EMRS: Voting Intention Pretty Stable In Tasmania

EMRS Tasmania (state) August: Liberal 49 Labor 26 (-2) Green 13 Others 12 (+2)
Results very similar to 2021 election (seat result 13 Liberal 9 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)

A new EMRS poll of Tasmanian state voting intention is out and it shows very little change since the previous poll or for that matter the 2021 snap State Election result.  The only change in voting intention since the last poll is a shift of two points from Labor to Others.  In all the Liberals are up 0.3% compared to the state election, Labor down 2.2%, the Greens up 0.6% (though EMRS has form for overstating the Green vote) and Others up 1.3%.

The only close seat at party level this year was the final seat in Clark, in which Madeleine Ogilvie (Liberal, formerly ALP and then Independent) defeated Sue Hickey (Independent, formerly Liberal) by 2.2%.  A 1.1% swing from Liberals to Others would in theory elect a second Independent.  However in this poll the swing on primary votes is 0.5%, and the swing after preferences would be slightly smaller because of the swing against Labor.  The circumstances of the 2021 election with two fairly evenly matched high-profile independents running will probably not be repeated.  The two-point move to others might be seen as reflecting success for Johnston in making an impact since her election, but it could be random sample noise or anything, and EMRS has seen larger surges for Others in the past without anything coming from them,

At the time of the previous poll there had been a lot of chaos affecting Labor between the poll being taken and its release.  Had the departures of David O'Byrne and Bastian Seidel from the party hurt it?  This poll suggests either not by that much or if so it was temporary.  Nonetheless Labor's primary vote of 26% remains inadequate.  The party has only recorded four lower primary votes during what is now nearly eight years in opposition - two polls back in 2014-5 and two at the height of the government's pandemic bounce last year. 

It is a very long way til the next election and perhaps if the federal party manages to sort the state party out it will start to poll better.  In the meantime, members are free to keep freelancing and branches continue to rumble about it - as seen with preselection threats against Josh Willie over the recent poker machines bill.  Since there's nobody really in charge of the mess, whether these threats represent a handful of members or a more serious number, who can say. 

The poll's leadership ratings continue to show Peter Gutwein with a large lead over Rebecca White, up one point to 31 points (59-28) though such indicators skew to incumbents.  Something has changed since the days when White used to compete remarkably strongly with Will Hodgman and an early Gutwein on this measure, even when her party's primary vote was not that strong. However we don't have ratings for the leaders individually, so it's not clear if this is about White being less personally popular personally than she used to be (which was at one point very popular), or about Gutwein being personally very popular. I suspect that it's a lot of both.  Think that's all I have to say about this poll.

Detailed Comments On The Voter ID Debate

With the Bill scheduled to go before the House of Representatives tomorrow, I thought I should post some detailed comments about the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Voter Integrity) Bill 2021, aka "Voter ID".  The bill has been introduced to the House of Representatives but I have no knowledge of when it might be scheduled for a second reading vote.  On the one hand the government has struggled to make out the case that Voter ID as they propose it is necessary or would even work all that well in preventing deliberate voter fraud - the public evidence being that voter fraud is a relative non-problem.  On the other, opponents have been so inaccurate and overblown in their replies that the primary way their fearmongering will become true is if it so confuses their own supporters as to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and costs them votes.  That's a fate that would be self-inflicted for the way this issue has been debated.  Overall I would prefer not to be seeing this debate and instead to be seeing real bipartisan progress on long-standing problems with our electoral system such as the lack of savings provisions for unintended informal voting in the Reps and also the incorrect surplus method used in Senate counting.  

Labor Dominates In Recent Victorian State Polling

Recently two polls have shown that the Victorian Labor government of Daniel Andrews is currently crushing the Liberal opposition led by the recently returned Matthew Guy.  A Morgan SMS poll showing a 58-42 lead to Labor raised some eyebrows (mostly because SMS polling has in the past been volatile and trashy) but the first branded-as-such Newspoll for the term has reported the same 2PP.  In fact, the Morgan poll's primaries (ALP 43 L-NP 31 Greens 11 others 15) were even friendlier to Labor than Newspoll's (44-36-11-9) and but for the use of respondent preferencing the Morgan poll may well have come out 60-40.  This follows a Resolve poll in late October that had ALP 38 L-NP 34 Greens 10 IND 11 Others 7.  Resolve overestimates Independents, perhaps especially at Labor's expense.  I estimated the 2PP for that poll at 55.5 to Labor.  

Poll Roundup: Albanese Is Still Rating Below Morrison - Is That A Problem?

Since my last federal polling roundup, there has been quite a lot of new polling but the Morrison government's position doesn't seem to have improved.  We have seen:

* Newspoll (early October) 53-47 to Labor (Coalition 37 Labor 37 Green 11 One Nation 2 others 13)

* Newspoll (late October) 54-46 to Labor (Coalition 35 ALP 38 Green 11 One Nation 3 others 13)

* Essential (late October) 49-44 to Labor using Essential's 2PP+ method (Coalition 37 Labor 36 Greens 10 One Nation 3 others 8 undecided 6).  I get 52.2 to Labor by standard last-election preferences with undecided removed.

* Essential (early October) 46-45 to Labor using Essential's 2PP+ method (Coalition 36 Labor 34 Greens 9 One Nation 4 others 8 undecided 9.  I get 51.2 to Labor by standard last-election preferences with undecided removed.

* Morgan (mid-late Sept) 54-46 to Labor (respondent preferences) (Coalition 36 Labor 36 Greens 12.5 PHON 3.5 others 12).  This would be c. 53.1 to Labor by last-election preferences

* Morgan (early Oct) 53-47 to Labor (respondent preferences) (Coalition 37.5 Labor 36 Greens 11.5 PHON 3 others 12).  This would be c. 52.1 to Labor by last-election preferences

* Morgan (mid-late Oct) 54-46 to Labor (respondent preferences) (Coalition 36.5 Labor 35 Green 13.5 PHON 3.5 others 11.5.) This would be c. 52.7 to Labor by last-election preferences 

* Resolve (late October) Coalition 37 ALP 34 Green 11 PHON 3 IND 9 Others 5.  Resolve doesn't estimate a 2PP, and overestimates independents as discussed last time.  I estimate 52.1 to Labor by last-election preferences.

Tasmanian COVID case tallies (transferred from sidebar)

====SUSPENDED 23 Dec 2021 - with the very rapid rise in Tas cases and insufficient official detail about case sources in recent days this page is no longer being updated.  See https://www.covid19data.com.au/transmission-sources-states for what appears to be the best data available on case sources ====

Since soon after the COVID-19 pandemic commenced I have been keeping a tally in the sidebar of the sources of reported Tasmanian COVID-19 cases.  While quite a few people in psephology and other scientific fields have been magnetically attracted to COVID data I have had relatively little to do with it and told a couple of journalists who wanted to interview me about it last year to go and speak to epidemiologists instead.  At this stage I am not graphing anything either; there are plenty of graphs at Juliette O'Brien's excellent covid19data site, and David Barry has raw case totals over time.  My sources are primarily the Tasmanian government page, press conferences and media reports, but there were some cases I was never able to get to quite add to the magic total during the 2020 outbreak.

My interest has been in trying to keep a tab on the sources of publicly reported cases - overseas, interstate, cruise ships, outbreaks in the health system (introduced to it by cruise ship passenger patients) etc.  I've been running this via a feature in the sidebar but recent changes to the Blogger software have made it so tedious to update that I've decided to transfer it to a post.  I am not sure how long I will keep doing this once Tasmania's mix of skill and good fortune in escaping community spread in recent months inevitably runs out and COVID spreads here, but for the time being hopefully this tracking is still of some interest to someone out there somewhere.  A link to this page will remain in the sidebar below the Not-A-Polls.  All numbers here are unofficial and are published for reader interest only.  

Condolences to all who have lost partners, family, friends and colleagues to COVID-19 and sympathies to all affected by it, directly or indirectly or both; physically, mentally, financially or any combination thereof.

FOLLOWING REOPENING (16/12/21)

10 ex interstate

42 close contact

Outcomes:

52 active

Total 52

BETWEEN FIRST WAVE AND REOPENING

1 South in quarantine ex overseas (1/12/21-10/12/21)

2 overlapping South in quarantine ex interstate (15/11/21-28/11/21)

2 overlapping South in quarantine ex interstate (one transferred from North) (2/10/21-29/10/21)

1 North in quarantine ex interstate (2-4/8/21, left state)

4 South in quarantine ex overseas (9/12/20 - 19/12/20)

1 NW in hospital ex interstate (11/08/20-1/9/20)

1 South in quarantine ex interstate (20/7-31/7/20)

Outcomes:

12 recovered/left 

Total 12

FIRST WAVE - ENDED 12/6/20

135 North-west hospitals cluster (inc approx 82 health staff 23 patients 23 contacts 1 aged care resident 1 other worker 2 ambiguous 3 other)
42 cruise ships
33 other overseas
2 interstate
6 close contacts of imported cases (3 overseas 2 cruise ships 1 interstate)
2 Devonport apparently local late March (inc 1 Mersey Hospital staff)
1 South 6/4, no details
1 South 16/4 (transport industry links)
1 Launceston Hospital 5/5
3 unresolved (by me) data discrepancies
Outcomes:
Recovered 211
Deaths attributed to COVID-19 13
Deaths after being cleared (other conditions) 2
Total first wave 226

Total Tas cases 290
Updated 23 Dec 21

Not-A-Poll Reset Time: Berejiklian Quits

With Gladys Berejiklian resigning as NSW Premier to be replaced by Dominic Perrottet, the sidebar Next Leader To Go Not-A-Poll has been reset.  These were the previous results:

The Not-A-Poll was started in November 2020, at which time Berejiklian had just appeared before ICAC and testified about her former relationship with Daryl Maguire.  As a result Berejiklian was the early leader but as time went on readers may have believed she would survive the crisis at least long enough for one of the federal leaders to lose the election and depart.  She was overtaken by Albanese on 15 April 2021 and he was overtaken by Morrison on 10 Aug 2021. 

Tasmania Doesn't Swing With The Nation Like It Used To

Advance Summary

1. Tasmania is routinely omitted from national state-by-state federal polling breakdowns because of small sample size.

2. In theory Tasmanian seats could be projected by just assuming Tasmania would get the national swing, but in practice this isn't very accurate.

3. In elections in recent decades, Tasmanian two-party preferred federal swings have been less similar to the national swing than was the case before the 1970s.

4. One cause of this is that while national swings at federal elections have tended to be much lower in recent decades, 2PP swings in Tasmania are not much lower.

5. Another cause is the tendency of groups of Tasmanian seats to swing together.

6. As a result of this, the national swing that has actually occurred has only correctly predicted the Tasmanian seat result once at the past ten elections.

7. While the swing in current national polling (if accurate) implies the Coalition would not win any Tasmanian seats in an election "held now", a more accurate read based on the history of projected shutouts is that the Coalition would probably retain one Tasmanian seat at the moment.

Poll Roundup: Why Is Resolve Diverging?

I last wrote a federal poll roundup in early August.  At that time I noted that the implied 2PP polling numbers of Newspoll, Morgan, Essential and Resolve this year had been more or less identical.  No new Essential voting intention polling has been seen since mid-July though another dump may appear within days.  

This is what we've seen since the last roundup:

* Newspoll (late August) 54-46 to Labor (Coalition 36 Labor 40 Green 10 PHON 3 others 11)

* Newspoll (mid-Sept) 53-47 to Labor (Coalition 37 Labor 38 Green 10 PHON 3 others 12)

* Morgan (mid-August) 54-46 to Labor (Coalition 37.5 Labor 37.5 Green 12.5 PHON 3.5 others 9)

* Morgan (late August) 54.5-45.5 to Labor (Coalition 37.5 Labor 38.5 Green 11.5 PHON 3 others 9.5)

* Morgan (mid-Sept) 52.5-47.5 to Labor (Coalition 38.5 Labor 35 Green 13 PHON 3 others 10.5)

* Resolve (mid-August) Coalition 40 Labor 32 Green 12 PHON 2 IND 10 others 3.  Last election 2PP would be very roughly 50-50 (my formula gives 50.3 to Labor) 

* Resolve (mid-Sept) Coalition 39 Labor 31 Green 10 PHON 4 IND 9 others 7.  Last election 2PP would be very roughly 51-49 to Coalition (my formula gives 51.1)

Now, it's true that Morgan's use of respondent preferences is inflating its leads for Labor (in the last three polls by an average of 0.9 points compared to last election preferences).  And it could be that the independent voters being (over-)reported by Resolve are actually much more left-leaning than the ones who split about 60-40 to Labor on preferences at the last election.  But still, one of these polls is very clearly not like the others.  Resolve has shown two consecutive Coalition primary leads of 8% while polls by other pollsters have had an average lead of minus 0.5.  Two Resolve polls in a row have come out as massive, beyond margin-of-error outliers. 

EMRS: Old Poll Could Have Been Worse For Labor

EMRS Tasmania (state) August: Liberal 49 Labor 28 Green 13 Others 10

Results more or less identical to 2021 election (seat result 13 Liberal 9 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)

A new EMRS poll has been released today, and it shows ... er no, strike that and start again.

For whatever reason Tasmanian pollster EMRS has just released a state voting intentions poll that came out of field 23 days ago.  EMRS has often not released polls close to the time they were taken in recent years, in some cases hanging on to results for 3-6 months before back-releasing them with other results.  I'm not a pollster but it seems to me that one of the advantages of polling for publicity for a company is releasing it at a time when it is topical and fresh rather than only unveiling it when it looks like something from the antique store.  In the meantime there have been significant developments with David O'Byrne leaving the Parliamentary Labor Party after leader Rebecca White said he should quit parliament, and Huon MLC Bastian Seidel announcing he would quit Caucus and would also resign his seat at the end of the year, citing disgust and demoralisation over Labor's ongoing infighting.