The Age/Nielsen poll looks bad for the government.
THE Coalition has opened an emphatic 54-46 per cent two-party lead in an Age/Nielsen poll that shows Labor’s primary vote and the Prime Minister’s popularity sliding.
This is the biggest lead the opposition has had over the Gillard government in Nielsen polls and – depending on preference allocation – probably its best result since early 2005. The Coalition’s two-party vote is up 3 percentage points since November, with Labor’s down 3 points.
The best the government can take is that more people favour the flood levy than oppose it (52 – 44). Even that is unconvincing. As Michael Gordon reports (emphasis added)
The only state where he [Abbott] is the preferred prime minister is Queensland, where it is hard to see more seats falling the Coalition’s way.
That’s the same Queensland where the flood levy is to be spent.
The Age are running a poll that is particularly damning.
The AFR is warning of a budget blow-out (subscription required). Managing money is becoming a problem for the government.
Gillard needs to turn things around quickly. A poorly received budget in May combined with an ALP wipe-out in the NSW election could see the end of the Gillard experiment.
And this is an economy traveling at 3.5% growth. I don’t get frightened often but this blow out potential in a growing economy is fucking frightening because if there is a slowdown in Asia as the stock markets there are indicating we’re in pixie land as the deficit could easily head to over 10% of GDP, end up with a rating downgrade and we’re off in the Irish sweepstake. Our bond market will get trounced.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 3:47 pm
Becoming? FFS does that mean there’s worse to come?
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 11 at 3:50 pm
Funny, I thought removing NSW Labor early in a Gillard government would be helpful to Labor federally…
steve from brisbane
14 Feb 11 at 3:51 pm
yea. There is.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 3:52 pm
Steve,
Sixteen years of repressed anger. It is like Nicholas III and Russia. You cannot tear the lid off a pressure cooker and expect it to be well behaved.
.
14 Feb 11 at 3:56 pm
Becoming???!! Is the writer blind? Has he/she been under a rock since 2007?? You mean up ’til now Labor have had no problems managing money??
What does it take to get people to wake up and smell the stench of ineptitude emanating from this ‘rainbow’ government??
Seriously!
Gabrielle
14 Feb 11 at 3:58 pm
Oh, I see now this has already been covered above. Sorry.
Gabrielle
14 Feb 11 at 3:59 pm
yes steve, your right.
Voters turf out the most incompetent dishonest government NSW, install a better one and think to themselves… oh yes we just got rid of a rotten party so we can take it easy with the Labor Green alliance government in Canberra … all the interests of fair play of course.
You freaking labor greens alliance boot licker.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 4:03 pm
I think what he meant to say, Gab, was that their (mis)managing of money is becoming an political problem.
Fleeced
14 Feb 11 at 4:05 pm
Essential Research polling better for the Government – 50% 2PP.
Sleetmute
14 Feb 11 at 4:07 pm
Essential research also predicted a complete ALP victory last time.
.
14 Feb 11 at 4:10 pm
We can discount the Essential research poll, which is online. Things may change but at this point the old-fashioned phone polls are still the most accurate.
IIRC Essential consistently predicted a comfortable win for the Gillard government at last year’s election.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 4:14 pm
Incumbents almost always lead as “preferred Prime Minister” (or “Premier” or whatever). People have got to stop paying so much attention that indicator; voting intention is what counts.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 4:16 pm
Poll Bludger says (@ comments 680 and 688 in the above link):
Sleetmute
14 Feb 11 at 4:22 pm
Pollbludger says…
Essential Research was in fact the best performing pollster at the election
…and then provides figures that prove the statement wrong.
Those figures are the last polls from the election period too, the earlier Essential polls showed a bigger ALP win. However so did Newspoll, which had a last minute adjustment towards the Coalition.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 4:30 pm
In other words, Newspoll got all the kudos, because their 2PP was more accurate.
Doesn’t matter for now anyway – a week is a long time in politics, and we have an eternity until the next election. Anything could change between now and then.
In fact, we’ll probably have a by-eleection before then – and if that happens in a marginal labor seat, then that one electorate could topple the Gillard government.
Fleeced
14 Feb 11 at 4:31 pm
In other words, Newspoll got all the kudos, because their 2PP was more accurate
Yes.
but even if Newspoll fluked their final poll, Essential seems to have a big pro-ALP bias, and is just not considered as reliable as the others.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 4:33 pm
In terms of how long this government will last the following is also worth a read:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_could_oakeshott_offer_abbott_in_return_for_keeping_his_shaky_seat/
TerjeP
14 Feb 11 at 4:38 pm
Ironically, much of the reason Gillard IS in dire straits was the stunning – well I at least was stunned – performance put in by Abbott during the last election campaign, which even though he lost – it was so wafer thin, that he is already a strong contender in the backs of people’s minds.
Peter Patton
14 Feb 11 at 5:28 pm
Abbott was also very good last night (Parliament coverage on ABC) in the way he attacked the flood levy.
If the coalition loses the next election I’m outta here people. Gillard and Co are hopeless.
John H.
14 Feb 11 at 5:33 pm
I can’t reveal my sources but I’ve heard a rumour that Chloe Shorten has been seen sneaking into The Lodge and measuring the curtains.
Sid Vicious
14 Feb 11 at 5:46 pm
Seriously, would any ALP people actually want the job atm? Their best long term strategy would be to let her lose to Abbott and then position yourself for a comeback, wouldn’t it?
Fleeced
14 Feb 11 at 5:51 pm
A lot of the problem is Swan. Australia has developed a political culture around the Cult of the Treasurer, which Swan can simply not meet.
Peter Patton
14 Feb 11 at 5:52 pm
Sid:
‘
The Bobbsey twins, Oakeshott and Windsor have both said they would walk if there were a change at the top. I reckon Shorten(ed) is not going to be PM this time around.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 5:53 pm
Yeah, they could potentially have a crack at the job around 2035. By then all the correct pond scum in the party will either have popped their clogs or be in loony bins.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 11 at 5:55 pm
correctcurrent.Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 11 at 5:57 pm
I reckon Shorten(ed) is not going to be PM this time around.
Fuck Shorten JC. He was the only who in the election before last made all these heartfelt comments about helping the disabled. Did nothing the slimey little shit.
[Edited. John passion is good, but that's a little too much. Sinc]
John H.
14 Feb 11 at 5:59 pm
It may be because Stedders has turned a coupla rooms at the Lodge into a beauty parlor and doing labor gals hair moonlighting without a commercial license.
We ought to send the local government inspector around and see exactly if that’s what’s happening .
Mark Riley should send the camera in and confront Gillard over rumors he’s heard that Stedders is moonlighting from the Lodge.
How would that go with the punters I wonder?
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 5:59 pm
Stephen Smith or MarnFergn are the only acceptable people in that party.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 11 at 6:00 pm
Sorry, He was the one who …
John H.
14 Feb 11 at 6:00 pm
John:
You can’t really say the last bit, dude. It’s wrong.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 6:00 pm
True, Sincs, please delete.
[done. Sinc]
John H.
14 Feb 11 at 6:01 pm
might HAVE been… damn – hate it when other people do that
Fleeced
14 Feb 11 at 6:08 pm
lol Fleeced… If the front bench “Jim Jonesed” itself, and this purely hypothetical, it would not shock me to see the ASX 200 and the aussie both up materially.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 6:10 pm
I think the punters are increasingly understanding that this government just can’t get shit done.
Look at the nonsense with COAG, they come out dancing that they have an in-principal agreement. It will be months before the agreement is even formalised, let alone anything actually happening – if it happens, they haven’t met any of the previously set deadlines on this.
Combining an inability to do anything with a budget blowout should be the final straw, one would hope.
murray
14 Feb 11 at 6:16 pm
Looking at centrebet odds for the election:
Coalition: 1.61
ALP: 2.26
So, the punters think Abbott is safer than Julia…. I assume somebody made a joke bet to get Wyatt Roy up there – lol.
Fleeced
14 Feb 11 at 6:19 pm
How long do you have to be PM before you are eligible for the super rort? I’d be busting a nut to unseat Gillard to get hold of some of that action.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 11 at 6:19 pm
As far as 2PP is concerned, this is demonstrably wrong. It did seem that Essential had a Labor bias for the first year or two after it commenced at the start of 2008, but not anymore. Since the election, Essential has published 21 polls with an average Labor 2PP of 49.52%; Newspoll has published seven with an average of 49.43%. Even that minuscule difference disappears when you remove the first two Essential polls, which were conducted before Newspoll resumed after the election.
The difference between Essential and the phone polls lately has been that Essential’s primary vote had has Labor higher and the Greens lower. It seems to me that Essential is more likely to be right. Take those pre-election polls, which Daddy Dave has somehow managed to persuade himself disprove my statement of the glaringly obvious:
ALP: Essential 0% off, Newspoll 1.8% off, Nielsen 1% off
L-NP: Essential 0.6% off, Newspoll 0.2% off, Nielsen 2.1% off
GRN: Essential 0.2% off, Newspoll 2.1% off, Nielsen 1.2% off
In both cases the phone pollsters had the Greens vote too high – I believe outside the margin of error range in Newspoll’s case. The only reason Newspoll did better than Essential on 2PP was that two of its errors happened to cancel each other out, i.e. they had Labor too low and the Greens too high – just like they probably do now.
William Bowe, Poll Bludger.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 6:21 pm
Because that is you’re natural bias or for some other reason William?
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 6:31 pm
I might also observe the irony of Daddy Dave dismissing Essential because it’s “online”. Essential is conducted from a demographically representative sample. It is true that those without access to the internet cannot be part of the pool of 100,000 participants from which this sample is isolated, but this is surely less of a problem in the current environment than that faced by phone pollsters, who can only access people with landline phones. Daddy Dave makes this complaint on a post in which Sinclair Davidson invokes the result of a self-selecting news website survey, which is worse precisely nothing. I suppose we must expect to put up with this kind of thing from newspapers, but I think we’re entitled to expect a little better from an economics professor.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 6:33 pm
William is obviously implying that Newspoll, the most well known polling system in the country, can’t ever be relied on for polling and anyone who uses it must be a denialist.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 6:36 pm
Not following your logic here. I put up the Age online poll because its interesting. What does that have to do with my day job?
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 11 at 6:41 pm
It did seem that Essential had a Labor bias for the first year or two after it commenced at the start of 2008, but not anymore
I stand corrected. I didn’t realise they had fixed the flaws in their methodology.
Take those pre-election polls, which Daddy Dave has somehow managed to persuade himself disprove my statement of the glaringly obvious
The 2PP is the most important measure that in most circumstances dictates the outcome. The implication seems to be that Newspoll is being unfairly feted because, unlike all other pollsters, it got the 2PP exactly right. But they did.
Now maybe they fluked it because two huge glaring errors cancelled each other out, but regardless, they hit the bullseye and Essential didn’t.
The difference between Essential and the phone polls lately has been that Essential’s primary vote had has Labor higher and the Greens lower.
That’s a really weird finding, given the demographics of online versus phone.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 6:44 pm
For the reason I then proceeded to articulate – that the phone pollsters overrated the Greens at the federal election. This was even more apparent at the Victorian election: the last Newspoll had Labor on 33% and the Greens on 15%, when they actually got 36.3% and 11.2%. And once again, these errors had no effect on the accuracy of their 2PP result.
If that’s not enough for you, perhaps I could hypothesise that people on the left are very keen to let you know about it, and Greens supporters are less reticent than those of the major parties in stating their preference. Which may well be more apparent when a person is being interviewed by a phone pollster than when they are filling out a form online.
Pollsters, particularly in Britain, know all about a “shy tory effect” – there may well be a corresponding “loud Greens effect”. It is also understood that late deciding voters are more inclined to end up voting for major parties, which means Greens get over-represented when you narrow it down to people who know ahead of time how they will vote. This might suggest that the Coalition should get short-changed on the primary vote in polling as well, but recent experience doesn’t bear this out.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 6:45 pm
which is worse precisely nothing.
Granted, it’s not worth much, but nor is it worth “precisely nothing.”
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 6:45 pm
Hey William
Essential says this on its website.
In other words it’s a leftwing outfit.
How on earth you can sit there behind a freaking keyboard and get paid to assess polls while giving a polling firm with that blurb the thumbs helps me understand why you’re basically sweat shop labor for Croakey.
Note that the chick in the photo is the same gal the unions used in their ads when they were advertising against workchoices.
http://www.essentialmedia.com.au/
Could their poll be more accurate than Newspoll?
Yea but the chances of that would be infinitesimal.
Is essential a push poll type of racket for the left?
I’d take a decent shot at that.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 6:46 pm
On what basis could you possibly find it interesting, other than that it might offer some insight into public opinion?
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 6:46 pm
Well that’s it then, JC says that newspoll is the best and that’s it. No evidence required, it’s an established fact. L
rog
14 Feb 11 at 6:48 pm
So the labor result against the poll was within the margin of error.
And the Greens result which I would expect would be quite volatile would also be within an adjusted margin of error as would allow for greater volatility.
Wow, some analyst you turned out to be.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 6:50 pm
JC, I might be sympathetic to that if Essential did in fact show a lean to Labor. But like I said: Essential 49.52%, Newspoll 49.43%. The one poll which does have a clear house bias is the one to Labor in Morgan’s face-to-face series, which is conducted by an acknowledged Liberal.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 6:50 pm
You do this all the time Sinclair, put up a piece from Bolt or Murdoch (with accompanying oohs and ahhs) then walk away from them.
rog
14 Feb 11 at 6:52 pm
Quodge
You never finished school above 9th grade so you shouldn’t be here.
Please go away and troll on another thread if you must.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 6:52 pm
Wrong. The margin of error on that poll was about 2.5 per cent, which reduces the further away you get from 50-50. Newspoll was out on the Labor vote by 3.3 per cent.
You can believe that if you like, I suppose.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 6:57 pm
JC admits that 10th grade is his Catallaxy. .
And proves it.
rog
14 Feb 11 at 6:57 pm
JC, you might be better off chasing moving cars, stationary vehicles have a way of biting back.
rog
14 Feb 11 at 7:00 pm
Sinclair Davidson invokes the result of a self-selecting news website survey
how are people recruited for the Essential online panel? Just curious.
The bottom line is that Essential shows the government doing okay, while Newspoll and Nielsen show Gillard is in deep trouble.
Given essential’s past (now fixed) problems with Labor bias, I’ll take the phone polls for now.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 7:02 pm
She can survive if she dumps Conroy, junks the NBN, dumps Rudd and dumps the flood levy. And dump Swan too.
Samuel J
14 Feb 11 at 7:04 pm
It’s an online poll from The Age, you nitwit.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 11 at 7:07 pm
I’m not walking away from anything – the Age readers have an opinion (that is not scientifically measured and states so clearly) yet William Bowe has chosen to smear my professional standing. We’re waiting for an explanation.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 11 at 7:11 pm
Plus his main criticism is that it’s self-selecting, even though Essential’s panel is (I believe and correct me if I’m wrong), self-selecting.
Look these ‘reader’ polls are a bit of fun; they can be wildly biased, but it’s simply not true that there’s zero information content.
Most social science research these days is done on self-selected samples.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 7:15 pm
Sinclair, I thought I had done at 6:46pm. I presume you know a thing or two about the value of representative sampling, so it surprises me that the results of an online survey would interest you. To take a recent and topical example, The Australian’s poll on the flood levy had 81 per cent opposed, and Fairfax’s had 74 per cent opposed. You might well argue that the 52 per cent support identified by a real poll isn’t good enough (though here’s one for Essential haters – their results on the flood levy were quite a lot worse for the government), but it still shows that those Australian and Fairfax polls were heavily stacked by conservatives. This might be interesting in and of itself, but it doesn’t get you very far in determining public opinion.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 7:16 pm
Sinclair, I do not believe I have smeared your professional standing. If you took it that way, I apologise.
[Okay. Let's all move on. Sinc]
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 7:17 pm
William.
Bullshit. Anything less than a 3 to 3.5 margin is pure nonsense.
And you would like people to believe the Greens vote/poll isn’t more volatile?
Are you injecting? Did you see the Victorian result to the polls for the greens. To imply the Green poll to actual isn’t volatile is basic crap as evidence has shown.
Lastly William, Essential appears to be a labor racket and anything they say can never be considered a neutral source. You should have disclosed that at Croakey and here yet you didn’t. Why?
(You were silent on the blurb and the picture of the Workchoice gal I posted which doesn’t shock).
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:19 pm
Dad says:
How do you know they’re fixed, Dad?
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:20 pm
Fairfax is stacked with conservatives? Fme . William, do you know Homer P? Are you two related.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:23 pm
Very well then. Essential is a Labor racket that can never be considered a neutral source. Nonetheless, its 2PP findings are almost identical to Newspoll’s, and whereas Newspoll had the public breaking 55-41 in favour of the flood levy, Essential’s poll went 39-53 against. Perhaps they just aren’t doing a very good job.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 7:24 pm
I do need believe Fairfax is stacked with conservatives. Its online poll was.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 7:25 pm
How do you know they’re fixed, Dad
That was a bit tongue-in-cheek, JC.
I see that William is right, Essential have become more accurate. But really, one poll’s a blip.
We’ll see a trend over coming weeks and we’ll know how the polls are panning out. My guess is that Gillard’s a goner but let’s wait and see.
There’s no perfect polling system in Australia right now. The online polls under-represent the older end of the age distribution but the phones under-represent the younger end. You can play all these games with weights and stuff….
Plus there are selection biases all over the place.
Essential uses a panel (self-selecting) but on the other hand, plenty of people refuse to talk to phone pollsters. So choose your poison.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 7:26 pm
Very reasonable, DD.
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 7:27 pm
Andrew Bolt’s readers have blown a few Fairfax polls on climate change in the wrong direction – 5 luvvies were hospitalised for shock.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 11 at 7:29 pm
You know this how? Through extrapolation of other polling?
Here’s where I’m coming from. Fairfax and Oz would be interesting polls if the indicate against the preconceived readership bias.
In other words a party support poll taken at the OZ that would show coalition below 60% would be of interest. The same would go for Fairfax in reverse order. But you’re now suggesting that the Fairfax poll was populated by the right without any evidence inferring that we should take your word for it or that we’re unquestioning idiots. That’s pretty offensive, William.
Lastly do you are that Essential is a labor orientated organization or do you choose not to say publicly?
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:33 pm
Here’s what I would be doing if I were a labor racket like Essential and I wanted to peddle for labor at any opportunity seeing that’s where I receive all of my income by the,looks of their website.
I would stack the far off polls in labor’s favor and then when the election got nearer i would lessen up on the stacking as those polls from a marketing perspective are the the ones that are most important that people will discus and remember.
Incidentally the far off polls biased for labor would be extremely important too from a marketing perspective with the client.
I would therefore dismiss Essential out of hand. Furthermore Dad’s reference to their bias strongly suggests my hunch is more accurate than your blind faith or bias.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:41 pm
Lastly do you are that Essential is a labor orientated organization or do you choose not to say publicly
JC, the individuals at Essential might be pro-Labor, but I’m sure they want their political polls to be accurate, no matter what.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 7:42 pm
honestly I can see JC’s point. It’s not a good look to have progressive-sounding mission statement if your core objective is to appear neutral.
daddy dave
14 Feb 11 at 7:43 pm
At the end you do, but perhaps not in the far times before an election. As I said if your only client base is leftwing it would probably suit to bias, while the close ones would need to be more accurate.
That would be the most rational way to run a racket.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:45 pm
oops that should be
Lastly do you admit are that Essential is a labor orientated organization or do you choose not to say publicly
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:46 pm
Regardless, if the best Gillard can do in ANY poll is breaking even…yes, she’s in trouble.
Quentin George
14 Feb 11 at 7:47 pm
Oh okay… lol.
Wow, but according to William Bowe, that sort of thing would simply not happen with Essential which seems to be tied at the hip with the leftwing. They’re neutral. And who needs Newspoll after all when we have Essential.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 7:54 pm
I know I should walk away but … yes, I broadly agree. However, I don’t think they let it influence their operations, any more than Gary Morgan’s Liberal Party membership influences his, or News Ltd’s conservative orientation influences Newspoll’s. And as for them rigging their polls when an election is a long way – once again, look at the numbers. 2PP since the election has been practically identical to Newspoll’s, and their flood levy figures were *much* worse for Labor than Newspoll’s and Nielsen’s. How do you explain that?
William Bowe
14 Feb 11 at 7:57 pm
I would have thought that Essential et.al would work very hard to ensure their samples were as unbiased as possible. It is true that Bolt’s readers distorted an Age poll, but the one I linked to above has been fairly consistent all day (I first saw it about 7am and it hasn’t swung much).
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 11 at 8:00 pm
Interesting, so you broadly agree but you want to walk away. Why? Lol. What a silly comment to make. If you want to discuss things –after all you’re the poll bludger- then stick around and stop being so precious. It’s not as though people aren’t raising okish issues. It’s certainly better than the echo chamber you receive at Croakey and you may learn a few things.
You could perhaps argue that point about Morgan’s polling if indeed Morgan received lall their income from right wing groups (do they), but you’re stretching credulity to suggest that about Newspoll.
There are many more degrees of separation between Newspoll/Newcorp/libs and Essential/leftwing organizations seeing Essential’s only source of income are leftwing groups. If they get pissed at Essential life as they know it is over. Finito.
There’s more likely to be bias when the poll turns solidly against labor that when its for or 50/50. At least that’s what I would do if I were racketeering for the left like Essential. You need a little finesse not act like a bull in a China Shop about it.
The levy story is neither here nor there, as no one really gives much of a shit and isn’t going win or lose an election in of itself.
JC.
14 Feb 11 at 8:18 pm
I think essential panels are against the flood lev because they are probably overweight with inner city (wealthy) lefties.
Essential research and its media origins are the ACTU and the ALP. They try to be objective, but I wold take any poll results with s much a grain of salt as a morgan or to a lesser extent a neilsen poll.
That said I reckon the newspoll is an anomaly. Probably mostly sympathy vote for Abbott which will wear away by the next poll.
entropy
14 Feb 11 at 8:50 pm
Sorry neilsen is probably an anomaly
entropy
14 Feb 11 at 8:56 pm
Is Gillard in serious trouble?
Yup:
Wireless threat to National Broadband Network plan.
And:
Telstra’s major upgrade of wireless network a challenge to NBN.
C.L.
15 Feb 11 at 1:24 am
After Smith, besides Rudd – the bottom of the barrel. These people are in bred shoe ins.
.
15 Feb 11 at 9:49 am
neilsen is probably an anomaly
Given the margin of error, they’re all anomalies in a way.
daddy dave
15 Feb 11 at 10:06 am
All I have seen in this entire discussion is JC attacking the man and not the argument.
Esstential’s supposed political leanings do no mean a single thing. Results do.
Esstential’s results are very similar to Newspoll, and have been shown above to be accurate (for a poll). Every time that’s mentioned JC goes back to his old canard of bagging out Esstential’s motives.
Intellectual laziness.
bobalot
16 Feb 11 at 6:07 pm