But how would killing the rules benefit them? Only by providing the option to buy Thomas Edison’s incandescent lightbulb, which uselessly dissipates as heat nearly all the electricity it gobbles up and requires constant replacement.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-irrational-war-on-environmental-rules-just-outdid-itself/2019/09/06/7e70b11c-d014-11e9-8c1c-7c8ee785b855_story.html

  19. lizzie,
    That looks like a very spiteful reaction by Dutton and Morrison towards New Zealand, and dare I say it, a leader who exhibits the compassion they lack.

  20. ‘fess,
    Guess who also benefits when more electricity is consumed via low energy efficient whatever? Power companies and the coal companies that supply them. All generous Republican Party donors without a doubt.

  21. Fess

    Rick Wilson as always describes Trump best……………

    According to Wilson, “That bellowing you hear from the Oval Office may sound like the rantings of a kooky slowcoach accidental president of limited cognitive abilities. You could ascribe it to his obsessions and twitching, reflexive rages over even the slightest correction or disagreement as an act. We could blame it all on whatever slurry of toupee worms, mental illness, creeping dementia, tertiary syphilis, scurvy, and windmill cancer occupies his wee noggin, but it’s so much more, and it’s so much worse.”

    Noting what has become known as “Sharpiegate,” after the president was busted for altering an official weather map to make his point about Alabama, Wilson said it is evidence of the president’s decline.

    “Trump has entered the eccentric dictator phase of his presidency, so strap in,” he warned. “From Stalin to Mao to Mugabe to Pol Pot to Saddam to Trump’s sleepover bestie Kim Jong Un, Donald’s defining emotion is not contempt, but envy. These men enjoyed the life of power, wealth, control and freedom from accountability that fills Trump’s political spank bank.”

  22. C@t:

    Yep.

    In its rulemaking, the Energy Department acknowledged utilities’ and efficiency organizations ’ warning that they would have “to replace the lost energy savings either by building more power plants or by creating more utility programs around other products to achieve the savings through much less cost-effective means.”

  23. Greensborough Growler @ #1083 Sunday, September 8th, 2019 – 8:26 am

    They’ve invented a new syndrome to describe what’s wrong with a lot of PB posters; “Climate Change Distress and Anxiety Syndrome”.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-08/how-eternalism-can-help-with-climate-change-distress-and-anxiety/11477560

    Or, you could just accept that climate change is actually thing and start doing something about it, which would be much more helpful.

  24. Vic:

    I love his turn of phrase and the descriptions he has for Trump.

    Btw I was horrified to learn that Don Jnr is going to run for president in 2024!

  25. Listened to a disturbing program about Judge Sandy Street ‘s treatment of asylum seekers on RN this morning. For those of us who care about justice and human rights, it is deeply distressing.

Comments Page 22 of 30
1 21 22 23 30

Leave a Reply

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