On failure

A look at efforts to get to the bottom of last year’s federal election pollster failure and the Electoral Commission of Queensland’s recent election night meltdown.

The Association of Market and Social Research Organisations has published a discussion paper for its review into last year’s federal election polling failure. It notes that existing standards set by the Australian Press Council are too lax and readily ignored in any case, and suggests a familiar retinue of suggested new standards including full disclosure of weightings used and detail of how preference flows were determined. While the inquiry’s committee and advisory group are impressively credentialled, it should be noted that most actual pollsters aren’t members of the AMSRO. The recent announcement that YouGov, Essential Research and uComms would establish an Australian Polling Council occurred independently of its process, and is likely to be the more consequential development.

Meanwhile, a parliamentary inquiry has been putting the blowtorch to the Electoral Commission of Queensland over the failure of its results reporting facilities at the local government elections and state by-elections on March 28. Excuses include disruption arising from COVID-19, which extended to “coding resources” being locked down in Wuhan, and the complication of combining elections for two state parliament seats with the statewide council elections. It also appears an American firm contracted to provide a new election management system, Konnech, has found itself bamboozled by what the electoral commissioner described as “the complexity of Queensland electoral law”, which “far exceeded that of any other Konnech customer” (a conclusion it would no doubt have reached in any Australian jurisdiction).

The new results website went belly-up on testing a week out from election day, prompting the ECQ to hurriedly concoct the unfamiliar-looking results website that appeared on the night. Polling booth officials were required to submit results through a shareable spreadsheet application, which threw up formating inconsistencies upon transfer to the ECQ system. The ECQ’s technical staff spent the night dealing with the results website issues, leaving corresponding issues with a horrifyingly complex XML results feed to one side. Consequently, the ABC’s results displays remained stuck on a tiny share of the count all night, and updates remained infrequent beyond election night. It is to be hoped that this will all be sorted out before a state election that will be held on October 31.

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.

1,379 comments on “On failure”

Comments Page 5 of 28
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  1. m b

    The hypocrisy and double standards of the dominant clique here on PB is always on display, all day, every day.

  2. Pegasus @ #196 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:05 am

    RD

    Just highlighting the never-ending criticisms of other premiers such as Gladys B, a politician “playing politics. Andrews who is a “politician, what would you think” apparently doesn’t “play politics” and is almost never criticised.

    Partisans will be partisan.

    I personally think it’s healthy to be non-partisan and free to be critical across the board.

    It’s still early days but I can’t be too critical of Australia’s political leaders in general and their responsibility to keep us safe from the Covid-19 virus, so far.

  3. Tan looks like he’s from the 1950s. The clean cut besuited look and the (almost) white picket fence. He would easily fit into one of those 1950s era US sitcoms.

  4. Andrews is doing a good job. He will be applauded by voters. The eejits who have tried to politicise the public health responses to the pandemic will be treated with the contempt they richly deserve.

  6. meher baba says:
    Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 10:57 am
    C@tmomma: “Penny Wong would have been our Foreign Minister right now if greedy bastards and gullible numbnuts hadn’t fallen for the Morrison Coalition election spin, misleading as it was on an epic scale.”

    You mean the Liberals’ totally dishonest spin that, if you voted Labor, you’d get a government that would harshly tax (or in the case, of dividend imputation, take back) the wealth that you had created/hoped to create for your retirement? Or take away your job in the coal mining industry, or perhaps not take it away, or, look, we’re not really sure: ask Richard Marles. Or Joel Fitzgibbon. Or someone. It’d be a good idea for someone to tell Bill what our policy on coal is, because he isn’t sure either.

    Labor people need to appreciate that, if the electorate chooses not to vote them into office, it’s not likely to be because Rupert Murdoch controls a switch in their brains,

    …………………..

    Ok, have me intrigued. Please explain how that “harsh dividend imputation “ tax change would take back from people they wealth [they] created.

    If you could link your understanding (sic) to any fine article on the subject from a Murdoch rag, we might even see the switch.

  7. US threatens to disconnect over Vic-China deal

    US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened the United States will “simply disconnect” from Australia if Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with China affects US telecommunications.

    Mr Pompeo has warned on Sunday that the Belt and Road agreement increases the Chinese communist regime’s ability to do “harm”, as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews digs into the economic partnership….

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/coronavirus-australia-live-news-beer-wine-spirits-industry-loses-85bn-in-worst-month-on-record/news-story/d15a412bc88cab37f304728fdda747dd

    I guess Victoria will now have to secede from the federation. 😆

  8. CI

    [All things considered she’s done a great job as Labor’s leader in the Senate. A great job.]

    Quite. She’s done a great job in what is a job below her abilities.

    Australian political history is not written for or by Senate leaders.

    A pathway to, at least, Deputy leader could have been drawn up.

    It is reasonable to expect that her political biography will have an “If only” section.

  9. There’s an excellent case to be made for disconnecting from the US. If we really want to be build a new economy post-pandemic we could start a new web.

    China are trying, but won’t get far cos no one trusts them to run a platform free of state control/surveillance.

    Maybe we could start one. Maybe the UK, no longer in the EU, could kick off with us.

  10. Confessions @ #198 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:06 am

    poroti @ #166 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 8:40 am

    Confessions

    The 1500 worker “mistake” smells like an arse cover excuse .

    It could be, but I wouldn’t discount employers making errors in completing govt paperwork. I mean it isn’t as if this kind of thing doesn’t happen routinely, and esp in this instance given these measures were implemented quickly (as they should be), with presumably little to no time for education/informing as to how to complete the forms correctly.

    But they ALL made the SAME mistake!?!

  11. Sweet jebus.

    Mike Pompeo and his wife have serious issues of their own to consider.
    But of course, like his orange cheeto master, the focus is thrown elsewhere.

  12. C@tmomma @ #209 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 9:39 am

    Confessions @ #198 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:06 am

    poroti @ #166 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 8:40 am

    Confessions

    The 1500 worker “mistake” smells like an arse cover excuse .

    It could be, but I wouldn’t discount employers making errors in completing govt paperwork. I mean it isn’t as if this kind of thing doesn’t happen routinely, and esp in this instance given these measures were implemented quickly (as they should be), with presumably little to no time for education/informing as to how to complete the forms correctly.

    But they ALL made the SAME mistake!?!

    Having seen the page where the entry was made, I’d have to say there are a lot of dumb employers.

  13. Labor people need to appreciate that, if the electorate chooses not to vote them into office, it’s not likely to be because Rupert Murdoch controls a switch in their brains, or because the opinion poll results were manipulated to lure the Labor leadership into a false sense of security, or because the Liberals and Clive Palmer hypnotised them with lies. It’s because Labor didn’t give voters as good a reason to vote for them as the Coalition did.

    This would be a particularly naive view if we didn’t have any advertising at all, but given there is a whole massive industry dedicated solely to persuading people and very very effective at it, the concept that the media doesn’t have influence is well an idea entirely lacking in substance and merit.

  14. frednk @ #195 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:02 am

    Pegasus says:
    Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 10:59 am

    frednk

    Such angst and loathing. You are such a great poster child for Labor. Keep up with the wanking

    Just give it a rest Pegasus, the Greens have very little to be proud of.

    Pegasus contributing less than zero again I see. 😐

  15. Shellbell says:
    Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 11:34 am
    CI

    [All things considered she’s done a great job as Labor’s leader in the Senate. A great job.]

    Quite. She’s done a great job in what is a job below her abilities.

    That might well be so. It says a lot more about politics than it does about Penny Wong.

    Politics is a cruel game. As Thatcher said, there are only losers in politics. Think of Kim Beazley, a great mind and a great voice, a figure with purpose and vision. But he also failed. You’d have to say that Abbott, Turnbull, Rudd and Gillard also failed in the end.

    Politics is a terrible pursuit. Perhaps Wong is even wiser than she lets on.

  16. It’s because Labor didn’t give voters as good a reason to vote for them as the Coalition did.

    And this is ridiculous. The coalition told lies about labor policy and promised nothing. The intellectual highlight of coalition policy was Morrison shearing a sheep. This is not a ‘reality’ based observation, it is absurd and irrational.

  17. WeWantPaul @ #212 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:42 am

    Labor people need to appreciate that, if the electorate chooses not to vote them into office, it’s not likely to be because Rupert Murdoch controls a switch in their brains, or because the opinion poll results were manipulated to lure the Labor leadership into a false sense of security, or because the Liberals and Clive Palmer hypnotised them with lies. It’s because Labor didn’t give voters as good a reason to vote for them as the Coalition did.

    This would be a particularly naive view if we didn’t have any advertising at all, but given there is a whole massive industry dedicated solely to persuading people and very very effective at it, the concept that the media doesn’t have influence is well an idea entirely lacking in substance and merit.

    Well, Victorians did manage to reject a massive anti-Andrews MSM campaign in the last state election campaign.

  18. To prove how smart Penny Wong is she has been given numerous opportunities to move into the Lower House in SA but has decided instead to concentrate on her young family instead of choosing the life of a Lower House MP that spends an inordinate amount of time away from their family for one reason or another to do with their job.

  20. Is the Chris Tan (he of the traffic fines the suspended licence, and other traffic charges) the same Chris Tan who was president of the Young Liberals in WA (proudly sponsored by Senator Linda Reynolds), sometime Pearce Divisional President for the Liberal Party, and Liberal Party staffer?

    Or is that another Chris Tan?

  21. On a minor technical program management point, Jobkeeper is a demand driven program.

    The original authorization was for $130 billion.

    At least part of the confusion has been caused by Morrison and Frydenberg who repeatedly touted the extreme projected outcome (6 million workers on Jobkeeper) as if it had already happened.

    There are hundreds upon hundreds of ministerial office staff. It is instructive that not a single one of them – including the ones who would have had specific responsibility for advising their ministers (+prime minister) for a $130 billion program smelled a rat. Not one of them. What they get paid for is to know what is going on so that they can add value to the information that comes into the minister’s office from all other sources.

    Inter alia, the missing $60 billion and the missing 3 million employed persons rates as stupendous fail by ministerial office staff, let alone the ministers concerned.

    I bet that not one of them will be called to account.

  22. Mug Morrison has managed to get us overtly bullied by the US AND China at the same time.

    That is a well-rounded achievement.

  23. A Texas mayor says only young men should lead the council’s prayer at the start of meetings because it says in the new testament that women shouldn’t speak in a church.

    Hogue, who also is the minister of Wylie’s Cottonwood Church of Christ, quoted two New Testament verses he said he interprets literally.

    The first, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, says: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”

    The mayor also quoted a passage from 1 Timothy that says, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

    https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2020/05/21/wylie-mayor-defends-belief-that-women-shouldnt-lead-public-prayer/

  24. Part of the reason for such recurrent failure in Australian politics is the colonisation of the Parliament by cultists – by the remnants of the NCC and evangelicals, who have inserted themselves into the LNP; by the Right-pop in One Nation and the Splitters of the Greens.

    Together, the cultists have made politics more or less a futile exercise in Australia.

  25. US threatens to disconnect over Vic-China deal

    US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened the United States will “simply disconnect” from Australia if Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with China affects US telecommunications.

    Mr Pompeo has warned on Sunday that the Belt and Road agreement increases the Chinese communist regime’s ability to do “harm”, as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews digs into the economic partnership….
    —————
    Remember while Australia thinks of itself as an ally of the USA, the USA does NOT think of itself as an ally of Australia.

    The USA is no ones ally, except possibly Israel, for the time being.

  26. Ms Wong is currently playing an absolutely crucial role as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. She, and LOTO Albanese are public refusing to allow Dictator Xi to wedge the bipartisan wall of solidarity.

    Not only that but they have managed to quell the incipient rebellion on the issue by such Labor luminaries as Fitzgibbon.

    This approach requires discipline, party political selflessness and considerable intellectual rigour.

    They are doing this despite the determined efforts of the Murdoch sewer workers to find party political angles.

    Well done, Shadow Minister Wong! Well done, LOTO Albanese!

    Naturally enough there are plenty of ugly party partisan hacks about who are only too happy to find some pissant reason to snark at Wong.

    Small things amuse small minds.

  27. Neither the US nor China are monolithic.

    But. If Xi wants something, he gets it.
    And. If Trump wants something, he only gets it some of the time.

  28. Confessions

    At least he is being a little honest with regard to what that text written in the bronze ages is saying. I want his views on daughters sold into slavery.

    Exodus 21:7-11
    When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not satisfy her owner, he must allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.

  29. ‘fess,
    My son and I were just talking about how the Religious Right hold out the Bible, a fictionalised account of fact, if one is to be honest, as unarguable dictat. Yet, when it comes to more contemporary epistles, such as the IPCC Reports, or the WHO and CDC writings about COVID-19, they just ignore them and refer back to this one book, as internally inconsistent and unbelievable as it is when you give it the slightest bit of scrutiny.

  30. WeWantPaul @ #206 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:44 am

    It’s because Labor didn’t give voters as good a reason to vote for them as the Coalition did.

    And this is ridiculous. The coalition told lies about labor policy and promised nothing. The intellectual highlight of coalition policy was Morrison shearing a sheep. This is not a ‘reality’ based observation, it is absurd and irrational.

    ‘The intellectual highlight of coalition policy was Morrison shearing a sheep.’
    Wrong.
    Mundo is pretty sure it was turning a beer glass upside down on his head at the footah.

  32. Mr Pompeo has warned on Sunday that the Belt and Road agreement increases the Chinese communist regime’s ability to do “harm”, as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews digs into the economic partnership….

    So, Scotty from Marketing has been on the phone to Mike?

  34. C@tmomma
    says:
    Monday, April 23, 2018 at 4:04 pm

    Take it from me, Albo as leader of the FPLP would be a disaster. I know why but I’m not going to tell the likes of you.

  35. CI @ #194 Sunday, May 24th, 2020 – 11:16 am

    Andrews is doing a good job. He will be applauded by voters. The eejits who have tried to politicise the public health responses to the pandemic will be treated with the contempt they richly deserve.

    ‘Andrews is doing a good job. He will be applauded by voters. The eejits who have tried to politicise the public health responses to the pandemic will be treated with the contempt they richly deserve.’…..Not!

    See what Mundo means now?
    MOLO!

  37. Confessions
    says:
    Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 12:06 pm
    C@t:
    Religion has far too much influence in politics and the US is particularly stuffed on that front.
    ______________
    that is so profound. what an insight.

  39. Could I add that there is no reason to think Morrison did any shearing of sheep. Morrison was posing as though he might have been shearing a sheep. The sheep in the media picture was a very well shorn sheep – obviously done by a serious shearer. Not by Morrison. Poser!

  40. Those quotes by that Texas Mayor just highlight how misogynistic and out of date the reference material is.

  41. The Shovel
    @TheShovel
    Josh Frydenberg says there are three reasons for the JobKeeper miscalculation: human error and an inability to count
    #JobKeeper

  44. Greensborough Growler says:
    Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 12:12 pm
    The Shovel
    @TheShovel
    Josh Frydenberg says there are three reasons for the JobKeeper miscalculation: human error and an inability to count
    #JobKeeper

    Perfect


  45. Spence says:
    Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    …
    The sheep in the media picture was a very well shorn sheep – obviously done by a serious shearer. Not by Morrison. Poser!
    …

    Put aside that it a skill that takes time to learn, you have to be fit and you can’t do it with the belly he carries.

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