Tassie polls: Business as usual

Peter Tucker

Despite what many commentators like to portray as a government in trouble, Tassie Labor is sailing on just fine, if the latest polls are anything to go by. Until something better comes along it seems Tasmanian voters are not going anywhere soon.
THE Morgan Poll is out: www.roymorgan.com.au

It reflects fairly closely the recent EMRS poll:  not much change in voter sentiment since the election.

A legitimate statistical procedure is to combine the results of two polls if the two polls are close enough in what they ask.  The EMRS poll and the Morgan poll can be treated this way (with a number of qualifications).

Below I have combined the results, expressed as three party preferred, after excluding undecideds, and compared that outcome with the election on the same basis.  This gives a sample size 2090 which cuts the margin of error down to a respectable 2 percent, with 95% confidence:

                         
Not enough movement to draw any remarkable conclusions.  The Green support is up nearly two percentage points, encouragingly for them, but not enough for the rest of us to get excited about.

Is this conclusive? Nothing in statistics and polling is conclusive. There are too many differences in the way the two polls are conducted to make that claim. For example Morgan collected its data over a period of months, face-to-face, while EMRS used the telephone during just one week in August. Still, the exercise is interesting and worth some analysis.

The main message is that we can be more sure than we were with just the EMRS poll that there has been no, or little change, in the electorate since the March election.  Not very exciting, I know, but it will give the government confidence that recent “bad news” is not playing out in the electorate as a loss of support.  That has implication on how the government might behave from now on.

The result in Tasmania comes on top of other recent Morgan polls that show State Labor a mile ahead in both South and Western Australia, “Team Beattie” seemingly assured of another big win in Queensland on Saturday, and similar predictions for Labor incumbents in Victoria and New South Wales at their pending elections.

And those of us who follow the news nationally know that Labor’s trials and tribulations here in Tasmania — health service dramas, ministers in trouble, dodgy government deals — are being played just as vigorously in every other state.

Yet incumbent state Labor governments prevail. Despite the sensational headlines and indignation from the more “socially progressive.”

People out in voter land appear happy enough with the status quo. I know that drives a significant portion of the regular TT posters mad — bring forth the conspiracy theories of compliant media and government spin — but I don’t think the people are being duped. Voters aren’t mugs. They will keep voting for whoever is in charge until something better comes along. So far that hasn’t happened.

Peter Tucker has worked in Tasmania as an advisor for the Liberals in opposition and in ministerial offices for both Labor and Liberal governments. He is currently a free-lance political commentator and writer, and PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania’s School of Government. peter.tucker@tdctasmania.com