What the papers say

Random notes on coronavirus and opinion poll response rates, election postponements and a call to give counting of pre-poll votes a head start on election night.

No Newspoll this week it seems – which is unfortunate, because a report in New York Times ($) suggests coronavirus lockdowns are doing wonders for opinion poll response rates:

Even in online surveys, pollsters have also seen an increase in participation over the past few weeks. At the Pew Research Center, which does most of its polling through the online American Trends Panel, many respondents filled in a voluntary-comments box in a recent survey with expressions of gratitude.

It is inferred that “a wider variety of people are willing to tell pollsters what they think, so it’s more likely that a poll’s respondents will come closer to reflecting the makeup of the general population.”

Coronavirus is rather less conducive to the staging of actual elections, the latest casualty being the May 30 date that was set for Tasmania’s Legislative Council seats of Huon Rosevears, which was itself a postponement from the traditional first Saturday of the month. The government has now invoked a recently legislated power to set the date for a yet-to-be-determined Saturday in June, July and August. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission has expressed the view that a fully postal election, as some were advocating, did not count as an election under the state’s existing Electoral Act.

Tasmania and other jurisdictions with elections looming on their calendars might perhaps look to South Korea, which proceeded with its legislative elections on Wednesday. As reported in The Economist ($):

All voters will have their temperature taken before entering their polling station (those found to have fever or other symptoms will be directed to a separate polling booth). They will also have to wear a face mask, sanitise their hands and put on vinyl gloves before picking up a ballot paper and entering the booth. Election stewards will ensure people keep away from each other while queueing and voting. Door knobs, pencils and ballot boxes will be sterilised often.

Other than that, I can offer the following in the way of recommended reading: Antony Green’s post calling for pre-poll votes to be counted under wraps on election day starting from 2pm. This would address issues arising from the huge imbalance between election day booths, only one of which processed more than 4000 votes at the May 2019 federal election, and the three weeks’ accumulation of votes cast at pre-poll booths, of which 901 cleared 4000 votes, including 208 that went above 10,000 and ten with more than 20,000 (UPDATE: Make that 370 of more than 4000 and 208 of more than 10,000 – turns out the numbers in the table are cumulative). The result is that the largest pre-poll booths are not reporting until very late at night, many hours after the last trickles of election booths runs dry.

This has sometimes caused election counts to take on different complexions at the end of the evening — to some extent at the Victorian state election in November 2018, which ended a little less catastrophic for the Liberals than the election day results suggested, and certainly at the Wentworth by-election the previous month, when Liberal candidate Dave Sharma briefly rose from the dead in his struggle with the ultimately victorious Kerryn Phelps. It is noted that pre-poll votes in New Zealand are counted throughout election day itself, which is made practical by a ban on any election campaigning on the day itself, freeing up party volunteers for scrutineering who in Australia would be staffing polling booths.

Antony also argues against reducing the pre-poll period from three weeks to two, for which there has been quite a broad push since last year’s election, as it will lead to greater demand for the less secure option of postal voting, stimulated by the efforts of the political parties.

Also note my extensive post below on recent events in Wisconsin – you are encouraged to use that thread if you have something to offer specifically on American politics.

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.

769 comments on “What the papers say”

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  1. “stage 2”

    What is stage 2?

    Looking at the NZ definition (and kudos to them for having it well defined) there’s a scary “100 people in an indoorgathering at a time”. That one would freak me out, if it’s 100 adults after the mass spreadings from weddings that we’ve seen. I don’t think that’ll be realistic for another month at least in Australia.

    (Based on nothing but feels though)

  2. Back after a back-breaking afternoon of painting walls. It’s the bits around the doors and the skirting boards that tax the lower back: turning brown varnished wood into sleek glossy white(ish) trim, and having to do it very carefully so as not to paint the adjacent floor.

    While this (below) is not conclusive in an absolute sense, it bodes well for downloading the app:

    The independent cyber security body tasked with reviewing the government’s coronavirus tracing application has said it has no major concerns about the app.

    The Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, which was allowed to review the app after several MPs raised concerns the data collected could be pervasive or mishandled, said it found “nothing particular disturbing” in the app’s architecture.

    “I’m pleased with what I’ve seen to date,” the centre’s chief executive officer, Rachael Falk, said. “There’s very little private data obtained.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nothing-particularly-disturbing-coronavirus-app-safe-review-finds-20200420-p54lea.html

    While this may not be exactly what satisfies citizens of The People’s Republic of Poll Bludger (does anything, when paranoia is about?), it is at least an initial indication that the app is benign. I wonder who would be seen as an honest broker in this matter? My nomination was Mike Cannon-Brookes from Atlassian, certainly no friend of the Morrison government, and by all reports a fairly upfstanding guy.

    While only reading a couple of posts made after I left to torture myself at the Wall Of Pain, I did notice one poster that quibbled with just about every point I made about the app: it wasn’t to stop getting infected, it probably wouldn’t work, etc. etc.

    It was even said that “there is no evidence” that early intervention helps in surviving coronavirus. It is quite clear that prolonged exposure and/or letting the virus soak through you until you’re half dead before you present to a hospital does kill people: lots of them. Just look at the mass graves in Italy, Spain and New York for those who either were forced to stay at home too long, or worked in the medical field treating virus patient day after day. Early intervention is ALWAYS a good thing, provided you can get it… which we can here.

    This post (and I’m sure others) critical of downloading and using the app was written with that plonking style of someone who got a degree about 40 years ago and still thinks it’s Christmas.

    Well, I got my degrees 40 years ago too: three of them. And this is the first and last time you’ll hear me mention them. Education is no substitute for common sense. Degrees mean nothing without it.

    The ageing hippies here, waxing ideological about police states and how Total Trust In Government must be restored before we can do anything to fight the virus, had better start realizing that whether they be on pensions or sitting pretty on fat super accounts, most other citizens are not.

    They have no jobs and dwindling money. Mortgages and rent are going unpaid. Good companies are going broke, many never to return. Lives are being destroyed. And this is only week 4 or 5 of the lock-down, due to go on for months yet. It’s going to get a lot uglier than just whingeing about being bored and sitting behind a keyboard dissing everything the government does.

    Thank your lucky stars we don’t have Trump, and do have a decent Healthcare system. Then you WOULD have something to worry about, rather than stressing out about some paranoid throwback to the 70s, when everyone knew ASIO was keeping tabs on university Common Rooms, and them in particular.

    Peter Dutton is NOT going to kick your door down as a result of using the app. You aren’t going to get audited by the ATO. The coppers will probably not arrest you for loitering.

    Rather, if anyone DOES knock on your door, or call your number, it’ll probably be some contact tracer telling you to get yourself tested because your Bluetooth and someone else’s Bluetooth shook hands two days ago and either you or the other person is infected. And if you prove positive, and get proper medical attention early, you may well have cause to thank the people who wrote and supplied that app, rather than playing hysterical Drama Queens over the alleged Impending Fascist State Australia is about to become.

    The only way Australia will become a Fascist state is if there is mass unemployment, mass poverty, and mass illness. That will come if the virus is not beaten. Targeted testing is an elegant solution because it focuses attention where it needs to be paid, with the added zing of being able to identify unwitting cases. The sooner we get over this groundless Deep State paranoia, and do something about getting well, the better.

    And then, when it’s all over, you can delete the app. Or turn it off if complaints come up. Or buy a new phone if you have to. But in the meantime, do your civic duty.

    simple.

    If the researchers come up with a treatment that means likely recovery, even in severe cases, that advice will seem even more prescient.

  3. AE

    NT is already at 2 weeks
    SA has had only 3 days. Entirely possible SA will see more cases, but more likely than not will be of overseas origin.
    WA was on a good trajectory before today. Still a chance of it seeing a case of local origin within the next few days.
    Vic and Qld are the ones to watch carefully.
    I’m a bit more hopeful that Tas will mop up its outbreak.
    But NSW has had well entrenched hotspots. I’ve no doubt that the “last pockets of resistance” will be parts of Sydney.

  4. Diogenes, why did SARS and MERS eventually stop spreading even though vaccines for those illnesses were never discovered?

    Might COVID-19 follow that path as well?

  5. Todd Greenberg NRL has done a Judas Morrison, the writing was on the wall since the new NRL saviour arrived. Scarpered will his money, no details, move on to the next vault. Judas has a long prosperous history of scarpering. His time as PM will be no different. Desperate to live along millionaires row with the good ole back scratchers. Will be remembered as the not to be trusted wannabe.

  6. Bucephalus

    If schools are going back then kids sport should too.

    I don’t think that follows at all.

    School classes can reorganised so as to reduce the risk.

    At least some School sport has risks that are more difficult to control. Parents on the sidelines would be one example. Also there’s less structure and less scope for reorganisation.

  7. “E. G. Theodoresays:
    Monday, April 20, 2020 at 5:52 pm
    Bucephalus

    If schools are going back then kids sport should too.

    I don’t think that follows at all.

    School classes can reorganised so as to reduce the risk.”

    I agree. Though I’m a crazy who thinks schools (at least in WA) are OK to go back, I can’t see that we’re certain enough yet for kids sports. One issue is the presence of parents and the other is that the mixing between kids makes any spread, as unlikely as it is, much more problematic. Rather than being restricted to a single class room, or at worst school, it’s now possible it could be spread to a new area.

    The other issue with parents is that unlike dropping kids off at school, which is a relatively brief activity, watching kids sports goes from either an hour to seemingly forever. That increased contact time does increase the risk of spread.

  8. @theheraldsun
    ·
    9h
    Early predictions of 60,000 coronavirus deaths panicked our politicians into imposing extreme bans, several of which are now clearly way over the top, writes Andrew Bolt.

    In fact if we had completely closed our borders at the first hint of the virus, we might have escaped the deaths that have resulted from the cruise ships and some plane flights.

  9. Nicholas @ #506 Monday, April 20th, 2020 – 3:46 pm

    Diogenes, why did SARS and MERS eventually stop spreading even though vaccines for those illnesses were never discovered?

    Might COVID-19 follow that path as well?

    Because they made people infected very sick, very quickly, so those infected were able to be identified and isolated quickly.

    This limited their ability to infect others.

    This is very different to what is happening now with COVID-19.

  10. Been painting yourself into a corner there BB?

    Corners are the worst. Brushing them looks like shit. Rolling them is impossible. So normally I’d mask them off and just spray them, but there’s too much furniture in the room that I can’t move out of the way to mask it all off. So no spraying. I’m using anti-mould undercoat at the moment, so too thick to spray except on (or close to) full power, which means overspray, inevitably.

    The walls had lots of utility holes in them from a bygone era: mostly TV antenna outlets and power points high up in support of wall-mounted TVs. Ancient history now in The Time Of Streaming. When we got the new adjoining room built downstairs, we deleted all these and relocated the power points. Which meant several holes in the wall that had to be filled. AND the wall is Villaboard: suspected asbestos. So care needed when sanding.

    After patching the holes, there was no way that the patches would match the “textured” (fake “rendered”) look of the old wall. So I then had to re-plaster a lot of it and sand the rest of the texture finish flat to a polished surface. At least for that wall. Many Daddy Longlegs and Huntsmen pideys in corners, nooks and crannies were taken by surprise when The Big Sander From Hell came to their corner of the cornices. Got most of them trapped and outdoors to fresh fields, but a big black one (species unknown, but BIG and hairy) got stomped. It was a reflex reaction.

    You DID ask, Cuddly.

  11. ‘Bucephalus says:
    Monday, April 20, 2020 at 4:58 pm

    Now would be a time for all those Industry Funds to put their Union Money where their mouth is and buy an airline. ‘

    Only if they are commercial idiots. They have consistently outperformed the Liberal retail spivs funds. Which is why the Liberals hate the Industry funds.

  12. Parents on the sidelines would be one example.

    Ban them. Many behave appallingly. Mrs Katich would be first I would tell to go wait in the car.

  13. I find this incredible. Are people so ignorant? Apparently they are.

    New research conducted by the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne found almost one in five Australian parents has given their child antibiotics during the past 12 months either before seeing a doctor or without seeing one at all.

    Dr Anthea Rhodes, a paediatrician and director of the RCH National Child Health Poll, says she was surprised and concerned by the finding. “It means that there are children who are unwell, who are perhaps not getting the medical review they might need,” she says. “It shows us that a large proportion of children may in fact be getting antibiotics when they don’t need that treatment.”

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2020/04/11/antibiotic-misuse-and-resistance/15865272009670

  14. It only takes one, but will this be the one?
    After six zeroes, the ACT has a new case today.
    Caught it o/s.
    But did this person manage to keep it all to theirselves?
    Time will tell.

  15. “ Early predictions of 60,000 coronavirus deaths panicked our politicians into imposing extreme bans, several of which are now clearly way over the top, writes Andrew Bolt.”

    Let it rip would have seen over 100,000 Australian deaths. Piss-ant half measures would have still seen thousands needlessly die – just like UK (2.7 times our population but over 160 times the deaths and rising), and just like the tens of thousands of needless deaths in America (13 times our population but over 400 times the death rate and rising). THAT was our future if ScoMo followed his instincts and still fluffed around after Friday 13 March. Thank god for Labor Premiers calling it and pulling him into line (chapeau to Gladys in falling in with the combined Victorian and Queensland push at COAG that day).

    Blot can GGF. Better still – parachute him into a freedom rally in Wisconsin or Texas.

  16. lizzie @ #519 Monday, April 20th, 2020 – 6:05 pm

    I find this incredible. Are people so ignorant? Apparently they are.

    New research conducted by the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne found almost one in five Australian parents has given their child antibiotics during the past 12 months either before seeing a doctor or without seeing one at all
    .

    I knew a nurse that turned up in ED with her husband (heart attack). She had already given him morphine.

    The question is

    Where are the folk mentioned in the article getting the Antibiotics ❓
    I know where the nurse got the morphine.

    Depths of ignorance are very hard to plumb – perhaps even in oneself. 😇

  17. Thanks Barney.

    So without a vaccine, some form of restrictions on movement and social gatherings will continue to be necessary?

  18. Andrew_Earlwood says:
    Monday, April 20, 2020 at 6:13 pm
    Blot can GGF. Better still – parachute him into a freedom rally in Wisconsin or Texas.
    _______________
    When did Andrew Bolt work for the Labor Party? Was he a member of the elite Labor propaganda outfit in the 80s-90s. Was he ever a member? Inquiring minds want to know.

  19. Andrew_Earlwood

    Blot is one of those people standing at the bottom of the cliff bitching about the ambulance there being empty. For him that it is so is proof positive the fence at the top of the cliff was not needed.

  20. BK

    Bolt has to be a contrarian to keep his income going, without necessarily believing in half he says. He’s clever, but I couldn’t do it myself.

  21. Barney

    “Because they made people infected very sick, very quickly, so those infected were able to be identified and isolated quickly.

    This limited their ability to infect others.

    This is very different to what is happening now with COVID-19.”

    Yes, and no. Whilst it is true that SARS tended to bump people off with more efficiency, the effect of that was to reduce the re-infection rate.

    The original SARS and covid19 do have one thing in common though. A relatively long incubation period. For SARS the average incubation period was about 5 days. See https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/public-health/infectious-diseases/disease-information-advice/severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-sars . But covid19 also has an average incubation period of about 5 days – or even a bit longer if you read down a bit in this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014672/

    A long incubation period means that when you detect someone who is positive and trace his/her contacts you have a far better chance of isolating those people *before* they become infectious.

    So yeah, SARS was too efficient a killer for its own good, but covid19 isn’t as hard to control as a flu (which has a typical incubation of 2 days).

  22. Here is an article on using BlueTooth (and WiFi) scanners (relevant to contact tracing):
    https://addinsight.com.au/news?a=358971
    Re Bluetooth:

    Bluetooth. This methodology captures Bluetooth devices such as hands-free kits, car stereos and GPS devices that are in discovery mode. You will notice that I did not mention smart phones. Here is the first little-known truth. Even with Bluetooth turned on, smartphones are rarely in discovery mode, making them invisible to Bluetooth scanners. They are only in discovery mode when you are on the Bluetooth settings page trying to pair to another device. Once two Bluetooth devices have gone through the pairing process (e.g. car stereo and phone), they can discover each other without needing discovery mode.

    This is the reason why Bluetooth scanning only gets about 10-15% of the total traffic and not 50% or more. This is also why Bluetooth scanners are not effective in pedestrian only environments; the primary device you are trying to track is a smartphone and the scanners can’t see them. Not being able to detect smartphones does sometimes work in its favour. In a mixed environment, your traffic data will get far less noise from pedestrians, cyclists and buses full of people with smartphones.

    This makes it quite difficult to use Bluetooth; I’m guessing that the reason TraceTogether has to be foreground is force the phone to be discoverable (and either being in foreground or being discoverable drains the battery).

  23. Rick
    @colonelhogans
    ·
    5m
    Racism against Chinese Australians?
    @9NewsAUS can help stop the racist attacks on Chinese Australians… by not giving Pauline Hanson a PAID voice on your network!! Channel Nine, wake up to yourselves and dump Hanson…

  24. Nicholas

    “So without a vaccine, some form of restrictions on movement and social gatherings will continue to be necessary?”

    Unless you eliminate the virus, at least within our borders.

  25. “michaelsays:
    Monday, April 20, 2020 at 6:15 pm
    Something has seriously happened in Singapore. They had 1426 new cases today.”

    Spreading in it’s barely acknowledged underclass now. The large dormitory communities of guest workers are going to be a problem.

  26. “This makes it quite difficult to use Bluetooth; I’m guessing that the reason TraceTogether has to be foreground is force the phone to be discoverable (and either being in foreground or being discoverable drains the battery).”

    That’s my understanding. Also that’s one reason that Google and Apple are working to bake it into the OS, as I understand it. To get around the security settings.

  27. Blobbit

    I have a couple of friends in Singapore, one of whom is a guest worker. The place isn’t a paradise for all.

  28. BW @6:10

    I would imagine given the timing that this new ACT case would have ended up in quarantine, been tested while in quarantine and then added to to the ACT total being a resident there.

  29. “With WA+SA+NT doing so well perhaps it is time to “bring back”
    Nieuw Holland ? ”

    poroti that has crossed my mind.

    What I’m really hoping for is for Victoria to finally get into a run of zero cases. That will put more pressure on NSW and keep discussion of elimination at the top of the agenda.

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