This is a cross-post from Pollytics.
A few things need to be pointed out today, because, frankly, the MSM is filled to brim with absolute horseshit about the reality of the Qld election polling results.
Firstly, the polls were not wrong. Journalists and the Commentariat were wrong – the polls were not. Let’s look at the last polls from both Galaxy and Newspoll and see where their results sat compared to the election result once we add in their respective margins of error.
Does that look like the polls were wrong to you?
No, of course not. The election result fell within the margin of error of the last poll from both Galaxy and Newspoll. Statistically, the polls were 100% as correct as they could be. Unless you’re willing to completely redesign the physical laws of the universe, polls can’t get any more accurate than these were.
This commentary about the polls being wrong is just blatant arse covering and a piss poor attempt to rewrite history by a bunch of journo’s that got.it.wrong. Their prognostications on the polling results throughout the campaign were fantasy plucked from a random orifice, that had absolutely no relationship to electoral reality.
When a Galaxy or Newspoll came out showing 50/50 or even a 51/49 lead to the LNP, the News Ltd press regaled us with tales of a strong LNP position, or the likelihood of a hung parliament or even the goodly chances of an LNP victory. The problem with this line is that it completely ignored the reality of the electoral pendulum – where ALP seats sat and on what margins. A 50/50 result would have been a 5 point swing, if uniform, leading to the LNP picking up around 12 seats. A 51/49 result would have been a 6 point swing leading to the LNP picking up around 15 seats if uniform.
Since the LNP needed 18 additional seats give them a chance with a hung parliament, and 22 additional seats to give them the Treasury benches in their own right – a 50/50 result doesn’t even come close as a piece of evidence that could possibly justify the media spin.
To really highlight the complete ignorance behind these MSM poll commentaries and to kill another furphy that’s popped up – that the betting markets were superior – we can turn the pendulum into a set of implied probabilities of ALP victory for any given ALP two party preferred result using a monte carlo simulation. For each tenth of a percentage point increase in the ALP TPP vote, a 200,000 iteration simulation was run using a uniform swing that the TPP result impied with a standard deviation of 4%. We can then see how many times from each of those 200,000 election simulations that the ALP would win at least the 45 seats needed to form government.
A 51/49 LNP result – the best polling result they ever achieved in the campaign – still had the ALP on an implied probability of winning government in their own right of 66%.
A 50/50 poll had the implied probability of an ALP victory at a whopping 94% simply because of where the seats that the LNP needed to win sat on the pendulum.
The final and largest sample poll of the campaign was Newspoll. Its two party preferred result was 50.1/49.9 to the LNP – an implied probability of 92.4% of victory to the ALP.
What the MSM seemed to forget or ignore was that elections aren’t decided by who wins the two party preferred, but by who wins enough seats to form government.
As for the betting markets being superior, we can also use that same simulation to knock this nonsense on the head. At the closing of bets, Centrebet had the ALP on $1.65 and the LNP on $2.27.
That equates to the betting markets giving the ALP a 57.9% implied probability of victory. Every single poll in the campaign however had Labor on a higher implied probability of victory with the lowest (Galaxy 51/49 to the LNP) being 66.4% and the highest (Galaxy 50/50) being 94%. The final poll – the Newspoll – had the implied probability at 92.4%.
Last time I looked, the ALP won government and 66%, 92.4% and 94% are all higher than Centrebet’s 57.9%.
So yes, the betting markets were correct, but the polls were more so – by a significant margin. Something Centrebet should absorb before they say anymore silly things.
UPDATE:
Via scorpio comes the perfect example of polling commentary that is absolute rubbish – factually wrong and completely ignorant of the topic matter: Conal Hanna at the Brisbane Times
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Judging from today’s media reports everyone is a winner.
The ALP won the unwinable election
The LNP lost the unwinable election
The ALP ran a great campaign
The ALP ran a crud campaign
The LNP ran a great campaign
The LNP ran a crud campaign
The Greens triumphed
The Greens crashed
Onya Mark, Poss and Billbowe for helping sort out the crud from the spin.
[Thanks to those of you who participated in our polling on this Queensland election. We know the results now, which makes our analysis even more fascinating.
I've analysed the responses that we received to the final week questionnaire.
Unfortunately, like every other pollster, we were wrong about the swing against the ALP. I explore some of the reasons for this in this piece:
http://whatthepeoplewant.nationalforum.com.au/archives/003517.html.
Quite Rua, there’s a few howlers in there.
Interesting graph Possum (aka the one-man Posse). If you take the naive view, ignore the MoE, and just look at the poll averages as if they were absolute measurements of public opinion at the time of polling, there seems to be a steady trend-line thru them. Maybe that’s not too bad a reflection of the reality?
It does lead the eyes that way Jack – I’m hoping to get some more data this week that might help us explore that a bit more.
Possum, were the swings normally distributed? Historically, are swings normally distributed?
Over any given number of elections, swings are nearly normally distributed – closer to a normal distribution that any other kind of distribution. Sometimes a given election get’s all sorts of weird distribution shapes to it, sometimes they look nearly perfectly normal.
So it gets a bit tricky. Since we wont know the distribution of the election we might be trying to measure, historically a normal distribution ends up being the most accurate way of doing it. I spent a fair bit of time looking at this – still am, especially with the monte carlo sims. I’m experimenting around with different probability distributions for different classes of seats in the simulation itself- but so far the good old fashioned bell curve is working best!
“there seems to be a steady trend-line thru them”
Yes, and if you do, and assume that the trend went back to Monday, then you might end up there with something like a 48/5s 2PP with the more important primaries looking something like 38/44. And that would have been distressing territory for the ALP.
But the problem with this is that as Possum says the 2PP was never measured at any better than 51/49 so with few data points and large margin of error, you can get just about any trend you want, depending on where you assume it started.
Statewide, more people voted DS4Q than FF !!
As journos are now no longer discovering news with investigative journalism they are taking what they are fed by the parties. So a poll is about the only news “created” outside that what they are fed. So no wonder they talk so much about them…
QLD is being dumbed down… Maybe the media just reflect the general public…
I think you did a bit of LNP feeding here Susan.
The Conal Hanna article deserves a prize for the most internal contradictions in a single article. Choice.
Oh, and maybe one for cliché-riddledness.
New cabinet. Schwarten still in Jeeesus. Cameron Dick???!!! WTF. I think factional considerations still played a part.
I reckon Cameron Dick will be A-G at least he has a Master of Law degree from Cambridge University.
Ruawake, correct re Dick. Schwarto continues to be responsible for public works, he has clearly been held to account for the debacle of nurse and teacher accommodation…not.
Possum
Just one small caveat to what you say. Because governments look after marginal seats so well, their voters tend to remain loyal to governments while voters in other seats slowly drift across. That’s why it’s quite normal for Oppositions to (apparently) need well over 50% of the 2pp to win, heading into an election.
But we’ve seen again and again that when the electoral tide turns, those marginal seats cross over with seriously big swings, and the whole pendulum is reordered. If you look at the last Federal election, for instance: Labor needed to win 16 seats for a majority, which on your analysis would have required a 5% swing, or 52.3% of the vote. In fact it won just 52.6%, which on your methodology would have given it a gain of 18 seats, or a six-seat majority. (78-70-2). But instead it won 23 seats, giving it a 16-seat majority – and had a safety margin of 1.5%, not 0.3%.
Victoria had the same pattern for years with the outer suburban marginals sticking with Labor under Cain, swinging en masse to Kennett in 1992, largely staying with him in 1999 (when Labor won in the regions) then swinging back en masse to Bracks in 2002. That’s why a swing to te LNP on Saturday of the size implied in the Galaxy poll might well have been enough to make Springborg the Premier. Galaxy made the mistake of polling too soon, and got it wrong. Newspoll was close, but as you note, the Oz never understands is own poll
Susan: “QLD is being dumbed down… Maybe the media just reflect the general public…”
Agree with the sentiment, but think it is more widespread than just Queensland.
Susan even if they are dumbed down there were still enough of them smart enough to understand that unfunded LNP promises are unattractive.
Quite honestly, I have concluded we’re ‘dumbing down’ myself. Is this the media’s fault? I can’t understand how a government can be voted back in after a historic fall in the state’s credit rating. Now we’ll spend a useless 200 million a year feeding the banks. And I’m not even mentioning the health and education crises which have had my friends in those areas pulling their hair out. What is going on here? As Roosevelt said, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” Are we trapped in a vicious cycle in which a poorly performing government creates an ill-educated electorate which is more likely to vote for it? I don’t think it’s the media though. The fact both sides of politics are drawing the same bow at the same media should suggest that this is the result of us all being blinded by our own political beliefs. For me, seeing that cabinet again standing on the steps of Parliament HOuse has confirmed me as a conservative! Quite a surprise. This election has been a journey.
Emma maybe people just see their employment security as more important than some credit ratings agency’s letters on a piece of paper.
#69 – “I can’t understand how a government can be voted back in after a historic fall in the state’s credit rating”
This is the same organisations that rated sub-prime mortgages and junk bonds AAA in the USA and elsewhere. How much creditability do they really have? If nothing else, a decade and a half in the Banking industry taught me that lenders weight a number fo factors in relation to loans – the matter is not decided by an credit reference report in isolation.
#69 – “The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” Are we trapped in a vicious cycle in which a poorly performing government creates an ill-educated electorate which is more likely to vote for it?”
You’re right – education is power. Which probably goes some way to explaining why the Southside of Brisbane only had a couple of high schools until the late 60’s and early 70’s (the fault of both sides of politics).
#70 – “employment security as more important than some credit ratings agency’s letters on a piece of paper”
Agreed – and Springborg certainly didn’t do any favours to his cause by suggesting large amounts could be cut from the Queensland budget without any detail as to where and how. He may hae been right – but he was too lazy to prove it and has been punished appropriately. If the cuts were there, the budget papers and estimates committees would have shown him the detail he needed. It would have been a much more creditable sell for him to suggest he would cut the “whatever” program managed by the Department of Whoever saving $5million etc.
The Courier-Mail stuffed up the Borg big time!
The truth is Bree the Courier Mail knows how lazy and divided the Queensland Opposition really is and has decided that the Courier Mail itself is a better Opposition than that rabble in the parliament. The Courier Mail has seen itself as the unofficial Opposition in Queensland for almost twenty years now.
Come into the light!
stan (66), the revamp of the ministry is not enough. it is essential that at an appropriate time b4 the next election that the likes of schwarten, boyle, robertson, wallace and maybe another one or two must go. this government must be seen by the electorate as a totaly new government or there will be a repeat of the last swing.
Hmm. An attempt to plug the more obvious holes in logic. Steve (70) “Emma maybe people just see their employment security as more important than some credit ratings agency’s letters on a piece of paper.” It ain’t a choice between one or the other Steve; employment security in Queensland is underpinned by the credit agency’s letters on a piece of paper.
Where are you guys getting this thing about the CM? I just can’t see it. There are justified critiques of both sides of politics coming from the CM. This may come as something of a shock to the left, perhaps because they’re so used to soft treatment. Most media reviews in Oz show the left dominates the media. The right is used to it – they just take it on the chin and move on. Will check media research database for you when I’m back on the uni system and post it. But you don’t have to look far.
2353 (71) : As we open the CM today to the headline Razor Gang, please direct me to where you’ve critiqued the government’s costings of its promises. Would be interested to see the level of rigour you’ve applied. Where the Government has called its savings a “productivity dividend”, the LNP called it an “efficiency dividend”.
Emma, the election is over.
Oh Gary, for the true tragic the next election has only just begun
I think Gary, that what this phase is called is “post-mortem”. That’s the bit after the election where you work out what happened. Can go on for a while. Have a wee sleep if it’s bothering you.
Arguing the merits of a particular position as you see it is not a post-mortem. It doesn’t matter (any more (or as I say until next time)) what you think. It only matters as to whether voters believed it and it had an impact.
That’s right. The tories never complain about media bias in, just for example the ABC. [rollseyes]
Um…yes, Martin B, that is what a post-mortem here would be, arguing the case as you or I see it. You and Gary are not doing that though, just adopting an aggro position. I’m quite familiar with your mode of ‘argument’ by now from having seen it employed so often on the Crikey blog. I’ve not heard any complaints about media bias from the Australian right, which I presume you mean by ‘tories’. (You might like to check Queensland’s latitude and longitude before continuing to use this label, a little cultural confusion at play here.) The complaints about media bias on this blog are all coming from the left, stated loudly, adamantly, and often accompanied by personal abuse of the journos involved. Ugly stuff.
Emma, I am more than happy to accept that people complaining about media bias – left or right – should find something more productive to do. I think you will note that it is certainly not something that I have done. I am also happy to accept that there are many of the left who do this too much. However to suggest that those on the political right do not engage in complaints about media bias – yes, even in here – is just fantasy.
You are of course entitled to state all of your political opinions. I would never suggest otherwise. However IMO the point of a pol/pseph site is to try to understand what techniques have been successful and why. Arguing how morally/intellectually/aethetically bankrupt the Libs/Labs/Greens/Anti-flouridation party is may be cathartic but unlikely to be productive. Few are converted in here.
However sharing our broader analysis does occasionally lead to some insight.
Martin, returning to a more logical voice (welcome as it may be) and running an array of jargon does not change the fact that you have attempted to gag an alternate opinion to your own. To clarify: I have not made the case that the right does not engage in complaints about media bias. I said that in this election, and on this website, the complaints about media bias have been placed aggressively and without foundation from the left, and that I believe this illustrates their unfamiliarity with the experience more than anything else. I don’t agree with you that people complaining about media bias “should find something more productive to do”. It’s essential to question the position of the media, but it’s good to actually base that on fact.
Emma, I haven’t attempted any kind of gag. I said that your point is ridiculous. There is a difference. Yes, left wing bias abounds, just so long as you don’t read the highest circulation papers, watch the highest ratings television or listen to the highest rating radio shows. But do feel free to post the peer-reviewed research.
I haven’t read the CM extensively for a while so I really can’t comment but from what knowledge of it I have I would be pleasantly surprised if it had been as even handed as you suggest. Perhaps you might like to suggest what the most savage critique of the LNP the CM made?
In any case I think that the major criticism of the CM’s coverage has been its general paucity rather than its bias.
While I agree that media bias is not unimportant I think it is hugely overplayed (by both sides) because
a) I do not believe the simplistic model (which is indeed sadly more prevalent amongst the left) that people believe what the media tells them. Indeed in trustworthiness surveys one of the few professions that consistently comes out lower than politicians is journalists. The thronging masses are clearly sceptical of the media and bias works in more subtle ways.
b) agreeing what constitutes bias is difficult. I am happy to accept that there are legal standards which cover all of the television and sort-of cover the press, and so the most egregious forms of bias in any direction can be pulled back.
I am not sure which point you found “ridiculous” Martin, but I will assume it’s my point that the left is reacting strongly – even explosively – but without evidence to what it is perceives as media bias. It’s interesting that a google search of ‘research media bias Australia’ throws up pages of blogs and commentaries and no research. It’s obviously a highly opinionated tussle. Psephology, however, with which you claim familiarity, is a science. Anyone claiming media bias would have to be making more of an effort to refer to specific articles, to the spread of articles from the media source, to column cm. I doubt very much that you or the many people who’ve posted this opinion at Crikey will take the time to do this. After all, five days after the election was too late for post-mortem. For those who are interested in this effect, however, in which partisan groups perceive media coverage as unfavourable to their own point of view, it’s called ‘the hostile media effect’.
1) Just to be clear I don’t claim any more than interested amateur status in psephology.
2) Post-mortems are valuable. I just think they should be focussed on how voters reacted to things rather than how partisan commentators did. That’s just me though – don’t let me gag you though, hundred flowers and all.
3) I don’t dispute ‘the hostile media effect’. Indeed you will see that I just made a similar point as to why I think these discussions are overblown.
4) What I found ridiculous are your original claim, and subsequent justifications, that “Most media reviews in Oz show the left dominates the media. The right is used to it – they just take it on the chin and move on”.
When I get back to UQ I will send through the media research if this post is still open. You could do the research yourself though. Simple database work. I have yet to see a member of the right complain about media bias in this election – and they lost for heaven’s sake. The left are complaining at high volume all through this website. Short of cutting and pasting their multiple postings (which would be v.boring) there seems to be nothing more I can do to point this out to you. The left have also been making this complaint elsewhere (see the ALP’s Gold Coast candidate over at Photo Finishes). Short of evolution, there’s few hypotheses more supported by fact than mine
“The left are complaining at high volume all through this website”
Some leftists are, some aren’t. Case studies would be easy, general studies doubtful.
“I have yet to see a member of the right complain about media bias in this election – and they lost for heaven’s sake.”
That observation would be surprising only if you could demonstrate persistent media bias against the right in this election. I invite you to do so.
Your original comment was framed in terms of “the media in Oz” and “the right” in general.
If you wish to point out that some (but not all) members of the left complain at certain times on particular blogs yet accept that some (but not all) members of the right complain at other times on other blogs, I won’t argue. It would be a dull one.
OH for heaven’s sake, you are seriously in denial. It’s not just this website. It started the day the CM gave its editorial support to the LNP. I hadn’t even read the paper yet that day, and wondered why Labor supporters were suddenly calling the CM rubbish, absolute drivel, a rag, etc. Then I realised it was because the CM had had come down in favour of the LNP! Didn’t hear a single complaint from either side of politics when the Sunday Mail adopted a pro-ALP editorial the weekend before. BTW my original comment was framed nationally in terms of media studies in Australia, and on a state basis in terms of the response at this state election.
The CM was giving “The Borg” a free ride long before they came out with their editorial.
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