Dr Kevin Bonham
ELECTORAL, POLLING AND POLITICAL ANALYSIS, COMMENT AND NEWS FROM THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CLARK.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Why I've Quit Doing Paid Election Coverage For The Mercury
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Crying Wolf: More Embarrassingly Bad Tabloid Poll Reporting
"Anthony Albanese could be on track to being a one-term Prime Minister, with a new poll showing Labor's primary vote crashing in three major states. The federal government is in serious trouble in the eastern states - where most of the seats are - with Labor down to 24 per cent in Queensland, 28 in Victoria and 32 in NSW."
"Labor’s primary vote has crashed to just 24 per cent in Queensland, 28 per cent in Victoria and 32 per cent in New South Wales, the wolf + smith shows. But Labor is dominant in South Australia, where its primary vote is 41 per cent, and 60 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis. The poll – which measured both state and federal voting intention – suggests the government is in dire trouble in the eastern states, with just 43 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote in Queensland and 48 per cent in Victoria."
This is how the Daily Mail and the Murdoch tabloids (Courier Mail/Daily Telegraph etc) respectively wrote up a massive new poll by an initially mysterious outlet wolf + smith. But this was in fact another example of laughably incompetent poll reporting from these outlets, one that again happened to be in service of the narrative their right-wing readers would want to see. What the poll in fact found is very different. The state-level figures these outlets were commenting were state voting intention not federal. This was made so abundantly clear in the poll report that, among other subtle hints, the whole of page 10 of the poll report is devoted to making it clear that the rest of the report is state not federal.
Page ten looks like this:
This whole page is apparently, somehow, not large enough or clear enough to make it clear to journalists from the Dailys Mail and Telegraph that what follows (in sections helpfully also introduced as "nsw politics", "victorian politics" etc) is state voting intention. Abysmal! There are even more helpful pointers like " IF A NSW ELECTION WAS BEING HELD TODAY AND YOU WERE TO VOTE, WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING PARTIES WOULD RECEIVE YOUR FIRST PREFERENCE VOTE?" to indicate that this is state voting intention. The Murdoch tabloid article even manages to realise that the poll canvasses both state and federal intention and still somehow represents the state figures as federal. Unbelievable!
What the poll actually finds concerning federal voting is rather different. The poll finds primary votes of Labor 29% Coalition 36% Greens 13% One Nation 6% Independent 11% Others 4%. The two-party preferred is 51-49 to ALP by "past preference flows". As far as the poll report goes is "with Labor’s majority in danger." Majority in danger, it says (and fair enough), not government.
There aren't any specific state primary or 2PP breakdowns provided, but what the report does provide is state by state primary vote gaps between the major parties. I provide these with the 2022 results in brackets below.
Tas ALP +2 (-5.68)
WA ALP - 3 (+2.06)
Vic ALP -7 (-0.23)
NSW ALP -9 (-3.16)
Qld ALP -10 (-12.22)
Porcupine Fish Award For Ultra-Fishy Poll Reporting (credit) |
Monday, September 2, 2024
Poll Roundup: 50.5 Is The New 51
Aggregate has changed little since loss of about half a point in mid-July
Election "held now" would probably produce minority Labor government
I haven't done a federal poll roundup for a while and today is a randomly opportune time to do one following the second straight 50-50 Newspoll and mention some general themes in recent 2PP polling. In the last week we have had:
* Newspoll at 50-50 (ALP 32 L-NP 38 Green 12 ON 7 others 11)
* Redbridge at 50.5-49.5 to ALP (ALP 32 L-NP 38 and the rest not published yet, but I'm expecting Greens either 10 or 11)
* YouGov at 50-50 (ALP 32 L-NP 37 Green 13 ON 8 others 10) (Note: normally the 2PP for these primaries would be 51-49 to Labor, though it is possible to get 50 from these primaries sometimes because of rounding and perhaps also the makeup of others.).
* Essential at 48-46 to ALP, equivalent to 51.1-48.9 (raw primaries ALP 29 Coalition 33 Greens 13 ON 7 UAP 1 others 11 undecided 6 - meaning the major party primaries are effectively more like 31-35)
* Morgan at 50.5-49.5 to Coalition by respondent preferences (50-50 last election) (ALP 29.5 L-NP 39.5 Green 13 ON 4 IND 9 others 5 - Morgan has a standalone IND option on the ballot everywhere, which is likely to be overstated)
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Supporting First Past The Post For Australia Is Pointless
Lately I've been seeing a lot of social media griping about the current government and/or the Greens and teals, mostly from alternative right-wing accounts, in which the writer attacks the Government and says it was only elected because of preferential voting, and we should get rid of preferences by switching to first past the post. I don't think there is much significant advocacy for first-past-the-post in Australia though Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has unfortunately supported it (what, optional preferences is not enough for him?), as has Resolve pollster Jim Reed in 2022, and a steady flow of petitions to the Commonwealth Parliament generally with tiny signature numbers.
The following alone is sufficient reason to dismiss all such calls: First past the post is a discriminatory system that violates the Australian value of a fair go. Under first past the post, a voter whose most preferred party or candidate is unpopular must make a strategic decision between voting for someone who is not in fact their first preference and effectively throwing away their vote. However a voter who is pretty sure their most preferred candidate will finish first or second does not have to face that strategic dilemma. On this basis, having first past the post, in a country able to afford and count a fairer system, is not treating all electors fairly. I do not think there is actually any valid excuse for keeping single-member first past the post anywhere (though the transition out of it needs to be carefully managed in those places that do have it) but this article is confined to the argument re Australia.
Australia has a proud tradition of fair voting that started over 100 years ago when preferences were introduced to stop conservative parties from losing conservative electorates when voters were split between two different conservative candidates. The famous case is the 1918 Swan by-election, but in fact the Hughes Government was working to introduced preferential voting months before it occurred but the legislation had not yet passed the parliament. When I see supposed patriots with Australian flags in their social media profiles propose that we junk this fine tradition and replace it with unfair and primitive crud voting systems used overseas, I can only shake my head at their claims that they really love this country. I am not going to let these people get away with it; to paraphrase a slightly different Doctor, this voting system is defended.
Similar to my polling disinformation register, I've written this article mainly as a labor-saving device so that I don't have to keep making the same long replies on the same points but can simply say "see point 3 here" with a link. I hope others find it interesting and useful, and more points may be added.
I should note that this article also applies to many criticisms of compulsory preferences made by supporters of optional preferencing - especially part 7.
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
EMRS: Surprise Boost For Rockliff In Pre-Lamblowup Poll
IND likely overstated, others likely understated
No significant difference from previous poll or election
Significant lead increase for Rockliff as Preferred Premier
Monday, August 26, 2024
Not-A-Poll Reset 1 of 2024: Lawler Defeated
Looking at votes cast solely after the March 23 Tasmanian state election, Miles led with 91 votes to 70 for Lawler and just 40 for Rockliff and 15 for Dutton. However late in this Not-A-Poll run awareness grew that Labor was at high risk of losing in the NT first, and from mid-June onwards Lawler received a plurality of votes, getting 44% of votes cast in August. Not-A-Poll might have done better had the middle of this year not been a pretty quiet time for the site in terms of events that attract high interest levels.
Sunday, August 25, 2024
2024 NT Election Postcount
Lambie Network Blows Up After Only Five Months
In the beginning there was the Deal, and the Deal was stupid.
Nobody seems to know for sure who actually "negotiated" the JLN side of the confidence and supply arrangement with the Rockliff Government but, for whatever reason, the three elected JLN MPs signed it. The Deal so needlessly limited the JLN MPs in terms of their ability to vote against the Government that when they broke the Deal by voting for a doomed Greens motion to compel the Government regarding its coastal policy, the Government either didn't notice or ignored the breach and it took the Labor Opposition to point it out. (Edit: The Government then claimed the Deal hadn't been broken when it had, which soon resulted in the JLN MPs breaking it again on a motion re Forest Reserves.)
Tensions were apparent within the JLN from early on with Rebekah Pentland and Miriam Beswick having one approach and Andrew Jenner another. Staffing was one issue where this came to a head. There were further problems in early July when it emerged that the three state MPs had sent Jacqui Lambie a letter in June insisting she keep out of Jacqui Lambie Network state business, and alleging that she was directing state MPs on how to vote.
The catalyst for yesterday's events was the recent news that upgrades to the Devonport ferry terminal, needed for the overdue replacement for the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, had been bungled. Lambie issued a release on August 15 demanding that Treasurer and Minister for Infrastructure Michael Ferguson resign. On 19 August JLN MP Andrew Jenner made comments that Ferguson's position was "untenable".
On 20 August Lambie seems to have issued a press release - the verbatim text of which I have not seen because the Jacqui Lambie Network is beyond hopeless at publishing its output - saying that if Premier Rockliff did not sack Ferguson she would rip up the government's confidence and supply arrangement with the JLN. This was bizarre to say the least since Lambie herself was not a signatory to the deal which, whoever drafted it, is between the government and the individual JLN MPs.
Saturday, August 24, 2024
2024 Northern Territory Election Live
Postcount tracking is continuing here.
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START POSITION ALP 14 CLP 7 IND 4 (1 IND retiring)
POLLS HAVE CLOSED. Massive swings to CLP, CLP has won a majority
EXPECTED WINS (some may not be absolutely certain) CLP 14 ALP 4 IND 2
Expected seats changing
Expected CLP gain vs IND (vacancy): Goyder, Blain
Expected CLP gain vs ALP : Karama, Fong Lim, Drysdale, Wanguri, Port Darwin, Sanderson
Seats in doubt:
Barkly: CLP likely to hold vs ALP
Casuarina: CLP likely to gain from ALP
Johnston: IND appears very likely to gain from ALP
.Nightcliff: Likely ALP hold
Fannie Bay: ALP vs Greens (outside chance CLP), Greens ahead.
If all current leaders/favourites hold, CLP 16 ALP 5 IND 3 Green 1
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