A few weeks is evidently a long time in politics. We’ve gone from Howard warning of “annihilation” to spin that the government is back in the game, evidently a message that Howard wants out there. And he’s had a very, very cooperative media to get it out there.
Let’s nail the misinterpretation of the Galaxy Poll for starters.
I’ve previously linked to two Crikey pieces on it. In today’s email, Richard Farmer writes:
There was no fortnightly Newspoll published in The Australian yesterday and its absence clearly unsettled the political poll addicts to the point where considerable nonsense was written about the Courier Mail version of a Galaxy Poll on the voting intentions of the people of Queensland.
The story purported to show that Labor was doing poorly with the “Courier-Mail/Galaxy survey shows that federal Labor’s lead over the Coalition in Queensland has been slashed from 10% to just 4% of the two-party-preferred vote … and if the poll result were repeated on election day, Labor would not win the seats required in Queensland and would hand Prime Minister John Howard a fifth term”.
This conclusion of journalist Clinton Porteous was nothing more than nonsense. Galaxy put the two-party-preferred vote of its Queensland sample at Labor 52% to the Coalition’s 48%. At the last federal election, the split was Labor 43% to the Coalition’s 57%. If Labor does manage to gain nine percentage points in Queensland it would win the seats of Bonner (where the required swing is 0.2%), Moreton (2.8% required), Blair (5.7%), Longman (6.6%), Flynn (7.8%), Petrie (7.9%), Hinkler (8.8%) and Bowman (8.9%). Those eight seats would be half of what Labor needs nationally.
And a 9% swing nationally, incidentally, would see Labor become the government with a majority of 48!
What Porteous was writing about I do not know, but he, and the ABC journalists who blithely repeated his gibberish over the airwaves, badly need the poll addict’s equivalent of methadone.
The Morgan poll taken over the weekend had Labor with a ten point 2PP lead, but received bugger all coverage compared to the confected results of the Galaxy poll.
You can have a look at the monthly aggregated poll trends over at Oz Politics.
While, obviously, a fair bit of the soft support for Labor has fallen away, we’re still looking at a swing far in excess of what would be needed to win government. The question should really be, given that the Coalition have thrown almost everything they’ve got at Rudd, incessantly and very noisily, why is Labor’s lead still so strong. If Labor’s vote stabilises somewhere near where it is now, then the government probably isn’t in the game.
But what I want to focus on is the question I raised about a month ago – to what degree does political commentary in this country inhabit some sort of faith based reality rather than being grounded in any actual data on where public opinion is moving? Obviously, there are many caveats about the interpretation of polls – they’re not predictive and politics is always a game of surprises.
But how is it that Clinton Porteous can write what Farmer calls “gibberish” and have it reported around the nation as if it were fact? In particular, the contention that Labor would only win three or four seats in Queensland was, to put it kindly, an interpretation based on an elementary mistake.
We now have yet another entrenched narrative, bolstered by John Howard’s comments, and no doubt serving John Howard’s political purposes. What’s this all about other than a commentariat incapable of intelligent interpretation of poll data and acting in its usual herd fashion seizing upon any old spin that’s convenient for the Coalition’s political interests? It really isn’t good enough, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Elsewhere: Chris Sheil at Troppo thinks the whole polling game deservers a long hard look by some investigative reporters. He suggests 4 Corners. I’d have thought this was “core business” for Media Watch, instead of spelling mistakes or doctored photos from the Wangaratta Times.
More commentary and debate on the latest polls at The Poll Bludger.
Broadly speaking, Im all for it.
Keep those protest voters thinking a very Ratty Xmas is well on the cards.
Is the commentariat’s lack of mathematical competance their reason for continually bagging out on teachers not teaching the basics (like math) well enough? Just sayin’…
Is it the commentators’ ignorance or bias? A fair lump of the commentariat in the MSM are pro-Coalition. In fact, the media is quite slanted in its reporting of politics. This extends from blatantly partisan op-eds to the more sublte placement and emphasis given to stories. The Galaxy poll, uncharasterically favourable to the tories, was widely reported, bulletin after bulletin. Yet the previous Morgan, which showed a steady and high result to Labor, hardly got a look-in by comparison.
PS: Off-topic, sad to see Bryan at Oz Politics has closed his blog to comments. Hope we see some of the regulars around the place. ‘Twas a great panel, indeed.
I’d be very interested to know where Porteous gained his info from – was it a case of the usual inability to understand & interpret stats or did he pick up a nicely prepared press release from the Libs, or someone associated?
As you said Mark polls really mean not a lot on polling day, but mood & optimism is everything, both for Howard’s fellow MPs, & to an electorate whose sense of tiredness with the government is reinforced if it looks like everyone else is just as fed up & ready to do something about it.
Australians don’t like losers, & the Libs/Nats desperately need to change the public perception that they presently are. Porteous’ effort has all the hallmarks of lazy journalism using a neatly prepared release from someone with an agenda neatly met.
I am surprised the ABC got sucked in to that beat up, even if it didn’t take long to expose it. Does everyone in the media take what one dude is claiming and then run with it? Sounds a bit like Saddam’s WMDs srtiking GB ‘within 45 minutes’.
It’s not clear if Porteous or Galaxy stuffed up the swing comparison (comparing the 01 figures with the latest poll) but it should have been pretty clear, even on these Galaxy figures, that it’s pretty rare for the ALP to get above 50 in Qld (1990 and 1961?) – so it’s going to lead to a lot of seats.
Don,
they are like a pack of dogs, once one starts howling, they are all soon off in unison.
Basic fact checking must have been dropped from journalism courses and replaced by how to write the most sensational headline.
The analysis that has accompanied Galaxy’s poll results has been, at best, stupid and at worst, blatantly partisan.
“What Porteous was writing about I do not know, but he, and the ABC journalists who blithely repeated his gibberish over the airwaves, badly need the poll addict’s equivalent of methadone.”
In Victoria, to make matters even worse, the report the ABC ran about that Galaxy poll suggested that it was an ‘all Australian result’. Rather than a local Queensland based work. Pretty sloppy journalism when the source document was up at the Courier Mail site separate from Porteous’ piece for all to see.
Just lately, it sounds to me that the ABC presenters are merely reading from the front pages of The Australian.
Elsewhere: Chris Sheil at Troppo thinks the whole polling game deservers a long hard look by some investigative reporters. He suggests 4 Corners. I’d have thought this was “core business” for Media Watch, instead of spelling mistakes or doctored photos from the Wangaratta Times.
More commentary and debate on the latest polls at The Poll Bludger.
The other question worth examining, and it’s covered in the link I posted to previous Crikey stories, is the ethics of news media (in particular, in this instance, News Ltd) writing their own polling questions, and how that affects the objectivity of the Galaxy Poll.
“The other question worth examining, and it’s covered in the link I posted to previous Crikey stories, is the ethics of news media (in particular, in this instance, News Ltd) writing their own polling questions, and how that affects the objectivity of the Galaxy Poll.”
Perhaps, also the ethics of News Ltd owning a large share of Newspoll, in combination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspoll
Funny how they do not rely on their own, close child, to do ALL their work, but ‘hire out’ to Galaxy, as well.
The ultimate non-story: let’s pretend something happened and write copiously about the consequences of it happening when of course it didn’t. Find some stories people.
I wonder how the Galaxy people feel about their numbers being used this way? If the next bunch of polls continue to show the trends we’ve seen so far it makes Galaxy look a bit iffy. Can’t imagine they’d be too pleased about that.
When I hear and read these stories about polls showing a ‘bounce’ to Howard, it gives me a very bad feeling. It’s a ‘here we go again’ feeling. It’s like watching a bad movie being re-run. Everyone’s reading from the prepared script and the risk is that voters will fall into line according to the familiar. All of the old archetypes (if 11 years is long enough for archetypes to form) are being deployed by the media and the government. Misinformation can influence people, even if it’s later shown conclusively to be misinformation. We’ve seen that so many times with this government.
Ive got a question though: why has the Ruddster gone so quiet lately? Is he sensibly shutting up to maximise the coalition’s “irritating the public 24/7 till November” vibe, or is he in a bit of a puddle and regrouping the Rein affair?
Your Crikey colleague Christian Kerr managed to squeeze out an interesting couple of sentences on May 21.
OK, the interesting bit is him quoting someone else, but it points to a strange fear of being proven wrong in hindsight, as if saying that the government is in trouble today will somehow effect one’s reputation if the government is returned in 6 months.
then
There’s yer faith-based commentary in a nutshell.
Lyn, I wouldn’t worry too much about what Galaxy thinks of the way their poll has been interpreted. It seems to me that their principal, David Briggs, was the cheerleader in the 3-4 seat gain for Labor fiction.
Galaxy has shot an own goal and damaged it’s reputation in the community this week by the look of things. Not a smart move on it’s part as businesses that use polling agencies depend on their integrity being reliable. Just a case of trying to help out an ailing friend I suspect. Morgan is out this afternoon so we will soon know whether the Galaxy poll has any basis or not.
As for the no compelling reason to boot [Howard] out argument, there is no compelling argument to re-elect him either.
Oh but now Peter Hartcher thinks Ratty will probably win the next election. He bases this on an interview with one voter who despite his affiliation with Labor emphatically maintains that the Coalition is best at running the Economy and since he has children and grandchildren paying off mortgages will be voting for Ratty. Hartcher then maintains that according to all polls and notwithstanding the fact that Labor is ahead, voters trust the Coalition over Labor on the Economy ‘by an overwhelming margin’. Hartcher seems to think that this coming election will be a rerun of 2004, where at the last minute all the waverers who flirted all the while with Labor plumped for Ratty again.
This is depressing news and I am interested in anyone’s comments! Are we rejoicing too early and are set for a crushing reality check of all our hopes and dreams? Personally the prospect of seeing Ratty’s smug dial on the eve of his fifth and stunning election win against all odds, his victory speech and all the Ratty lovers in the media eulogising like crazy is a nightmare too horrible to contemplate right now – but it could happen! Get ready!
Yep. Enough with the expectations of Instant 2008 Labor.
Yep. There is no Santa.
Hartcher is right, not because some crusty bogan whinged at Chris Bowen, but just because 17 seats is a lotta seats.
For me, it’s the thought of another election cycle of hearing people using the term ‘Ratty’ that makes me want to get really middle-ear infected, but, whatever wakes you up in the night screaming, I guess. Everyone has their own nightmares.
I’m with FDG. Hartcher’s conclusions are sound but the route he takes there is bollocks.
Saint Margaret, not withstanding Fiasco’s increasingly flirtatious and fleeting meetings with reality, the banner on the front page of the Herald : Why Labor Can’t Win, or something might have the opposite effect to that intended. As in when the pollster comes a knocking, some might think, well if RATTY is a certainty, nothing wrong with a protest vote.
That is if anyone believes the dross that passes for journalism in this country. But even if they don’t waste their time and read the article within, the banner on the front page is a more effective propaganda tool, especially when the article itself is so peurile.
Something else to add to the mix is RATTY’S use of Kirribilli House and The Lodge. Despite the AEC’s undoubtedly thorough and efficient investigation of the matter, RATTY’S demeanour on AM suggests there’s a lot more to this particular matter. By demeanour I mean interrupting the interviewer so that no question could be fininished, especially when it related to a certain matter of $8,000 per head.
Also, don’t forget the nuclear issue, raised on AM this morning by the ABC’s Investigative Unit, which I for one had forgotten they possessed.
Hope your middle ear’s OK, Fiasco.
This week’s Morgan Poll is here.
Meanwhile in the Wild West, A Westpoll (no online link – funny that), reckons Ratty is in with a shoo in in WA according to a poll of the 3 WA Marginal Seats.
Mind you they surveyed 417 people in each electorate totalling 1251 voters.
More info at Mumble. http://www.mumble.com.au/
Speaking of Dumb Voters, this is a corker from Temptation regarding Joe “Shrek” Hockey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MzkW2_CXBo
I’m not convinced by Hartcher. But the Centrebet barometer is a bit worrying, showing a definite softening of support (via punters’ wallets) for Labor. The zenith for ALP support seems to have been reached on Monday May 21, after $weetie’s budget.
However, my friend, the Reverend Bro Geoff, reckons that Lib supporters are deliberately poulticing online betting shops as a means of skew public perceptions. (Bit like buying your own shares, a la Rodney to maintain the price). It doesn’t take much to do that at centrebet, just a few grand would do it. The others will then follow as they klay off. Bro Geoff is a seriosuly committed horse punter, so his advice re bet markets practice is worth taking seriously.
Here’s a question for you, Ken.
If there were no published polls, what would betting markets be driven by?
I still think they’re a useless measure. They measure sentiment and perception.
As I have said all along, how anybody thinks Rudd ever had a chance in hell is beyond my comprehension. I have already laid several hundred dollars in bets.
Mark, that sort of begs the question. What do polls measure, inter alia, if not sentiment and perception? Indeed, opinion polls are framed so that they ask for exactly that. I daresay, people vote on the basis of sentiment and perception and politicians go though semantic gymnastics on TV to that end.
If there were no published polls, a market would still be framed on the basis of any indicators available to that punter. Betting markets take into account published polls, sure, but on quite a few occasions the betting markets have been at odds to the published polls.
I may add that betting markets are a form of opinion poll but where mere talk is cheap, especially when it is given anonymously on the phone, betting requires a greater analytical input from the punter because there is a tangible monetary penalty for being wrong.
There are different kinds of punters. Lazy ones who merely follow opinion polls and bet accordingly just like the people who follow footy and horse tipsters. Then there are “educated money” punters who may have, or think they have, inside information, such as private party polling, or impending interest rate rise, or a scandal not yet broken. And then there are those who analyse raw data.
Also worth remembering is the fact that one punter, or a handful of punters (a cabal) feeling strongly enough, can affect the odds by betting big enough. This could mean inside info, or it could mean mischief, as I speculated above.
Ken, of course polls are measuring sentiment and perception. But the key difference is that they’re a statistically valid sample of the electorate as a whole. Whereas, whoever the punters are, they’re probably almost certainly not the sorts of folks whose vote actually changes – all the research shows they’re very disconnected from politics.
Nor do I understand what “inside info” means – someone might know that the government plans to release some whizzbang policy – but if they know that they’re probably a government staffer or someone who is ideologically biased anyway. Often either scandals or policy announcements fail to make the impression “insiders” think they will. The only “inside info” that I’d be interested in seeing is party polling which usually tracks marginals and undecided voters. But it’s held very close to the chest – only a very restricted circle see it.
Another opion is they could be stark raving mad and think that because Howard won in the past, he will win in the future not realizing the two are independent events.
I think you are correct in assessing the inside info holders albeit their views or bias do not come into it, as I try to explain below. Anyway, it is what they do with that information in relation to betting that is interesting to me.
Regardless of their ideological stance, they will calculate what sort of impact such information may have on the electorate once it is released.
Because they have got hold of this info early, before the markets or for that matter opinions polls are aware, they can place a bet at an advantageous rate of odds.
If the information is of high quality and likely to be of some import – say a major scandal involving a minister which hadnt yet broken, or economic good or bad news, or access to private polling not available to the public – their bet will soon affect the odds if the bet is substantial enough. But it is cause and effect. The bet comes first, the market reacts and adjusts. The bettor can be one individual betting the house on it or a number of individuals making more moderate bets.
Hence this is different to polls because it is an educated assessment of information on how it will affect voting after the information becomes known widely.
Once the bet is on, the odds will alter to reflect this and keen market watchers will move in concert, suspecting something to be afoot. In betting parlance the first is called “educated money” going on, and the latter are people who “follow educated money” as a betting strategy.
If party-polling results are compelling enough, say, as you have suggested, tracking undecided voters in marginal seats – and now I am just speculating here – what would stop an individual or two betting on that basis? Their bets would be untraceable. I hope you are not suggesting that Liberal Party apparatchiks and their polling mavens would be above common greed?
How do we know when the “educated money” goes on? If I wanted to place a bet of a grand on the seventh at Esk, I could affect the odds enormously (given that usually less than ten grand is wagered on obscure country races) but who’s to say that I’m making an educated bet?
And I doubt a lot of these insiders are betting anyway.
When I say a restricted circle has access to party polling, Ken, I mean really restricted. Probably less than ten people. The people who conduct the polling aren’t apparatchiks but commercial pollsters whose ethics, and reputation, would preclude any misuse of the information.
Anyway, if the analogy is with economic markets, it’s usually considered that insider trading distorts price.
Well, if you pardon the pun, it is an educated guess. We don’t know for sure but if we see a plunge in price late in the day we make certain assumptions and try to get on the gravy train before the price is trashed.
And of course we are dealing here with trends and nuances, not absolutes.
Just one or two people, having a lash on the back of some dynamite news, or rather, its intelligent projection into voting intention is enough to alter the price substantially.
Yes, absolutely, it distorts the price just as in economic markets. But it all comes down to voting intention being translated into actual voting in the end so the speculation is always tempered by a moment of truth, whereas economic markets, like in Tokyo real estate or dot com hysteria of 2001, or derivates, do not have to have any relationship with reality.
Well, share markets tend to have at least some relationship with profits and returns.
But most market behaviour stuff is a bit too theological for me.
Polls aren’t supposed to predict the result of an election. To the degree that they have some predictive value, it’s probably highest just before an election, but all they really measure is the sentiments of those sampled at the time they’re taken. But those people are sampled scientifically. With betting markets, it appears to me that all you can say is that the movements in price reflect the opinions and calculations of those who bet! And we don’t, frankly, know who they are, and they’re self selected rather than sampled.
The whole argument generally seems to me to rest on all sorts of flawed liberal premises about self-maximising rational individuals.
I can take you down to the Treasury casino and demonstrate to you quite easily that most people who wager on things do so quite irrationally.
That’s true, many punters do punt irrationally. In horse racing people bet on a horse because of a dream or because the nag’s name is the same as their aunty’s who is having a birthday on race day. So I’d love to go to a casino with you Mark, but it wouldn’t be to watch some hapless desperates do their housekeeping dosh at baccarat. BTW, except for pokies, casino behaviour is probably more rational than betting on horses or elections because it relies on repetitive counting of chance percentages.
Election betting is highly unusual in that the “race” or “game” happens only once, so there is no opportunity to improve one’s position with subsequent bets and with just two “runners” not much opportunity to lay off on other runners, unless the odds are fluctuating wildly over time and you take advantage of riding the markets. But this hasn’t happened and is unlikely to happen in Rudd v Howard.
The fact that the bettors are self-selecting is not a flaw of methodology because betting markets are not polls. Betting markets, as you have correctly pointed out, take in raw data such as polling but other indicators and guesswork as well. We have traversed some of them in this thread. What comes up is the result of analysis by a collective wisdom, a hivemind of bettors, who make an unsentimental, gimlet-eyed decision (I am hoping) because it is their money that is at stake. And from that I have been trying to draw some conclusions. Indeed, what started this off is my interest in why the betting markets were fluctuating at any given point in time.
I don’t want to buy into your notion that betting markets behaviour is made up of self maximising rational decisionmaking because it would set my argument, and myself by extension, as some sort of vulgar Hayekian, which it isn’t and I am not. But again, we can’t discount a theory that has some similarities with ideas held by people we don’t like. That would be irrational.
John Quiggin is a sceptic:
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/05/26/polls-pundits-and-pollsters/
http://www.johnquiggin.com/archives/001232.html
That’s an excellent link thanks Kim, and I’ll drill down to Quiggin later today and follow up his links.
However, it is pointless to test online betting against betting on elections when there wasn’t an internet and published polls for obvious reasons – online betting on elections has changed fundamentally because of those factors:
a. People who would have never bet then (because you had to be part of a milieu such as knowing bookmakers, etc.), now do;
b. The internet allows people to bet easily and relatively anonymously, as per my point about insiders.
c. Opinion polling itself has become more sophisticated, and obviously betting on elections uses opinion polling as one of its main input sources of information analogous to punters using horse form.
The main issue is whether election betting markets are more accurate indicators than opinion polls, or whether one is simply an amplification of the other.
Wharton U (Pennsylvania) site article on polls v betting markets kind of supports my earlier-expressed view that an aggregate of inputs – which is what happens when a punter distils a number of sources – is much more reliable then a simple poll.
A Wharton prof of public policy, Justin Wolfers, examined the various methods of predicting the outcome of our 2001 federal election and found that betting odds from Centrebet “not only correctly forecast the election outcome, but also provided very precise estimates of outcomes” in a range of electorates and note this, “particularly in marginal seats,” Wolfers reckons.
Other interesting stuff I gleaned from the piece was that Iowa Electric Markets run an online futures exchange where people can trade on elections and other economic and political events. I must check it out.
Furthermore, betting odds on elections were very popular in the 19th century and were published in the same way the polls are published: as headlines in newspapers. Betting odds on election s pre-date polls, of course.
Here is the link .
Mumble:
http://www.mumble.com.au/
Humble pie word eating department:
It seems that betting markets are largely affected by published polls because the corresponding causation effect closest to the change in relative odds has been the Herald/AC Nielsen poll just published, which brings unfavourable news to the Coalition – furthermore, it heralds (he he) a trend, that voters have made up their mind, that they are not listening, and the Rattistas are riding the tumbrel.
Since Saturday, when the price was Lab 1.85, Coalition 1.90, the odds now are Lab 1.83, Coal 1.93.
A small change but the punters are a cautious lot.
Quiggin, Leigh and others quote current odds as if they truly equated to a claim that one side has a specific percentage chance of winning.
That assumes odds are newly framed, or at least purely rationally framed. Eg fixed price odds.
But floating dividend style odds – such as we see in election markets – on any given day must also be a way of the bookmaker seeking to hedge their losses. Eg they can be influenced, perhaps disproportionately, by large bets placed well out from an election.
In a worst case scenario, if Dr Leigh had his way and pundits focused on betting odds over polls, a wealthy party could tilt odds in its favour with carefully placed bets (like stacking an online poll).
Curiously, in the old days when electorates were smaller, there used to be laws outlawing waging on elections for the simple reason that it was a disguised form of bribery (a candidate wanting your vote would bet you he would lose)
A few points should be made here. Having observed closely the behaviour of board odds at Centrebet and reporting it here at IP I can say that the odds do not change as often as I would have thought. However, once ALP had gone short, it has not drifted to evens against the Coalition. So that must be worrying the Lib war room.
It is the movement or fluctuations that interest me most. I mean, what external events induce the movement? Well, it seems published polls do, to some extent but every time and the odds move without there being published polls.
Starting on March 30, Coalition was shorter at Centrebet at 1.85 to Lab’s 1.95.
There was tiny bit of fluctuation but then the roles reversed to ALP 1.87 and Coal. 1.95 (may 11).
The event when this happened? Costello’s Budget on May 9.
The trend then continued with, again, small movements – ALP 1.83, Coal. 1.95 to reach almost exact polar opposite on May 17.
On May 21 the biggest spread for Rudd thus far: ALP 1.75, Coalition 2.05.
From here on ALP went backwards and Coalition clawed back some ground.
On June 13, Labor slid to 1.85 and Coalition shortened to 1.90.
Over this last weekend, Labor again shortened to 1.83 and the Coalition blew out a bit to 1.93. This, I am guessing, was as a result of money going on on the back of the AC/Nielsen.
I am wondering what the point would be of a “wealthy party” trying to load the odds in its favour by putting money on itself? To stimulate the commentariat into saying something positive? A moot exercise I should think.
The best explanation or speculation I can offer, although it has been derided by MB and indirectly by Quiggin, is that some rogue elements in the Liberal Party who were privy to marginal electorate, private, post-Budget polls, went out and quietly put on a few bucks on the ALP when it was good value, putting the money in series of tranches in order not to spook the bookmakers, but eventually blowing the odds on or by May 21.
The polls are now returning to equilibrium with speculative and uninformed money going on more chaotically.
I have observed this phenomenon on the horse races, with many a plunge taking place, the most infamous example being the Fine Cotton plunge.
(In August 1984, the racehorse Bold Personality was substituted for a yak called Fine Cotton in a race at Eagle Farm. Fine Cotton went from from 33/1 to 7/2 in some 7 minutes.)
PS Presumably, the closer we come to the election, the bigger the pool. Conversely, a long way from the election, the betting markets were irrelevant because there wasn’t much money driving the odds (in a small pool, small bets affect the price) and anyway, the bettors were mad.