It’s almost obligatory when there’s a poll showing a landslide result to reach for the cold water tap.
Pouring cold water on the AC/Nielsen poll’s 16 point 2PP lead for Labor isn’t just a matter of warning against complacency or urging supporters not to get too excited. Polls are blunt instruments, to say the least, and it’s never worth forgetting they measure voting intentions (and have a margin of error).
In Crikey, Christian Kerr writes:
Yup, the polling frenzy continues. But here’s another set of figures you might like to take a dekko at. They come from the 2004 Australian Election Study and ask when punters actually made up their mind.
Less than half decided how they would cast their ballot in that year’s poll “a long time ago”. Instead:
* 6.5% made up their minds “about the time the election was announced”;
* 9.6% “in the first few weeks of the campaign”;
* 14.2% “a few days before election day”; and
* 8.6% “on election day”In other words, almost one in three voters only made up their minds how they would vote after the campaign was called. So much for polls taken now.
It’s also a fair bet that the 46.9% of voters who made a decision which way to go “a long time ago” were rusted on, not swinging voters.
So the closer to the election you get the more accurate the polls. As Kerr points out, there’s the budget to come. Of course, Howard also faces risks, some largely beyond his control – Iraq and interest rates, for example.
Bryan Palmer at Ozpolitics looks at another reason why calling the result eight months out from the election is dangerous.
Howard’s contention is that just as the Coalition won in 2001 and 2004, so it will win in 2007. It is a plausible argument. Early in 2001 and 2004, the Opposition was well ahead in the polls, but from around the fourth month of the year until the election, the Opposition slowly declined in the opinion polls, and ultimately lost the election. The trend can be seen clearest in the historically more reliable ACNielsen series, but it is also evident in the Newspoll series.
Conversely, the long term trend is always worth watching.
Pollster John Stirton said: “Kevin Rudd’s honeymoon with voters builds on Labor’s consistent lead established by Kim Beazley in 2006. When the honeymoon inevitably ends, Rudd will still be in a strong position if Labor support simply falls to 2006 levels.”
Labor was consistently in a winning position throughout 2006, under Kim Beazley. If Rudd’s numbers fell back to that level, Labor would still be well placed. Federal elections are almost always close unless the government is really on the nose (think Keating and Whitlam), with 2004 actually one of the more lopsided contests in recent history.
The thing with polls, though, is that they’re often drivers of political commentary and moods. Howard’s scrappy and error prone performance last week is a case in point. Rudd’s credibility in the media is enhanced by the poll numbers. The danger, for Labor, is that if the polls bounce back to Beazley levels, then what would still be an election winning position may be perceived by the media as bad for Rudd. The narrative from the “Howard is a political master” true believers would be all about the PM clawing his way back into contention. That would be wrong, but it illustrates the double-edged sword these polls pose for the opposition.
Elsewhere: More commentary from Chris Sheil at Troppo.
Still, the betting market story that Sheil links to is cheering.
I’m not convinced by the whole betting market hypothesis. It only makes sense if (a) it’s really “insiders” who place the bets and (b) those “insiders” know something other than what everyone else knows from the polls and the media.
To give one illustration – the Centrebet market on the number of seats Labor would win had the shortest odds for the range that the pundits in the press were tipping – 50 to 53. In fact, Labor won 59 seats and I made about a grand on it!
It might not make sense, Mark, and I don’t know who’s betting, but historically the punters have been a much more accurate predictor of the results than the polls have.
Can’t find much in the way of conservative bloggage on these numbers – would love to see some reactions if anyone has some links.
Andrew Bolt, though, says that:
(Although his commenters think it’s all a Fairfax plot.)
There’s some keen statisticians on Bolta’s thread!
Rebekka, do you have a link to any comparison of results and odds?
As I said, with the Queensland election, just where you would expect a betting market to more accurately reflect the insights of “insiders”, it was way off and mimicked the press gallery consensus.
mark, i’d like to see the stats. breakdown on how many AWA’s are due for renewal, and how many new ones are being lodged, up to the election date, and how many in marginal seats.
also how many marginals are held by 1000 votes and under?
looking at the percentage of union voters who voted coalition in 2004 i.e around 36% – that’s quite a few more to come home, and more male union members were voting coalition…
this is not to say that ratty and co. dont have a few more tricks up their sleeves, and also the reserve bank isnt likely to increase rates again before the election…so it’s a long way to go.
but hip pocket rules, and there is nothing more hip pocket than penalty rates, public holidays, shift loadings, holiday loading, split shift allowances and so on……
Such stats as are available you can find on the OEA site, Jo.
I’m not saying Howard will win, and nor am I saying Rudd will win. I think any prediction at this stage would be unwise – clearly the trend is in Labor’s favour, but there’s a lot that can change.
I agree with you that WorkChoices is Labor’s biggest gun.
mark, i’m going to be a fundamentally useless (if not already) commentator on the federal election, as i’ve become hopelessly and utterly optimistic, and have already eaten the all chickens and made stock from their bones.
i’ll be depressed for a month if ratty is returned again – so i decided, i may as well enjoy a whole year of sunny, rose coloured vistas. so far so good!!!
With the amount of free publicity the Ming Womble has been getting, I am not suprised he is doing so well. Interesting to see an estimate of what it would cost to buy the coverage he is getting.
“I agree with you that WorkChoices is Labor’s biggest gun.”
I don’t. I think that the prospect of relatively painless and inevitable change is emerging as Labor’s biggest gun. Rudd’s “don’t scare the horses” strategy is working inasmuch as he appears devilishly competent, fresh, totally non-scary and increasingly looks like the harbinger of governmental rejuvenation. Howard is looking like he’s 68. I think the Libs might come to rue the day that they didn’t opt to renovate the leadership.
And let me make a prediction: If these polls continue for the next four months, Mark Bahnisch will be a “hot tap only” punditry faucet.
Dunno about that Geoff, I’m always a bit of a pessimist when it comes to Labor’s chances in federal elections.
Rudd clearly thinks he’s going to win
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,21212381-31037,00.html
Huh? How do you get that from that story, obs?
Two consequences of the even betting market with the bookies: Howard’s backbench horses are going to be spooked AND Bobby Brown and Greens comes into play for holding Senate balance of power.
The Rodent is going to have to pull a M.V.Tampa or Twin Towers type scenario out of his arse just to get competitive. Worse for Benalongtime Johnny, Citizen Rupert may read “It’s Time” written on the subway wall and either run News on neutral or back The Ruddster.
The tide has turned and Team Rodent, nares in the air are rat-paddling against it. Schadenfreude is such a difficult emotion to contain, but I like it anyway.
You used a poll to show that polling should not be taken seriously. People like to claim they don’t make up their minds until the last minute because they like to think they think about their vote. If it was true, there would be far greater winning margins then there ever are.
I’m not sure what that means.
Yes, there are problems with people’s recollection of their past behaviour, but there are also aspects of survey design (the AES isn’t strictly speaking a “poll”) which can be used to minimise them. The AES people are very competent social scientists.
Tracking polls during campaigns do usually find a fairly large percentage of people who don’t make their mind up til the last minute (ie – the same people are being polled, not a similarly sized sample). It’s really not that surprising in a complusory voting system.
“Huh? How do you get that from that story, obs?”
The closer he gets to the Treasury benches, the more reluctant he is to restrict his options Mark and as you know the journos sense these shifts. In power policy is often chosen for you by circumstance, often in spite of ideology. Truth is unions and Labor govts can’t defy inexorable forces like globalisation and deep down Rudd would know that.
…and recall Gillard’s already stated Workchoices doesn’t cause unemployment. Give them their due it’s honest politics, albeit futile in the long run to say otherwise.
Rudd also has the greatest approval of any Opposition leader, ever since modern polls were conducted and that really means something. Short of a political miracle (the surge in Iraq working?) Howard is gone.
Obs, have you had some sort of recent conversion to living in the reality-based world?
Or are you trying to jinx us?
geoff, mark, i wasn’t thinking that workchoices was their biggest gun ie. scare campaign etc – i was thinking about the actual numbers of people who are going to be directly effected by AWA’s in the coming year, who live in the marginal seats, and will then sheet that home to howard.
alot of these workers are ALP voters, being low paid award workers etc – but significant numbers of union and non-union award workers voted coalition in 2004.
imo, rudd’s work on this issue, is being done by employers via howard’s legislation, one AWA at a time.
how the public campaign is tackled by Gillard (and Combet) is going to be interesting.
I don’t think the stats on when voting decisions are made are all that useful for two reasons.
One, I believe there are many more self declared swinging voters than actually exist.
Also, it would be interesting to know how many of the undecided voters preference the ALP & Libs in the same order at every election. I suspect most of them do.
I’ve been known to give my first preference(s) to parties other than the majors, but it would take something extraordinary for me to preference the Libs ahead of the ALP. A complete policy change by the parties, or some sort of brain injury on my part perhaps.
On IR, I thought Gillard was a bit wishy-washy about unfair dismissal laws on the front of The Oz today.
We’ve all had bit too much red cordial lately. Time for a bland, compentant, rational third way technocrat who doesn’t need a translator when grokking with our big new mate, I think. And I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that, I think.
Of course they all go a bit irrational after a few years in power.
Mark,
On the betting markets – I would disagree with this:
(a) is wrong because the betting markets do not need many “insiders” to place bets – as with any market only a few, if they are all moving one way, are enough to sway the price.
Yes, they got the spread wrong on the Queensland but the important thing is that over many elections they are not systematically wrong. If the spreads were consistently bang on the money no-one would bet on them, destroying their point totally.
(b), if you think about it is just wrong – that would only be the condition if you wanted to be sure of making a profit in the market. That is not a condition for a market – any market.
“Obs, have you had some sort of recent conversion to living in the reality-based world?”
That’s precious coming from one of those who would have drooled over Latham and now drools over Howard’s clone in Rudd. Notice Ruddy wouldn’t back Obama’s stance today either. He gets more like Howard every day.
You get the feeling by the time the election comes round the pair of them will be doing the sheep dog routine in the Road Runner cartoon.
You know- ‘mornin Ralph’, ‘morning Ralph’ -’goodnight Ralph, goodnight Ralph.
“With the amount of free publicity the Ming Womble has been getting, I am not suprised he is doing so well. Interesting to see an estimate of what it would cost to buy the coverage he is getting.
Of course you are right,the Labor Party has to pay for any good coverage.Unlike the Raty and his mates who get theirs free gratis.I mean why wouldn’t they get it free?you don’t have to pay for your own media outlets to say good shite about you.
jo,
In WA at least those directly affected by workchoices are more likely to vote for the party that brought it in – not against them. Unemployment is continuing down and wages continuing up. I am not saying it is the result of workchoices – but it does at the very least (politically) dent the claims that it is bad for the workers.
If that’s so, Andrew, it wouldn’t be all the people in WA. Where WorkChoices has really hit hard is on people in retail. Myer has just announced a 12 month wage freeze, and they’re generally not a bad employer, but part of the reason is that almost all the smaller operators in retail are engaging in a rush to the bottom with AWAs.
I agree with Jo’s general point – to a large degree the WorkChoices campaign and issue has its own momentum separate from the ALP’s campaign. That’s why the government has been worried about it as a vote changer.
I’d also want to check the national data on real wages, and decompose it by sector and region. I’ve seen some evidence that real wage growth has been slowing (despite unemployment being low and the labour market tight) – which is exactly what WorkChoices is meant to do – restrain wage growth and bargaining power in times of “plenty”. The other factor operating to restrain wages is the very large number of imported workers over the past couple of years.
Andrew, your comments would be more correct in relation to the “futures” style betting markets they have in the US, where you would buy a future contract on, eg., the Democrats winning the election. Punters can then offer to buy or sell contracts at any price in the lead up to the election, and the market price will fluctuate in line with events and perceptions.
With Centrebet, however, the price is set by them, and you either take their price on offer at the moment, or not. There is no way of knowing exactly how Centrebet sets their prices and adjusts them. So it’s not really an open market.
And indeed Centrebet may actually be gambling themselves (taking a position) on the outcome. I don’t have the reference to hand, but a clever academic statistician in the US crunched a lot of numbers and demonstrated that US sports bookies often were taking a position on outcomes.
Mark is quite right when he asks what is the underlying basis of the accuracy of political betting? No one has provided a convincing theoretical explanation. The ‘insider’ hypothesis would suggest that the political parties have access to some particularly accurate polls, which they distribute widely within their parties, allowing numerous apparatchiks to place bets, but these polls somehow never leak to the media. Unconvincing.