Politics, elections and piffle plinking

Nielsen – Thump

   

Today brings about a Nielsen that has the tragics spinning with the Coalition hitting the lead on a two party preferred split of 52/48. The poll came from a sample of 1356, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 2.7% mark. The primary votes broken down into gender and geography as well as the preference flows, including their change from the previous Nielsen poll come in like this:

nielsen1aug1

nielsen2aug1

As we can see, Nielsen – like the previous Newspoll – suggests the gender gap has changed, but unlike Newspoll, it also suggests that substantially more women are now voting for the Coalition than for the ALP – the first poll of the campaign to suggest such a thing. At this stage, it’s worth looking at the results of all the polls we’ve had since the 1st July (click to expand):

allpollstersjuly31

Over the last week, there has definitely been a movement back to the Coalition, but Nielsen certainly appears to have overshot relative to other movement we witnessed from other pollsters over the same approximate period. Using our Pollytrend to cut through the uncertainty, it comes in like this:


pollylargeaug1

Our phone pollster trend, which includes today’s Nielsen result, is currently sitting on an ALP two party preferred of 51.3%. Galaxy, Morgan’s phone poll and Nielsen were all in the field last week with overlapping periods. Morgan got a 53% TPP to the ALP over the 27th and 28th, Galaxy got a 50% TPP on the 28th (and maybe on the 27th as well – I can’t find if Galaxy was in the field for one night or two) and Nielsen got a 48% TPP over the 27th, 28th and 29th. So Nielsen is the odd one out here, suggesting a bit of overshoot – and probably combined with the ALP week getting worse as it went on.

However, even if Nielsen went a few points too far, it did bring in results consistent with the events of last week. If we track the Nielsen two party preferred by gender and geography, a few things stand out:

gendertppaug1

Firstly, non-capital cities dropped 8 points on the TPP for Labor in a week. That doesn’t actually happen in the real world, so it’s a bit full on – but just because the magnitude of the change might be out by a few points doesn’t mean the direction of the change is wrong. Similarly, the female vote collapsed for Labor on the two party preferred, dropping by a massive 9 points in a week. Again, that doesn’t happen in the real world, but it doesn’t mean that females didn’t move back towards the Coalition in solid numbers this week – just probably not this solid.

The mediascape over the last week was filled with generically negative coverage of Labor – most of it self-inflicted –  but of particular focus was the allegations that Gillard questioned the pension rise and paid paternity leave.

The latter would certainly help explain some female movement, while the pension issue would have been expected to play out more in regional Australia than the capital cities since regional Australia is older than its metro counterpart and there’s a higher level of pension reliance among that older cohort in regional Australia.

If we track the Nielsen two party preferred by age cohorts (and I’ve combined the 18-24s and 25-39’s to give us a tracking sample for each cohort with an MoE somewhere around the 5% mark) it adds some more evidence:

agetppaug1

Young people came off a bit of a peak and 40-54s didn’t really move, but the over 55’s collapsed for Labor, from 46% last week down to 38% this week. So there would appear that there was movement towards the Coalition, and that the movement occurred in the places that last week’s events would easily explain – but the magnitude of the movement is probably slightly out considering the poll results that came from the field at the same time.

The problem for Labor of course is that the trends might continue – turning this Nielsen from what is more likely a slight outlier on the day, to an early adopter in hindsight – particularly if Labor can’t consolidate its female vote and pull back a few oldies as well.

Later today or tomorrow, we’ll have a look at the rest of the Nielsen poll, the full demographic tables of which can be seen here.

More interesting though is a 3 poll average of that table, which can be seen here – this latter table actually looks pretty spot on in terms of what appears to be the current state of play.

58 Comments

Pages: [1] 2 » Show All

  1. 1
    Stephen Lloyd
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:08 pm | Permalink

    ” it also suggests that substantially more women than men are now voting for the Coalition”

    Uhm.. where does it suggest that?

    Coalition: Men 46.1 Women, 44.5

  2. 2
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:14 pm | Permalink

    Thanks Stephen – that’s not what I actually meant to write (and I thought I’d fixed it up before I cut and pasted it!). It was supposed to be:

    it also suggests that substantially more women are now voting for the Coalition than for the ALP

    …which it now does.

  3. 3
    GocomSys
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:14 pm | Permalink

    Interesting.
    The new opposition leader openly declared to bring down a reasonable government, replacing it with one serving the usual vested interests. The profiteers and the gutter press (including dithering ‘aunty’) enthusiastically assisted him. As a renowned ‘head-kicker’ he vowed to use whatever it takes. Take no prisoners! Use any trick in the book. Non-core promises galore, why not! National interest, nobody gives a damn!
    It won’t be long now and we’ll know how successful the ‘dumbing-down’ and the ‘brainwashing’ process was. Best of luck, OZ!

  4. 4
    Socrates
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:36 pm | Permalink

    Thanks Poss. That change is clearly more than MOE; on that sample size the result is at best 50/50.

    We really must thank Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar for their leadership in achieving this result. Looks like us out-of touch latte sippers were worrying about nothing.

    I know the Labor campaign could improve but how often do people change their minds twice in a single campaign? Sigh. Tony Abbott as PM :(

  5. 5
    shepherdmarilyn
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:38 pm | Permalink

    Can’t say I feel sorry for the ALP, they thought they could fry a good PM, give in to the big miners, kick refugees around, Gillard could giggle and look air brushed and bob would be your uncle.

    However, I reckon the notion of Abbott as the most embarrassing PM in history will void them winning anything much.

  6. 6
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:39 pm | Permalink

    Very interesting and overly favourable to the Coalition I suspect but its the relentless trends that are telling, as Poss suggests.

    And Oakes, Hartcher and Grattan, all Labor stalwarts, sound utterly defeatist although Oakes has now suddenly decided to fight a rearguard action …….probably d/t guilt.

    This next week of the campaign will be the critical one I suspect.

  7. 7
    David Richards
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:46 pm | Permalink

    Marilyn – it probably goes to show that chasing the rancid right was not the best option.

    If only Rudd had gone to a double dissolution the moment the ETS was rejected by the Abbott led pack of hyenas, then he’d still be PM, and Abbott would be history.

  8. 8
    lukas
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:53 pm | Permalink

    Some interesting similarities and differences between the demographics for Nielsen (last 3 weeks) & Newspoll (3 months to end June). (NB I average the Nielsen’s directly rather than relying on their rounded averages).

    Both suggest Victoria is strongest for Labor, and Labor may well pick up a small no of seats there. Both suggest SA and the WA are behind Vic in terms of favourability of swing to Labor. Both suggest the swing in NSW will be nearly 2 percentage points worse for Labor than the national average.

    Where they differ is in Qld. Newspoll suggests swing in Qld is similar to national average. Nielsen suggests it is the worst of all states – about 2 1/2 points worse than the national swing.

    Here timing may be the key difference, with Nielsen reflecting post-regicide patterns whereas Newspoll is pre-regicide. So there may be a sizable resentment of what happened to Rudd affecting Qld.

    If this is the case, then it does indeed become very important to get Rudd out of hospital and on the campaign train in QLD as soon as possible!

  9. 9
    lukas
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:54 pm | Permalink

    @7: “If only Rudd had gone to a double dissolution the moment the ETS was rejected by the Abbott led pack of hyenas, then he’d still be PM, and Abbott would be history.”

    How true.

  10. 10
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:55 pm | Permalink

    To be fair to Rudd, Dave, He would have had to to a double-diss on the old ETS the one prior to his agreement with Turnbull.

    He would have lost much skin explaining that to the Australian people.

    It was the ambit ETS prior to expected agreed modifications.

    Not even Rudd would have countenanced that turkey going to law.

  11. 11
    Peter Phelps
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 1:08 pm | Permalink

    ...but the magnitude of the movement is probably slightly out...

    I’m not so sure. Oldies don’t ask for much, but they do ask for respect. If the PM decided to shaft them over their pensions becuase “they don’t vote for us”, that is going to annoy the hell out of a lot of them – even those not on the pension.

    It taps into perceptions of her being the out-of-touch, rich, yuppie, Left-wing lawyer that she actually is.

  12. 12
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 1:10 pm | Permalink

    ...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Possum Comitatus, Danielle Cronin, Danielle Cronin, LarvatusProdeo, LarvatusProdeo and others. LarvatusProdeo said: RT @Pollytics: On Pollytics: Nielsen – Thump http://bit.ly/cINelz Full breakdowns, trends and analysis of the Coalitions best poll of the campaign [...

  13. 13
    shepherdmarilyn
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 1:17 pm | Permalink

    She didn’t say it, wouldn’t say it, she has old parents for christs sake who don’t have much to bless themselves with.

    It’s frigging gossip and innuendo as Clarke and Dawe noted on Thursday.

    Wikileaks is news, not whether or not Gillard supported full pension increases.

    It’s all in Shitstorm by the way, it’s not news.

    But Lindsay Tanner didn’t want a stimulus package at all, why not kick him around.

    The thing about so-called democracy is that people debate, that’s why it is not a dictatorship.

  14. 14
    Supersmirk
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 1:57 pm | Permalink

    I tend to agree with sheprherdmarilyn in this instance.

    I can’t help but wonder if the constant Julia bashing going on in the News Ltd MSM isn’t starting to bite. It is way beyond partisan politics, and gotten very personal at times. I note too in the last few days they have started the same hatchet job on her partner. Can’t recall that happening to any other Party leader’s partner/spouse in recent times.

  15. 15
    David
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 1:58 pm | Permalink

    Week 2, new poll numbers, polls go up and down, wake me in a couple of weeks yawn.

  16. 16
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 2:18 pm | Permalink

    @Supersmirk

    I hadn’t realised that Ch 9 and The Sydney Morning Herald were gobbled up by the Evil Murdoch of Evil Murdoch Corp!

    Pray tell us….when?

  17. 17
    lord lucan
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 2:27 pm | Permalink

    I’d like to see an opinion poll of which journalist is the most prodigious media whore of this election campaign.

  18. 18
    David Richards
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 2:39 pm | Permalink

    JamesK – are you seriously proud of your beloved Liberal Party and their toadying minions in the MSM for they scurrilous and utterly disgusting con duct of this campaign?

    I don’t have much time for the modern rightwing ALP, but the performance by the Lib Party and its cheersquads has been the most vile and sleazy it has been my misfortune to witness.

    To all those who vote Liberal – FU!!!!!!

  19. 19
    canberra boy
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 2:51 pm | Permalink

    There’s been a lot of Laboristas over at Pollbludger concerned by Michelle Grattan’s silly reporting of some of the state breakdowns from the latest poll. The July three-poll combined results from Nielsen are the nearest thing we’ve got to a reasonable set of state samples. The margin of error ranges from about 2.7% for NSW to over 5.1% for SA&NT. Plug the figures into Antony’s calculator and you get Labor holding 75 of the 150 seats. A couple of days back, after the last Newspoll, I said not to worry: that the time to worry was

  20. 20
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 2:55 pm | Permalink

    david R

    your wishing them

    Fun?

    Fur?

    Fud?

    annette Funnicello?

  21. 21
    canberra boy
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 2:56 pm | Permalink

    … when you can’t even post a completed sentence! Apologies all. A couple of days back, after the last Newspoll, I said not to worry: that the time to worry was when the trend headed to 51% TPP for Labor. We have almost reached that now, but let’s see the next round from all pollsters before we go and stand next to the lifeboats.

  22. 22
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 3:11 pm | Permalink

    @David Richards

    Damn!

    How did you stumble on our super-secret-sleeper-undercover-operative-double agent right-wing minions in our lefty MSM?

    Whilst our in-housers of Bolt/Ackerman/Albrechtsen/Blair who ‘apparently’ (wink,wink, nudge) disseminated nothing of the red herring that Labor was tearing itself apart, whistled innocently in the corner……..

    And I had thought it was a cunning plan……

  23. 23
    Tom Jones
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 3:30 pm | Permalink

    Tony Abbott promised a filthy campaign and it looks as if he knew what he was talking about. The personal smears about the Prime Minister and attacks on things that are superficial and nasty have probably had an impact because mud sticks and there has been a lot thrown around. After all the Liberals have form on the way that they single out capable women in the Labor Party and tear them to pieces.

  24. 24
    Supersmirk
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 5:21 pm | Permalink

    James K @ 16

    I never said News Ltd were evil, just that they were biased in trashing only one political candidate in this general election, incessantly. Except for the cricket I don’t watch Ch 9 so I wouldn’t know what you are referring to there. In any case, there is no question where your allegiances lie, so a blinkered view of the political landscape can be taken for what it is worth.

    I have no political allegiances for this election. I will not be voting Labor, Liberal, National, Greens, or lunatic fringe parties (like Family First) so have no political axe to grind. I just observed that one media group appeared to be getting down and dirty with only one political candidate. They are even censoring comments on their blogs that highlights this point. But that is no surprise, and they get called on it frequently by another blog on Crikey.

  25. 25
    cud chewer
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 5:53 pm | Permalink

    lokas @9, while a ETS driven DD might have had the advantage of focusing the media and taking the focus off beat ups.

    However..

    You’d still have the biggest beat up of all – “your power bills will double under Labor’s ETS”.. and.. the press would play right along with that one.

  26. 26
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:12 pm | Permalink

    “I can’t help but wonder if the constant Julia bashing going on in the News Ltd MSM isn’t starting to bite. It is way beyond partisan politics, and gotten very personal at times. I note too in the last few days they have started the same hatchet job on her partner. Can’t recall that happening to any other Party leader’s partner/spouse in recent times.”

    and:

    “I never said News Ltd were evil, just that they were biased in trashing only one political candidate in this general election, incessantly”

    Well Supersmirk, it would be seemingly incredibly easy to make a powerful argument and offer lots of examples of “constant Julia bashing” especially as such “bashing” of her and her innocent partner is “way beyond partisan politics, and gotten very personal”, shouldn’t it?

    Why didn’t you?

    You could offer it this gotcha proof of partisanship and bias to Fairfax or Crikey or any other lefty publication and it would be a major scoop!

    You would become famous! You’d have resurrected the Labor campaign and destroyed Murdoch once and for all in this country in one fell swoop!

    Supersmirk this is your one true chance! Fame! Power! Adulation of the leftist masses!

    Eschew nasty smearing small-minded nonsense diatribes like #14 and #24!

    Show us the evidence! You’ll have it made!

    Why don’t you?

    Why make absolutist, sweeping slurs, besmirching entire news outfits employing thousands and offer nary a single example?

    Why not name one or two single News Ltd. reporter/journalist/commentator with quotes still dripping innocent Gillardine blood?

    Hey you could start your history defining op-ed piece in the SMH with:

    “I have no political allegiances for this election”

    Brilliant!

    Over to you……. and remember if you do break the scoop here on Possum’s blog ex-gratia rather than fame and fortune with Fairfax, it would only add to your pristine providence of impartiality and allure……..

  27. 27
    cud chewer
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:15 pm | Permalink

    Possum, a statistical question.

    If you sample a group of people (say 1000) and that sample is truly random. Meaning you’ve included all possible demographics according to their true distribution. Then the theory goes that a particular formula can tell you the 95% confidence interval of the result.

    But, what if your sample of 1000 people consistently under represents certain groups – lets suppose young people are consistently under represented. The usual response is to divide the overall group into sub-groups (or sub-samples if you like) and then apply weighting. But what then happens to the overall confidence interval? Since the original theoretical assumption of randomness isn’t strictly correct.

    To continue with the concrete example. Suppose the young voters are badly under-represented. So much so that if you consider those voters as a sub-sample, the prediction for that sub-sample contains a lot of noise. As you then scale the result from this group with your weighting factors you amplify that noise.

    Net result is that the overall noise in your poll is actually higher, and the confidence interval wider that would be predicted by theory that relies upon the ultimate assumption of truly random sampling.

    What do you think?

  28. 28
    lukas
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:20 pm | Permalink

    cud chewer@25

    We all seem to forget that, in the days when Labor was developing its CPRS, there was actually a huge compensation package in there as well. It was well hidden thanks to the inability or unwillingness of the key players to go out and vigorously sell the package.

    The Libs were able to sell a GST with a compensation package even though there was little prior public support for a GST. Labor had a huge advantage with selling the CPRS: there was actually substantial public support for the idea to begin with.

    Read Steketee’s column in today’s Oz – http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labors-great-climate-change-choke/story-fn59niix-1225898997863
    There was a selling strategy lined up, and it would have worked.

    They wimped out. And now they’re fighting for their lives , and for the dishonour of being the first government in eight decades to be thrown out of office after a single term.

  29. 29
    lukas
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:25 pm | Permalink

    cud chewer@27 (we have to stop meeting like this)

    you’re absolutely right – the standard error and confidence intervals increase, the greater is the difference in sampling probabilities between clusters, and hence the more you have to weight some groups up. The maths are really complicated, and if young people (a relatively small portion of the population) are underrepresented by say a third in the original sample before weighting, it’s going to lead to an increase in sampling error for the total estimate, but not a huge one (like, it’s not going to raise it by a third).

  30. 30
    Socrates
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:29 pm | Permalink

    Cud chewer

    A fair question but my understanding is reputable pollsters specificaly look for more sample in certian demographics to make sure that doesn’t happen. That is why Newspoll and one other pollster have rung us in the past and not wanted me but wanted to speak to my wife. They were both makign sure they got a sufficient sample in each category. I have employed Neilsen in my work once (not polling on a political topic!) and found them very aware of that risk. This is what worries me about this poll – Neilsen were pretty professional and unbiased in my experience.

  31. 31
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:30 pm | Permalink

    Ps Supersmirk.

    The Julia Gillard damaging kitchen cabinet leaks have been to Peter Hartcher at the SMH and Laurie Oakes who initially broke them on Ch 9.

  32. 32
    calyptorhynchus
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:50 pm | Permalink

    I think this poll is a good one at the right time in the campaign. I imagine that at the first serious prospect of Tony Abbott PM a lot of swinging voters will get over their hissy fit and realise that they don’t really want a Howard 2 The Nightmare Continues.

    Having said that, if the Coalition does win I’ll be in my I Told You So mood, reminding people how easy a DD election over the Emissions Trading Scheme would have been to win last year.

  33. 33
    cud chewer
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:51 pm | Permalink

    lokas @28, when the Libs tried to sell the GST they had a press willing to consider the detail and fairly report it.

    Would the compensation package for Labor’s ETS get fairly reported? Of course not.

  34. 34
    cud chewer
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:53 pm | Permalink

    Socrates @30, what I’m hearing is that despite the efforts to get particular groups included, its the 18-25s that they just simply can’t get enough of.

  35. 35
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:55 pm | Permalink

    Cud,

    This is hard to describe in detail, as large, weighty books (veritable tomes!) have been written on just the basics of the subject here.

    In a nutshell – the stated MoEs on a given poll are less than the true MoEs the polls actually posses, and where one of the large determinants (often the largest) of the size of that difference is the variance of the weights deployed to achieve the final, publishable poll results.

    What often happens is that pollsters deploy a style of quota sampling as well (further muddying up the neat theoretics!) , so if they don’t have enough young people in their sample as they’re getting close to the ultimate sample size they are using (in your case, 1000), they continue ringing households randomly and start asking for people in the 18-24 age cohort (or whatever age cohort that is under represented).

    Once they get within a handful of the quota they need – then they weight their entire sample.

    But that doesn’t always happen.Some mobs use differing techniques, some have different definitions of what how close is “close enough” in terms of the sample sizes of some hard to reach cohorts.

    The process of weighting itself will nearly always expand the true width of a given confidence interval (rule of thumb – the more you fiddle with the data, the wider your confidence interval becomes, but some fiddles are worth the cost because they increase the precision of the results by removing structural biases) – this is often called the ‘design effect’ issue.

    If a sort of quota sampling is utilised, the design effect will usually (but not always) be smaller than if quota sampling wasn’t used – because the variance of the weighting involved in non-quota sampling by phone polls is often (but not always) larger.

    I’ve massively over simplified that- but it gives you the basics from just one of the larger issues involved in this problem..

    Unfortunately, we don’t know just how big of a practical inflation there is to most pollsters stated confidence intervals, because they don’t make their weighting and other poll mechanics publically available. So saying, Simon Jackman made a good a go as you will find anywhere else at cracking it, and reckons it was probably around 180%, or 1.8 times larger than the standard MoE stated for a given poll – and that sounds a pretty good estimate to me.

  36. 36
    cud chewer
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 6:56 pm | Permalink

    @32, a DD election would have been in no way easy to win. The underlying problem is that before the 2007 election global warming had been fairly reported an there was a lot of support for taking action (even though it was assumed that this meant taking a temporary hit on living standards). But that changed and the polls do show this – that more and more people were being confused by climate denialism and the press can hang their heads in shame about this. Yes, in parts of the community there is VERY strong feeling in favor of serious action. But the sad fact is there are more people now that would vote against an ETS on the basis of perceived self interest than there were 3 years ago.

    Its just not that simple.

  37. 37
    William Conroy
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 7:51 pm | Permalink

    They Coalition stopped supply in the 70′s to bring down an elected government after they were robbed by Gough but that will not work a second time.

    So the mad monk and murdoch cook up another scenario NO adverse comments or scrutiny of the coalition and its policy or lack of same and have all the murdock hacks blow up every downside of the batts, BER, debt personal attacks and any other Labor policy, even to not mentioning them if they can get away with it but throw in any crap as noted by Grog’s and other blogs.
    Or perhaps I am being too paranoid and I will wake up shortly and find it all a dream.

    What really gets to me is the ABC and its coverage it must have been the invisible party at that meeting to NOT even bring up any labor action except a stupid leak of which no one gives a rats** about.

    Possum you kept the light burning for us in 2007 and now with a few other blogs will have to keep the torch burning for 2010. The dark side MUST not be allowed to prevail.

  38. 38
    Supersmirk
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 7:59 pm | Permalink

    JamesK @ 26

    If news organisations of all persuations in this country actually used your proper criteria for news gathering and information disemination, we would all be better off. If you are not getting paid by some political party or news organisation, you should be. You are a talent wasted otherwise. I am just curious as to why you feel the need to lambast people on a “leftist” blog for their opinions. Surely your valuable time would be more productive elsewhere.

  39. 39
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 9:46 pm | Permalink

    @Supersmirk

    No ‘scoop’ then?

    Not even one forlorn effort to defend your nonsensical and oh so very crystal-clear partisan and biased calumny on the a news organisation that could hardly be reasonably accused of being involved in Julia Gillard’s present woes.

    Except insofar as it’s one of the employers of Laurie Oakes.

    Are you next going to suggest that Oakes is in the tank for Abbott and the Coalition perhaps?

    Well Ss…… I can’t say I’m really all that surprised by your woeful response…….

    Although perhaps a more spirited defense might have been reasonably deemed at least….. possible…. but then …… your not a lefty or somesuch.

    Right?

  40. 40
    JamesK
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 10:21 pm | Permalink

    I’ll say this. Imho Labor has lost its way. Under Hawke and Keating it was a tough manager of government affairs.

    It ran essentially a Thacherite/Reagan economic management policy and did what no Liberal government could ever have hoped to achieve. It was no bs real reform.

    It balanced that with a strong social conscience and introduced a near single-payer health system that didn’t kill a private system that ensured the highest standards of medical practice for all.

    Rudd has been absolute watermelon poison to Labor. He wasn’t voted in on this bs despite what the poisonous MSM says.

    Forget about a “sliver”; Rudd is oceans apart from Hawke/Keating/Howard/Costello.

    Keating wouldn’t have taken this insane nonsense from a non-elected puffed-up t-sser like Ken Henry.

    On economic management this government deserves to be booted out but if they do go it won’t actually because of that .. the MSM/intelligentsia whitewash is all too pervasive.

    What will kill this government is its remorseless dishonesty/spin and simple managerial ineptitude.

    Abbott’s task is to prove the personal MSM slimes wrong.

    He needs to be steady and sensible and he knows it.

    Julia needed to stay until Oct/Nov as PM, be honest, steady and sensible. Sensible changes to climate policy not an ETS or even the whiff of one.
    Her personality is a big plus.

    The Labor spinmeisters are winning the day and she’s losing.

    Funny that.

  41. 41
    Tri$tan
    Posted July 31, 2010 at 10:36 pm | Permalink

    I’ve gotta say I really like it when people ask questions about the stats and numbers here.

    That’s what I come here for, and is essentially what the blog is about 95% of the time…

  42. 42
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 12:30 am | Permalink

    james

    I have heard breathing exercises helps with retention

    perhaps you could report back when your blockage is cleared

    ta

  43. 43
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 12:37 am | Permalink

    In war, there is no winners,only losers

  44. 44
    sherbet
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 2:20 am | Permalink

    I have just spent a cursory 10 minutes going through this blog for the first time in the hope it would provide some valuable opinion on views on the election, however I have unfortunately concluded it’s possibly an off-shoot of the labor party. Comments like “we” (ie labour) directly confirm it. Bottom line is the labor government has totally ***** up their first year of office and deserve to be booted out. Would be nice to have a viable alternative, but all we have is a load of tree-huggers who believe armageddon is around the corner. Give me a break!

    An interesting comment in the press today arguing that the current level of political debate is a direct result of compulsory voting, in that they have to communicate to the lowest level of intellect – sounds plausible to me!

  45. 45
    David Richards
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 2:34 am | Permalink

    sherbet – howzat?

    They have voluntary voting in the UK and US and still end up catering to the LCD.

    It’s the homogeneity and small town conformist mentality that pervades Australia that sees such nonsense as 12 years of Howard fascism, now to be followed by his apprentice. If Abbott becomes PM – may he only last one term, as people will be reminded in 2013 that his promise re Workchoices is null and void (always assuming that he hasn’t snuck it back by stealth (“regulations”, “tinkering”) in the meantime).

    I give up on Australians – no wonder the median IQ of this place is subnormal.

    Australia – if you wake up the morning after the election to Tony PM – you are a mob of morons.

  46. 46
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 7:13 am | Permalink

    I am hoping that this frightening poll is just the reaction to the “leaks” that have happened this week. People will see sense…hopefully before August 21. The media have done much to help the Coalition this week, by concentrating on Gillard’s personal life and trying to twist it into a negative for voters, and continuously reporting on these “leaks” – very irresponsible as they are totally unsubstantiated.

    It is obvious that they are designed purely to try and destabilise the Labor party and Gillard, which (very conveniently) makes Abbott look better and more stable without them having to actually do anything.

    Interesting, isn’t it?

  47. 47
    JamesK
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 8:05 am | Permalink

    @PoliticalTarot. Fascinating even…..

    Whilst I have sympathies with Tri$tan’s frustration, Dave regularly informs us that Howard is a Fascist whilst: “In war, there is no winners, only losers” says regular intellectual heavyweight Gusface.

    Its very difficult to ignore this and discuss stats and what they might mean for the coming election!

    Gusface’s incoherence and his trite meaningless slogans, typical of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Left today are usually trotted out whilst foaming at the mouth, surging with fulminating hatred and carrying placards depicting Bush and/or Howard with an axe thru’ their skulls and/or an eviscerating scimitar sliced thru’ their torsos, brains, blood and guts spilling out………. whilst Stalin, Mao, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah and Hamas are misunderstood and peace-loving apparently…….

    And Dave …. please don’t give up on us Aussies….. we love youse all ….. including even the perennially unhappy ones. And what the hell are you doing telling us once again that we’ll be a mob of morons ……”if” etc. at 2.30 in the wee small hours?

    “If” not a HAL-approved stress pill then I suggest a Lipton’s Quietly Chamomile before bedtime Dave.

    But what’s not to love about this election campaign as we learn thanx to Alexander Downer of ‘Kevin 007′?

    You couldn’t make this sh1t up………..

  48. 48
    calyptorhynchus
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 8:29 am | Permalink

    Sherbert

    “a load of tree-huggers who believe armageddon is around the corner”

    At last, someone with genuinely new insights. What a find!

  49. 49
    Geoff
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 10:46 am | Permalink

    Thanks, as always, Possum for providing this analysis. However I take issue with your concluding statement.

    More interesting though is a 3 poll average of that table, which can be seen here – this latter table actually looks pretty spot on in terms of what appears to be the current state of play

    .

    Apart from your “looks pretty spot on” statement which suggests you have omnipotent powers, it is what it, an average of the past 3 Neilson polls. This will reduce the MoE but also hide any trend. You’re not suggesting that over the 2 weeks that these 3 polls were taken, that there hasn’t been a trend up for the Coalition, are you? If there has been then you cannot say for example that a TPP ALP/Coalition of 51%/49%, as shown in the 3 poll average table, is representative of the state of play over the period of the 3rd poll.

    We await with interest the next Newspoll for this weekend.

  50. 50
    don
    Posted August 1, 2010 at 11:24 am | Permalink

    Sherbet@44:

    I have just spent a cursory 10 minutes going through this blog for the first time in the hope it would provide some valuable opinion on views on the election, however I have unfortunately concluded it’s possibly an off-shoot of the labor party.

    I look forward to your scintillating analysis of the political situation, but I am not holding my breath.

    This place is not for entertainment. Poss’s analyses of polls are pure gold, and don’t really need any comments at all, but if you would like to contribute something to the discussion apart from putting your nose in the air, go right ahead.

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