A promised initiative to restore confidence in opinion polling has came to fruition with the establishment of the Australian Polling Council, a joint endeavour of YouGov, Essential Research and uComms. Following the example of the British Polling Council and the National Council for Published Polls in the United States, the body promises to “ensure standards of disclosure”, “encourage the highest professional standards in public opinion polling” and “inform media and the public about best practice in the conduct and reporting of polls”.
The most important of these points relates to disclosure, particularly of how demographic weightings were used to turn raw figures into a published result. The British Polling Council requires that its members publish “computer tables showing the exact questions asked in the order they were asked, all response codes and the weighted and unweighted bases for all demographics and other data that has been published”. We’ll see if its Australian counterpart to sees things the same way when it releases its requirements for disclosures, which is promised “before July 2020”.
Elsewhere:
• The West Australian has had two further local polls on coronavirus from Painted Dog Research, one from last week and one from this week ($). The McGowan government announced its decision to reopen schools next week in between the two polls, which had the support of 22.7% in the earlier poll and 49% this week, with opposition down from 43.3% to 27%, and the undecided down from 34% to 24%. The earlier poll found remarkably strong results for the McGowan government’s handling of the crisis, with 90.0% agreeing it had been doing a good job (including 54.2% strongly agreeing) and only 2.9% disagreeing (1.2% strongly), with 7.1% neither agreeing or disagreeing. No field work dates provided, but the latest poll has a sample of 831.
• The University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Institute conducted a 1200-sample survey on coronavirus from April 6 to 11, and while the published release isn’t giving too much away, we told that “about 60% of Australians report being moderately to very satisfied with government economic policies to support jobs and keep people at work”, and that “more than 80% expect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic to last for more than 6 months“.
• The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage political science blog examines local government elections held in France on March 15, two days before the country went into lockdown: turnout fell from 63% to 45%, but the result was not radically different from the last such elections in 2016. Traditional conservative and socialist parties holding up well and the greens making gains, Emmanuel Macron’s presidential vehicle La République En Marche failing to achieve much cross-over success, and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National losing ground compared with a strong result in 2014.
On how well this app works or not.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219890
“Overall average horizontal position accuracy of the iPhone 6 (7–13 m) is consistent with the general accuracy levels observed of recreation-grade GPS receivers in potential high multi-path environments.”
So, accuracy is in the 7-13m range (well within bluetooth distance), but this app will only log contacts close than 1.5m?? How can reliably distinguish between someone 1m and 13m away????
Last week I noticed that Optus and Telstra stores in a Canberra mall had signs at the door telling people to wait until admitted by a staff member. Don’t know if this is universal but it does provide some control over browsing customers.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie withdrew his support for the Government at the weekend after Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she did not have the numbers in Parliament to keep her promise to introduce mandatory pre-commitment by 2014.
Ms Gillard wants an ACT trial of the technology, which requires players to set maximum loss limits before a pokies session.
Parliamentary secretary for defence and Member for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly called it ”the best-crafted policy package I have ever seen”.
_______________________________________________________
Kelly won’t be missed.
imacca @ #1762 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 9:16 pm
Not by using GPS. Especially since in most indoor contexts you won’t get any level of GPS accuracy anyways (modern smartphones try to fudge this by interpolating with things like wifi signal strength against known access points, cell towers, etc. when the GPS data is weak/unavailable).
It probably uses Bluetooth signal strength or something similar.
If the source-code were published it would be easy to see how they’re doing it. 🙂
imacca –
* that article is assessing accuracy in terms of locating the phone on the face of the earth, as a replacement for GPS. That’s a different problem to working out how far away another nearby phone is. (ie if they were calculating absolute positions of both phones and calculating the difference in order to work out the separation, this might be an issue – they’re not doing that)
* they’re talking about WiFi not Bluetooth
Of all the problems this app may well have, I don’t think the distance measurement is going to be a serious one.
Republicans are told to ignore the orange elephant in the room.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/26/coronavirus-latest-news/#link-YYUQ2LDUTZD2JK4PZPOTFTFGI4
Beijing’s ambassador has warned the Morrison government that its pursuit of an independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic could spark a Chinese consumer boycott of students and tourists visiting Australia, as well as sales of popular agricultural exports like beef and wine.
In an exclusive interview with The Australian Financial Review, Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye denounced Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s push for an inquiry as “dangerous” and predicted it would fail to gain traction among global leaders.
“Resorting to suspicion, recrimination or division at such a critical time could only undermine global efforts to fight against this pandemic,” he said.
Mr Cheng also refused to accept that the virus had started in a Wuhan “wet market”, claiming the scientific jury remained out on its origins.
Mr Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne last week launched a push for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, amid accusations the world lost precious weeks to respond to the crisis because China covered up the seriousness of the disease.
Australia also wants to see long-term reform of the World Health Organisation – which has been criticised for being pro-China – including giving it weapons inspector-like powers so it can investigate outbreaks.
same same
Mundo! Come back!!
C@tmomma, earlier
“I was also thinking about this and just musing that I believe I heard that if and when a UK/Aus FTA is agreed upon, it will allow the free flow of workers who are citizens of both countries to come and go between the two for work purposes”
____________________________________________________________
I hadn’t heard about that C@t, interesting .. more of a commitment than hopping across the Channel though 🙂
The Sun and The Daily Express will like that .. provided the right sort of citizens are free-flowing of course
Fulvio Sammut @ #2152 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 9:34 pm
Back from the Hospital.
Mrs Mundo had a bad fall. Stitches below right eyebrow.
All’s well.
What’s been going on?
Scott Morrison has fortified his leadership in a time of crisis, with his personal approval rating soaring as coronavirus infection rates remain low, prompting optimism the nation is winning the battle to contain it.
An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows support for the Prime Minister rising to its highest level for a leader since 2008, and second only to Kevin Rudd since Newspoll began testing in the mid-1980s.
The Prime Minister’s approval rating rose a further seven points to 68 per cent, marking an unprecedented 27-point increase since the first week of March.
This is the highest approval rating for a prime minister since the end of 2008, when Kevin Rudd’s popularity peaked at 70 per cent.
Those dissatisfied with Mr Morrison’s performance also continued to fall — down seven points to 28 per cent. The Prime Minister’s net approval rating is now plus 40. Mr Morrison also stretched his lead over the Labor leader as the preferred prime minister, up three points to 56 per cent as Mr Albanese fell to 28 per cent.
Albo is about as popular as Shorten
Rex Douglas @ #2151 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 9:32 pm
This is excellent news!
Although Labor should really have nudged ahead.
Still, Mundo is ok with 50/50
New thread
Smoko and his Hawaii holiday soon forgotten as predicted by a few people here including me.
Rex Douglas @ #2157 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 9:39 pm
This not so good.
Not surprising.
Could be worse.
Those nuanced messages Albo has been sending don’t seem to be cutting through.
And are unlikely to.
Not surprised Morrison’s approvals are positive and expect that to remain so for the time being but the Liberals would be frustrated it isn’t boosting the TPP. The ALP would be happy with 50:50.
citizen @ #2139 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 8:55 pm
And that’s exactly the reason why I and my Millennial son have decided not to download the app.
Your phone has to be always on to enable the Bluetooth to talk to the other phones. So the battery will cop a pasting.
Also, we have survived the peak of the crisis without it and our movements aren’t changing, so we don’t really need it.
Maybe, when my son starts work in about 3 month’s time at an Aged Care Facility.
I’m sure the imminent depression will swing a few votes Labor’s way.
At the end of the day, it’s all about the Economy, as someone else once said.
Scott Morrison and his Government have been doing a good job with the Virus after a shaky start. The numbers tell the story. The State Governments share the credit and there’s also that huge qualifier – ”SO FAR”. But on a per capita basis we are doing ten times better than than the USA and the UK in terms of numbers of infections, over fifty in terms of deaths.
But I certainly don’t want this Government to have unfettered power during the recovery phase. Ideally I don’t want them in power at all. A decade of Austerity for the many and Cowboy Capitalism anyone? Stuff that. This is when the Labor Opposition and the backbenchers will really need to do their jobs.
steve davis @ #2160 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 9:40 pm
I thought Mundo put it nicely when, quoting an SMH columnist said Scrooter has risen from the bushfire ashes to become – and here it comes – ‘Father of the Nation’
Steve777 @ #2165 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 9:51 pm
“This is when the Labor Opposition and the backbenchers will really need to do their jobs.”
If Mundo may quote Alice Cooper, no more Gentle Albo, no more Sleepy Ji – i – im.
steve davis @ #2156 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 9:38 pm
As bad as I expected.
Absolutely nothing good to take from this except that as far as I know Albo is still actually breathing.
Confessions @ #2104 Sunday, April 26th, 2020 – 5:41 pm
Excellent point. Exactly how much “interacting” is he doing on a Sunday night when we have restrictions on interacting.
I’ll take his “reference” with a tanker-load of sodium chloride.
I’m not in the least bit concerned about this new app, either it tracing me personally via any contacts I have.
Why? Because I still have a 3G phone that serves only 2 functions:
1) It allows me to make and receive phone calls;
2) I allows me to receive text messages. I have the option of also sending text messages, but I can’t remember having ever used that function.
It has no bluetooth connectivity. Nor does it allow me to install any 3rd party software or apps. It doesn’t even allow me to access any part of the internet, including email. Which is just what I want from a phone – for it to function purely as a phone. Nothing more. Nothing less.
sprocket_,
The SMH has Barilaro for Eden-Monaro and Constance to take back Gilmore. Warren Mundine seems to have been a 5 second wonder.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw-deputy-premier-john-barilaro-considers-a-tilt-at-federal-politics-20200426-p54n9k.html
Just dropped in for abrief peruse.
Re this app. How does it possibly account for the wide variation between the strength of bluetooth signal generated by different devices. A Samsung Galaxy S10+ phone has a 40% stronger signal than a S8, as a simple example. Receiver sensitivity also varies widely, depending on which bluetooth PHY is installed. A typical phone will have a transmit power of between -10dBm and -5dBm. I cannot imagine how they can deduce a proximity of 1.5metres from the fact that a phone, or other device (tablet etc) is able to connect with another. Phones released in the last 12 months are capable of 20 metres or more in many cases, earlier phones much less.
All this emphasis on kids being no threat just points to an all clear for the Kidsong Convention in early July…Morrison looking after his mate, Brian Houston.
https://hillsong.com/conference/sydney/kidsong/