Mystery Poll: Why Are We Still Playing This Game?

(This is part of my 2024 Tasmanian election coverage.  For main page with links to all other pages go here.)

Today's Mercury carried a front-page report of a "phone poll" of Tasmania with a massive sample size of 4000 voters.  Unfortunately the newspaper report did not state who the poll was done by or for, making it impossible to immediately assess how useful it was.  I have been told (officially unconfirmed) that it is for the Tasmanian Hospitality Association and do not yet know the pollster, though the large sample size is most often seen with automated polls like uComms.  (I should also add that Community Engagement was reported in the field by some people early in the campaign, but the issues questions I was told about were different.)

Anyway, at the risk of sounding like a broken record or even more like a polling analyst with severe frustration management issues, it should be required by law for all media reports of polling to state the pollster and the commissioning source.  (Or if not known, all details should be published as this often makes the poll easy to identify).  Media frequently express frustration with governments that are not being transparent.  They must lead the way by reporting basic polling details better and refusing to allow sources to supply polls on the condition that the pollster should not be named.   This is especially so when they run Your Right To Know campaigns.   As for sources who try to prevent media from publishing the details of polls they supply, those should be classified as "juvenile career criminals". 

For what it's worth, this looks like neutral polling by someone who actually wants to know the answer, and not a loaded poll released for political purposes.  That doesn't mean it's necessarily good in quality terms, but it's worth checking out especially if we get clearer details.

What we have so far is:

- sample size 4000, conducted in first week of campaign

- Bass Lib 37 ALP 28 Green 13 JLN 15

- Braddon Lib 45 ALP 26 Green 5 JLN 15 

- Clark Lib 26 ALP 24 IND 25 Green 16

- Franklin Lib 33 ALP 24 Green 20 JLN 8 IND 8

- Lyons Lib 34 ALP 35 Green 12 JLN 8 IND 10

These results respectively sum to 93, 91, 91, 93 and 99.  In the case of Bass and Braddon I would assume that there is an IND option or an IND and an IND/other option that has not been included, but that does not explain what has happened with Clark and Franklin and why they are significantly short of 100 while Lyons (where there is likely to be more Shooters support) is not.  A common issue with some polls is whether undecided voters are included in the primary vote numbers or not.

A few things are notable here: the JLN vote is higher in this poll in Bass than Lyons, contrary to the federal pattern and the (albeit very small) EMRS subsample.  The Independent vote in Franklin is very low.  The Labor vote in Lyons is surprisingly high - there are some comments about suggesting Labor could do well in Lyons and win three seats there, but a lot of those I hear are based around White's leadership.  She was also leader in 2018 and 2021 so she's already in the baseline.  (I understand the 35 is not an error.)

Anyway taking what we have on face value:

* Bass would be 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN

* Braddon would be probably 4 Liberal 2 Labor 1 JLN or perhaps 3-2-1 and an independent (but the latter would need a large share of what is left, which is unlikely)

* Clark would be 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green 2 Independent.  On those numbers even if the second independent, say Hickey was on 6% because of a scattered independent vote, she would still win. 

* Franklin would be 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green with the final seat between the second Green, JLN and presumably David O'Byrne - there is a scenario here where whichever of JLN or the leading independent goes out first could help the other pass the Greens on preferences.

* Lyons would probably be 3 Liberal 3 Labor 1 Green as the Independent vote would not be all Tucker and he would probably be too far behind (and ditto JLN).

So my estimate on what we have of this poll 15 Liberal, 11 Labor, 4 Green, 2 JLN, 2 IND and a mess for the last in Franklin.  A broadly similar picture to EMRS.  

It should be noted that polling from the first week of the campaign predates many of the notable Independent announcements, which are likely to have affected voting intention in some areas.  

More comments if I get more details on this poll.