A fortnight after delivering Malcolm Turnbull the embarrassment of his 30th successive poll defeat, Newspoll’s outsized influence on Australian political discourse is being demonstrated once again.
Oddly enough, the latest kerfuffle arises from a result that seemed to suggest Turnbull’s dreaded milestone of a fortnight earlier hadn’t done him the least bit of harm.
Conducted two weekends ago from an unusually large sample of over 2000, the latest result had Labor’s lead down to 51-49 — lower than it had been at any stage since the start of the Coalition’s losing streak.
This came as an unpleasant surprise to Labor’s social media army, who had been gorging themselves on a week of bad headlines for the government arising from the banking royal commission.
When unhappy partisans and unexpected poll results combine, conspiracies are soon theorised — and an apparent tweak to Newspoll’s preference methodology gave them at least a kernel of fact to work from.
Underneath the two-party result lay the same major party primary votes as a fortnight ago: 38% for the Coalition, putting them two points above where they were stuck through 2017, and 37% for Labor, who have held steady.
The Coalition may have benefited from softening support for One Nation, who were tracking near 10% before the Queensland election campaign but have lately been around two points lower.
Presumably these are voters disposed to favour the Coalition over Labor in any case, so the change may not have done much to disturb the “true” picture after preferences.
However, the latest two-party result forms part of a bounce in the Coalition’s favour since late last year, part of which seems to have arisen from Newspoll no longer allocating preferences strictly according to how they flowed at the 2016 election.
A very sound justification for this would involve One Nation, who has been on 7% to 10% over the past year, and for whom 2016 election preference flows offer an unreliable guide, as they only contested a 10th of the 150 lower house seats.
As psephologist Kevin Bonham observes, exceptional circumstances prevailed in some cases — notably in Longman, where the party saw fit to campaign vigorously against Wyatt Roy.
The overall result was a 50-50 preference split that is surely misleading for a party whose current support base is engorged with Coalition defectors.
Certainly it was not reflected at One Nation’s two big state elections in Queensland and Western Australia, when the party’s preferences broke at least 60-40 to the Coalition.
A switch to this ratio shortly after the Queensland election would neatly explain Newspoll’s recent two-party form — a change usually sufficient to sway the rounded total a point in the Coalition’s favour if One Nation support is approaching double figures.
A report on the matter in The Australian reveals that the new formula reflects “the observed preference flows from both elections”, but the exact nature of the change remains undisclosed. The company did something similar before the Queensland election, when a preference flow was derived from the three previous election results to avoid replicating the unusual preference backlash against Campbell Newman’s government in 2015.
This approach looked pretty good after the election, and it’s likely its present approach will too.
However, a prerogative for pollsters to keep their mix of herbs and spices secret is problematic, particularly as the long-term escalation of the minor party vote makes preference allocations ever more significant.
The lack of detail stands in contrast with the polling published in Britain by Galaxy’s parent company, YouGov, which includes detailed accounting of demographic breakdowns and weightings, and would assuredly be as forthcoming on preferences if that were a factor in the country’s electoral system.
However, the very reason the British polling industry has felt compelled to observe higher standards of transparency is that it would invite ridicule if it sought to claim, as Galaxy did yesterday, that its “track record speaks for itself”.
If ever the sorts of failures seen in Britain at the 2015 general election and 2016 Brexit referendum are replicated here, a day of reckoning may arrive that will shine light on the dark corners of Australian opinion polling.
But for the time being, followers of the political horse race will have to keep taking Newspoll’s word for it.
Correction: This article originally stated that YouGov Galaxy had released little more than a tweet regarding its polling methodology. At the time of publication, this was untrue. In fact, two articles about the Newspoll methodology were published in The Australian on Monday.
One solution, of course, would be for media outlets to refuse to report results from pollsters that didn’t properly disclose their methodology. (Don’t hold your breath.)
” However, a prerogative for pollsters to keep their mix of herbs and spices secret is problematic”
yes and no. Yes because their predictions are only as good as the herbs and spices (and of course the cook) and no because the prediction that may come to influence the electorate could be founded upon shonky stats or at least ad-hoc modeling. One has ones choice : viz., that it is only a poll.
“which includes detailed accounting of demographic breakdowns and weightings”
Which is all very well but I recall Hockey (and he was not alone) having no idea as to what a quartile was. Try him (or, for that matter, Arthur Sinodinos {Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science – Abbott dispensed with the position} on the advantages and disadvantages of cluster verses stratified sampling. Ditto for the population in general. Then add covarience into the events and have a counter on the website as to who has either read or downloaded the .pdf.
The reality is that the talk-back hosts (Jones, Bolt, Sandilands) are not without influence (hence thier salaries) and the average person will listen to them in preference to reading a .pdf on sampling methodology. In this regard (re: the comment from Charles) the standard media is of no help.
the true results of any poll are how the question is framed not how the answer is given. any one who thinks the coalitions fortunes have improved is fooling themselves, labor will win any election with 80/88 seats in the new house of reps.
Have you ever undertaken realistic sampling Brian (or do you have a background in stats) because what you have written suggests otherwise.
> the true results of any poll
The is no such thing as “true results of any poll” unless your referring to Bayesian priors (look it up) and even then there is an aspect of uncertainty. As to results : ALL results of any (sociological) undertaking are within experimental error (that has to be estimated)
> are how the question is framed
perhaps you are referring to cultural considerations or assumptions as to education or knowledge of the respondents; indeed not unimportant. Often the question is published along with the results but we often don’t get to dabble with the data ourselves.
> not how the answer is given
the means of recording is, frankly, essential to the process so, in this respect, you could not be more wrong.
soooo arrogant – smug. Not even an answer.
Clearly you do not comprehend the content. Identify the deficiencies of the reply, if you are able to do so, and THEN apply your (informed) assessment. This approach will enable you to contribute something of value to the discussion.
Bowe makes a very good point about the ONP vote. It depends on the circumstances in the seat.
That 50/50 then 60/40 split is interesting. Everyone always assumes that there is a continuum from Right to that goes ONP – Nat- Lib- Labor- Green. But there are plenty of Tree Tories that preference the Liberals, and clearly plenty of ONP voters that preference Labor.
Also, ONP’s decision to run against sitting MPs in some elections affects it.
If there was another “method” that would make the Turnbull government look like it was improving, Newspoll would be using it and Murdoch would be insisting on it being used.
Newspoll is now just a robocall hoax, and all polls should be abolished and all pollsters sent to Manus Island.
presumably to poll the residents there!
Qn 1 : Was seeking illegal immigration to Australia a good idea in retrospect ?
Qn 2: If you could change the system of entry what would you change ?
Qn 3: Are the political, social and economic problems in your country rectifiable or systemic?
Supp: Provide an outline justifying your answer for Qn 3.
Qn 4 : Is there an argument for UN intervention in your home country (given your response to Qn 3.)?
I think Australia generally is tired and cynical of the dross and detritus that oozes from these parasitic organisations and their spruikers including the arrogant and tiresome Mr William Bowe. Give us a break please from your endless unrepresentative analysis. Please go away.
At the risk of wandering off topic I think that you will find that the current practice of dealing with illegal immigrants is, in fact, bi-partisan and thus the observation is rather more representative of the electorate than you suppose.
Agreed : there is some yapping from the cross-benches by those seeking some publicity but with nothing to loose. Do identify ONE alternative proposal that has a basis in fact or has been tested to as to prevent a “re-occurrence of history”. Except for the odd SJW here and there there is general international acceptance that Australia has the policy about right.