Source: Pollytics
Last week’s Newspoll result – a 2PP of 52-48 – sent the media into a flurry of speculation about what caused the Narrowing [TM]. But it was a single, aberrant poll result – at the same time, Essential Research came out at 59-41 (unchanged from the previous week) and last Friday Morgan’s latest came out at 61-39. Taken as a whole, the most plausible conclusion from recent polling is that last week’s Newspoll is an outlier – as Possum noted here and here.
But that hasn’t stopped some in the media – as well as the pollies themselves – from attempting to explain what caused it. We now have a thread of so-called common wisdom that says Rudd has taken a hit in the polls, most likely over his handling of asylum seeker issues – although any other events that have happened in recent weeks (rising interest rates, the climate change and emissions trading debates, etc.) can always be folded in there as well. Now, the results of two new polls – including the next Newspoll – are expected in the next couple of days. Instead of waiting for those sage minds in the media to tell us what the results mean, why don’t we get a head start by making our own predictions?
We’re starting the week with a media narrative that says “the polls” have turned on Rudd and Labor. Mobius Ecko noted that this theme came through on this morning’s Insiders. Andrew Bolt repeated the “polls down” line today. Pollies bought into it throughout the week – Kevin Rudd himself launched a “media blitz” right as the Newspoll result was about to be announced, and the opposition capitalised on it while at the same time finding ways to dismiss the other results.
At the beginning of this week we should see results from Nielsen – which last month reported at 57-43 – as well as another Newspoll. Unless the Newspoll has genuinely picked up a massive shift that all of the other polls didn’t detect, it seems likely that the polls will show the ALP’s 2PP vote somewhere in the mid-fifties (if not higher). Given that the pundits have accepted that last week’s shift was in some way meaningful, they are now in the position of needing to explain this “uptick” for Labor.
But how will they do it? Will it be the success of Rudd’s media onslaught? Will these new polls become the outliers? What might they focus on to explain how a tight race and a backlash against Kevin Rudd has come undone? Offer your predictions – either general or for a specific pundit – in the comments.
33 Comments
Toby: there was also Bob Ellis’ column in the SMH last week where he shamelessly smeared newspoll by implying they polled until they got the result they wanted, ie one that showed the Libs in the best light. I can’t remember what day it was published though.
Ah found it. here’s the offending para:
Is he really suggesting that newspoll rig their polling to recruit only coalition-supporting participants?
Tobias – you may want to update that chart – I’ve just added a new metric to that in my latest post a few minutes ago. The chart is the same, but with a new phone pollster overlay as well.
I reckon any downturn is the pipeline effect of rising unemployment. Unemployment has almost peaked, so all those Aussies now on the dole queue are registering as a vote away from Labor.
(I reckon we’ll see the asylum seeker poll effects in a few weeks, since public opinion doesn’t turn on a dime.)
They will come back obliquely along the lines that the Australian public are stupid, confused, Rudd brainwashed via spin (note their spin meme has arisen again) and ignorant, not only are they unable to pick up an obvious massive decline for Rudd and the government because ………..(insert a much rehashed reason here) , but they are unable to make up their minds from one poll to the next and between different pollsters.
For the right and their mouthpieces it never crosses their minds they can be wrong or get things screwed up, so it’s always the public (and/or meeja) no matter how consistent they have been for more than two years now, that have things screwed up. After all it’s not the right’s fault mere ordinary people cannot see what’s so blindingly obvious.
They just can’t grasp the concept of “opposition” meaning “not government” and being wrong is not being right just because they belong to an ideology nominated right.
The kindest thing you can say about Ellis’s article is that he was being slightly unhinged about it all…
This Tuesday if the Newspoll is less than 55% expect The Oz to go full on with “the shift has happened; the game is on” (most likely they’ll ignore Turnbull’s pathetic Pref PM rating).
If it is 55-56 they’ll focus more on the asylum seeker questions but still play up the line that there is a “trend away from the ALP” is on.
If it is 57+ it’ll be big news all recounted on page 12…
Until I see the in depth analysis of these figures by the forensic teams at both the Ponds Institute and the University of East Bumcrack I shall be forced to view them with utmost scepticism.
Call me a south poll sceptic – but don’t call me late for breakfast.
Post updated with Possum’s new chart.
Mark at LP:
I agree with his point about things being a lot calmer now and that the government isn’t rushing to announce symbolic do-nothing, cost-aplenty initiatives often heavily coated in culture war rhetoric. That’s a welcome relief IMO.
But at the same time Mark’s point about people “outside the Canberra beltway” not listening to the ‘crisis’ stuff doesn’t accord with the Essential polling on asylum seekers – that showed while the response was somewhat more complex, people generally wanted tougher approach by the government, and thought the government wasn’t doing enough on asylum seekers.
Can’t wait for this weeks newspoll!
56/44
Newspoll now VERY lonely. Yes Rudd has taken a hit, but small potatoes.
Oh and the Essential Survey was right on handling of Asylum seekers, Oz split in half, confusion reigns.
Here’s that Nielsen breakdown – as Mao said, 56-44. Rudd’s popularity has dropped but is still well above Turnbull’s.
Most of the op eds I read threw in something like ‘unless this poll is an outlier’ and then went on as if it wasn’t.
So – if they mention the outlier meme at all – they will seize on their qualification and write something like ‘The Newspoll result – as I suggested at the time – was an outlier…”
Well i’m glad it was an outlier: it means the opposition’s dog-whistling on asylum seekers didn’t work. As for the ‘commentary’ this past week, it feels like 2007 all over again.
I think that any fall in Rudd’s personal approval numbers are actually most likely to come from losing left wing voters unhappy at his handling of the asylum seeker issue. I don’t believe that there are a large contingent of people who want a more aggressive stance on asylum seekers who aren’t already in the LNP column.
I sometimes wonder if these things are good because the spin machine that is the right wing press gets free ideas from us and if any of us actually think of something that they haven’t you can rest assured that they will use it. So I will resist offering my thoughts on the matter (and later when they use my ideas I will at least not be deluded by the thought that I have helped them whom I despise).
Judging by this morning’s Radio National Breakfast, it should be an interesting few days for inane and contrived polling analysis. The Nielsen guy was pretty good, but Fran Kelly really seemed to take seriously the idea that Rudd’s media blitz might have turned things around. And then you had Tony Abbott asserting that Newspoll has always been regarded as the most authoritative poll, and mixing in a bit of media blitz commentary as well.
And I suspect Dave’s right about Rudd’s approval ratings taking a hit from the left.
I would just love to know who the 44% are, and what it is they think they are voting FOR in voting Coalition. It surely can’t be that 44% of Australians are multi-millionaire corporation owners can it?
Tobias Ziegler, Newspoll is the most authoritative.
On what basis? And even if one poll was regarded as more reliable in general, how does that justify not regarding it as an outlier when every other poll in the same period points to a different conclusion?
Yep, we’re all ‘poll dancers’ (sic) now!
It’s all part of the media’s addiction to any pile of numbers that don’t mean much to most people…just look at the daily barrage of stock market and economic numbers, which are, quite frankly, almost meaningless (unless put in a very broad context and studied with some specialist knowledge). It may as well be about horse racing results for all the relevance it has to people’s lives; relatively few have the ability to discern much of importance from the daily squiggles.
But political polling now underwrites the ‘opinion’ pieces that are masqueraded as ‘news’; put simply, they aren’t.
The process: poll, commentary, spin, ‘analysis’ (I use that term in full ironic mode!) has become ‘the news’.
It’s a feedback loop on full throttle in an echo chamber! Even Rudd was running around like a headless chook because of one crappy poll. (Next time he comments; “I don’t comment on polls”, someone had better replay his ‘appearances’ of late last week).
Not quite “Prime Ministerial” as Julian Morrow would say.
Is the interruption to Rudd’s honeymoon by Newspoll “Polloitus Interruptus”?
Essential Report.
59/41 to labor.
I asked Martin why they run polls demanding that people are really mean to refugees and he didn”t know that the refugee convention is enshrined in the Migration Act and it forbids punishing people the way we do.
Nor it seems do most of the punters.
application is made.
62 The Refugees Convention implicitly requires that, generally, the signatory countries process applications for refugee status of on-shore applicants irrespective of the legality of their arrival, or continued presence, in that country: see Art 31. That right is not only conferred upon them under international law but is also recognised by the Act (see s 36) and the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) which do not require lawful arrival or presence as a criterion for a protection visa. If the position were otherwise many of the protection obligations undertaken by signatories to the Refugees Convention, including Australia, would be undermined and ultimately rendered nugatory.
But it has been since 1992 so polling on whether or not to be tough is sort of pointless and incites more law breaking and violence against people who have a legal right to get here anyway they can.
Essential doesn’t tend to get a lot of media attention, but that further isolates the last Newspoll result.
Assuming that the Newspoll data on asylum seekers was accompanied by questions about voting intentions (the asylum seekers table certainly breaks people down by “political support” into Labor and Coalition), it will be Newspoll that drives the media discussion tomorrow. But it seems increasingly improbable that it can show anything but a Widening [TM].
“Nice” typo in that Essential poll:
Kevin Rudd’s approval rating has decreased
five percentage points since we last asked this question in September and his disapproval rating has increased nice percentage points. The disapproval rating is the highest recorded over the last year.
…of course, they meant ‘nine’, just in case anyone wants to accuse them of bias! LOL
And of course the results split down party lines as you’d expect.
Well, well, so it all means what, exactly? That a bunch of innumerate hacks have been pumping a rogue poll for all they are worth (which isn’t much), and even some who should have known better saddled the thing and rode it around.
Thanks to Crikey, we know better, but the vast majority who get their information in soundbites think we more p!ssed off with Rudd over a few boat people than we really are. And worse, we are even ‘close’ to wanting the Coalition! We clearly are not.
So yes, bring on the “Widening”, and let it strike terror at the Oz!
Is it just me or are there no voting intention figures in today’s Australian? I find it hard to believe that newspoll would survey people on asylum seekers one week after releasing outlier results and not ask about voting intention to correct the previous polling. The only other explanation is that newspoll did obtain voting intention but the Australian has chosen not to publish it.
In answer to my question, it seems the latter has occurred. As Bahnisch says:
I couldn’t agree more. And it reaffirms my view that it’s their ABC now.
Agreed, confessions. If Newspoll decided there was reason to conduct a special poll (one week after the last one instead of a fortnight), they should be open about the results of that poll. Richard Farmer’s post (including quotes from Gary Morgan), which Mark B also linked to, is something people should read.
There’s a story by Andrew Crook on the ‘missing’ Newspoll in today’s subscriber email. And Possum has a related post about publishing outliers.
The Australian considers itself a paper of record, presumably proud to be the only daily that gives national politics decent coverage. But they’ve seriously fucked up with this as far as i’m concerned.
Rudd has already pinged the paper as a rightwing paper, and accused at least one of its regular columnists as the “Liberal party journalist of choice”. Now we have this withheld polling, no explanation from the Oz, and its editor slagging off at Crikey for having the temerity to ask questions! Meanwhile their outlier poll has been used by media outlets from the ABC to WIN television as justification that the asylum seeker issue is hurting the government! You’d think they’d learned from their spin-doctoring of polling during the last election but it looks very much to me like it’s 2007 all over again at the Oz.
Thank god we have Crikey and LP to report things accurrately instead of having to rely on the hivemind of mainstream journalists and opinion writers.