With Newspoll having released its quarterly polling breakdowns, we can now combine them with the Nielsen data for the last three months and run our election simulation – giving us the most likely result were an election held over the Jan-Mar period and the results matched the polling.
While the headline results showed a sharp move towards the Coalition – clawing back some 12 seats since the final quarter of 2009 – the swing is not only still towards the government, but our phone poll trend has moved further away from the Coalition over the last few weeks.
On the distribution results of the simulation, the simulated ALP seats in Parliament probabilities and distributions came in like this (click to expand):
The first chart gives is the spread of the simulation results, the second chart the cumulative probabilities. To use the second chart, simply choose the number of seats the ALP would win from the bottom axis, trace it vertically until it intersects the red line, then trace horizontally across to the left axis – this tells you the probability of the Labor Party winning at least this many seats were an election held during the last three months.
For instance, there was an approximately 20% probability of the ALP winning at least 93 seats were an election held over the last 3 months, and where the results came within the margin or error of the polls.
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I blame the worm.
You might blame the worm Holden, I blame Abbott. He is/was an uncalculated risk that has backfired for the Libs.
They wanted someone who could garner a ‘bigger’ public image than Kevin07.
What they didn’t understand is that the electorate no longer listens to whoever yells longest and loudest. They want modern statesmen, not ocker, swaggering loud-mouths. Between Abbott and Barnaby (both of whom fill that bill brilliantly), the coalition have successfully shot their own feet.
One consolation for the few coalits blessed with a modicum of intellgence, both these politicians are expendable, and will be rolled after the election and will be exiled into the backbenches where they will be less dangerous.
The one problem, then, will be who will fill the hole? The only ‘reasonable’ or balanced politician that sticks out is the lovable Sloppy Joe, but his image has been tainted by the opposition;’s lack of credible policy as well. A real dilemma for them — because they’ll likely have less talent to choose from after the next election.
All I can say is bring onthe DD — get rid of the senatorial dead wood and set about reforming this country as it needs to be reformed!
And CentreBet has the ALP on $1.30!
The Newspoll has pretty much been a political tool trying to steer voters with suspect polls always with a positive spin for the Libs.
The Queensland, Tasmanian and South Australia elections were all runaway wins for the Libs, according to Newspoll whilst other polls showed a marked difference.
The saying in business ‘never believe your own bullshit’ applies to those wondering why the Abbott train has run off the tracks.
Its probably too late for the Libs to undo the political damage of two years plus blocking important legislation and to manufacture a new image before the next election.
Abbott has run out of honeymoon capitol and like ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ he and his dreadful right wing front bench are going to be remembered a long time after the Libs are slaughter in the coming election.
Australian voters are a bit more astute these days and see tight through them.
Actually Newspoll did quite well in the Tasmanian election except for overstating the Green vote. They overshot by four points on the Green vote but they had the gap between the majors (Liberal – Labor) at 1.5 points (almost dead right, the actual gap was about 2 points) while the local competition, EMRS, persistently had the Liberals much further ahead than that (five or six points in the final poll, translating it to a comparable rate) and were overcooking the Green vote by more.
Matthew Denholm in the Australian said that a seat-by-seat breakdown of the Newspoll results pointed to 10-10-5 (though that breakdown was never published so I cannot be certain that extrapolation was correct) and that is exactly what happened.
Apart from overcooking the Green result this time the Newspoll was very useful in an election sadly devoid of accurate polling. Furthermore Newspoll’s results in past Tasmanian elections have been as close as you’re reasonably going to get on the whole. Newspoll would be very welcome to poll Tasmanian state politics more frequently and if I had the money I would commission them to do so.
It looks to me as if the Newspoll has realised it is swimming upstream, also Glenn Milne appears to have realised he is flogging a dead horse in the Australian TODAY!?.
The swing will not be uni-formal.
In Victoria the performance of the State Government will have a major impact on the Federal Government. John Brumby has never been elected as leader and the ALP and never won a fourth term in office. The mood of the electorate is one for change. The recent election showed that the swing away from labor will transfer to the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party could cross the line by default not by design as was the case when Kennett lost office.
The federal election will be held most likely in September this year to try and put a distance between the State and federal Elections. The date for the State election being fixed. Any suggestion of holding the federal election after the Victorian election would be a disaster for the Labor Party. Melbourne’s Inner City seat of Melbourne Ports is the one to watch. Incumbent Micheal Danby, who currently has a 7 percent margin is expected to be pegged back to below 2%. Like wise the Neikhbouring State seat of Prahran is like to be the first to fall.
The Politics Demographic published on the left some some unknown reason does not provide a State breakdown of the polls for the Liberal part and the Liberal Party primary vote yet provides a state breakdown of the greens vote. the likelihood of the Greens gaining representation is very much dependent on t6eh level of support for the Liberal party and the ALP. If the ALP falls below 39% in State Primary vote then the Greens run the risk of once again being the wasted quota. Add to this the fact that the method of counting the vote in t6he Australian senate seriously distorts the outcome of the vote (The Greens having lost to the ALP in Queensland as a result of the distortion in the way the AEC counts the vote). Unless the Greens can secure a quota in their own right.
The ALP in 2007 was the beneficiary of One Nations support. This time round they will not be.
Democracy, the reason I only do the “Coalition” rather than Libs and Nats separately comes back to a polling problem with ostensibly Nats voters. When you ask respondents in a regional and rural seat who they would vote for, many will say the Libs even though the Coalition candidate they will ultimately have the chance to vote for on election day is a National.
It’s why, over the last decade or more, Nats generally get a higher actual election result than the polls suggest – some of their vote gets tallied as Libs. As a result, the Libs part of the vote gets inflated by a few points (from Nats voters saying they’d vote for the Libs) – but we don’t know the distribution of that inflation.
So the broad “Coalition” aggregate is the best vote estimate from the polling we have (because any substitution between the two parties all comes out in the wash).