EMRS Aug 2011: Liberal 44 Labor 16 Green 14 Ind 4 Undecided 22
Interpretation withheld – poll provisionally rejected
This article was to begin as follows:
If a state election was held right now, the Liberal Party would win outright with as large majority as is likely to be seen under the Hare-Clark system. The previous two were terrible enough but the latest EMRS poll shows a six point swing to the Liberals compared to the May polll results, and the question is not whether the Liberals are in majority territory now, but how much they would win by if an election was to be held. Labor could halve the Liberals’ current lead and still lose an election outright.
But I am not sure whether we can really conclude that too strongly, because I have very limited faith in the reliability of EMRS as a pollster – even taking into account the foibles we already knew about many times over such as the large undecided rates and overestimation of the Green vote. A post by switched-on young Labor scrutineer (and 2010 Wightman campaign staffer) Adam Clarke to pollbludger reports questions he was asked in the poll and states that voting intention was not the first significant question asked. Instead by the time the respondent got around to answering questions about voting intention they had already expressed views about their expectations of standard of living, their expectations of their own employment status and their expectations of the state economy, as well as listing social and economic issues of importance.
This in my view, if Clarke’s account is accurate (and despite his party background I don’t doubt him) is reason to consider this poll’s findings to be suspect and to reject this poll and all future EMRS polls until it is publicly clear that voting intention will always be the first significant question asked. If respondents are asked to think about general state economic issues at a time of economic gloom before being asked their voting preference, they are more likely to focus on the (many) negative perceptions of the current Government and prefer the Liberal Opposition. Likewise if the first three questions canvassed the respondent’s opinions on rainforests, whales and the virtues of organic chai before asking about voting intention you can bet the Green vote would be through the roof. In contrast I was polled by Newspoll in the last month and voting intention was the first question asked, as it is for Essential Report and other credible polling sources.
I have been railing for years against activist-group-commissioned polls that somehow seem to always slip in a potentially distorting preamble or a preliminary question that might somehow “train” the respondent’s mind (as parodied in this classic Yes Minister snippet, but even now it still goes on abundantly). While I am certain it was not deliberate in EMRS’s case (can’t say the same for the activist-commissioned examples) it is still not good enough.
The rest of this article is what I originally wrote before I found out about the method issues. The comments about comparisons with the previous poll still hang together, but those about projected outright results need to be treated with caution since the poll’s method defects may mean it is slightly exaggerating the government’s plight:
Again the (misleadingly low, but even the true figure is likely to be dreadful) EMRS headline rate is the worst the Government has ever recorded, and the Liberal lead is up by nine points from the previous poll, which already represented their record to that date. In the last poll, the Liberal vote exceeded Labor and Green combined for the first time, and now it exceeds it by fourteen points. The preferred-premier index (not the most useful indicator) shows Will Hodgman gaining a massive ten points in three months while Lara Giddings is only just above the figure at which Paul Lennon decided to call it a day. This poll is significantly worse for Labor than the one before it, which means it is significantly worse than merely terrible.
At times like this it is always important to remember that Tasmania is very sparsely polled, and with only one poll each three months there is no way to be sure a poll like this is accurate. But even imagining that this is a “rogue poll” and giving Labor the benefit of more than the margin of error, it still doesn’t help. And polling error can go in either direction; just as we should consider the possibility that the picture is really not so bad, we need to consider the possibility that it is worse – or that it will still get worse.
Normally I batch two consecutive EMRS polls to get an idea of likely electorate-by-electorate results. I have not done that this time because the August samples are significantly different from the May samples and therefore any such exercise will understate just what a bad result this is. However even using such weighted samples the Liberals clearly get their three in the electorates of Bass, Braddon, Franklin and Lyons and probably do so in Denison, although they are shy of their third quota there and it would be quite likely their third seat would be snaffled by Andrew Wilkie if he were to lose his federal seat before the State election and contest the latter. But as a worst case for the Opposition, the current poll gives them 14 seats out of 25. Even more remarkably, the Braddon sample in the current poll, if reproduced at an election, would probably win the Liberals four (!) seats with Labor and the Greens each losing one. However, the sample size is too small to treat that as a dependable outcome unless it is confirmed in a subsequent poll. 3-2-0 is more realistic for the time being, so we could take this poll as pointing to a 15-6-4 or 14-6-4-1 win for the Liberals. With only one Labor seat on the table in Franklin, it is an open question whether Giddings would retain or be defeated by David O’Byrne.
Of course, it should be a long way to the next election, and furthermore this daddy of all shockers comes following a particularly putrid polling cycle for the Government. For the last three months it has rarely been able to get forestry (both the “peace deal” process and the pulp mill) off the agenda, and the Government is caught in the middle on these issues with its actions impressing nobody. To opponents of the industry the Government is paying off an unprofitable pursuit to stop doing what it shouldn’t be doing (and is commercially choosing not to do) anyway, and continuing to throw lifelines to a shambolic, clearly dead pulp mill fantasy run by a moribund company whose share price is trending towards zlotys. (Peter Henning has done a nice job of forking the government’s illogic on the issue of pulp mill permits – if nobody knows for sure what “substantial commencement” really is then why was legislation containing such a term enacted in the first place?) To industry supporters the Government is supporting a shoddy cheap fix that buys out the industry for pathetic compensation in a gloomy employment marketplace without even delivering lasting peace, following political processes that have no credibility and are driven by implied balance-of-power thugging by the Greens both state and federal, assisted by their pet ENGOs and the endless ability of the environment movement to hedge by having some components inside the tent and some out of it. When the government is copping such justified critiques from all sides of the argument it is no surprise that its standing is in tatters.
Meanwhile the Green vote is also now falling, with disenchanted hardline supporters starting to sniff around for viable fourth parties, and soft Green voters who in 2010 picked the Greens as a “neither of the above” starting to see the Greens as part of Government and just another major party to be rejected. What is significant here is that some part of that soft Green vote seems to be deciding that chucking out this Government is a higher priority than giving the thumbs down to both majors as in 2010, and some of these votes, instead of looking for their local Andrew Wilkie, are going direct to the Liberal Party.
There is a danger here that we could end up with a NSW-like situation where the electorate decides it is going to evict the government and becomes so fixed in that resolve that the government is unable to recover to even a respectable loss and a hiding becomes inevitable.
It would be very nice to be able to draw those sorts of conclusions and make such comments more firmly on the basis of a measurement of public opinion I was confident of. But in this case I cannot and I must also add a similar degree of caution to my views in the previous article as well, and ditto for all recent articles dealing with EMRS polling.
For those who really want to know what I think this poll would translate to aside from the question order method problem, it would be something like Liberal 55 Labor 26 Green 15 Other 4. But with a cloud over the poll’s methods, it is tempting to shave at least a couple of points and perhaps more from that massive Liberal result.
EMRS are not currently up to scratch, have never been particularly good, and it is time for Tasmania to get a new pollster. Failing that, you will not be hearing much more (except complaints!) about state opinion polls from this here column.
First published: 2011-08-31 07:22 PM
John Groves
August 31, 2011 at 11:08
As a long term Labor voter I take hart in poll as I will not be voting labor at the next state or federal alection. I was never happy with the deal with the Greens and would not have voted labor if I had known that it would happen. Lets just hope if the Libs are given a go they can do a better job than the Labor/Greens and turn the state around. I also hope for the same in the next federal election no more of a goverment held to ransom by a few independents and the out of touch Greens.
David Obendorf
August 31, 2011 at 12:29
I’m with Mark Hanna [comment #1] – I’m an undecided voted when it comes to phone poll calls at my number. Politicians – (all of them) – need to engage in some sensible communication and policy delivery rather than opportunistic spin.
Mediocrity on display in Tasmanian politics is actually the greatest dis-incetive for political candidacy. And who would want such an unhealthy & stressful job?
And when they get elected the draw-bridge goes up – ‘Thanks, but do not disturb’.
Karl Stevens
August 31, 2011 at 12:55
If the writer is having problems with EMRS’s polls then maybe he could set-up his own polling company? Criticizing is easy to do but exceeding the current polling methods may be harder.
Getting a call from an ‘Indian callcentre’ asking if you prefer Will or Lara could also distort the result as 80% of respondents hang-up.
Doug Nichols
August 31, 2011 at 14:26
Re #4, so you don’t think people should criticise the work of others unless they are directly involved in that line of work themselves. I see it’s OK for you to criticise a psephologist without being a psephologist yourself!
salamander
August 31, 2011 at 14:56
Those who pay for the poll, determine the questions so they get the result that favours their own side …
Peter
August 31, 2011 at 18:56
Just MsUnderstood:
Giddings brushes off woeful survey results
BY DINAH ARNDT CHIEF POLITICAL REPORTER
01 Sep, 2011 08:20 AM
PREMIER Lara Giddings says the state government is not panicking in the face of dismal poll results for the Labor Party.
Yesterday, she stuck to the message that while there were challenges, she was up to facing them and had the full support of her colleagues.
“There is no leadership challenge in the Labor Party at all and, in fact, I’m very pleased with the strength of support I have,” she said.
“What my troops understand already is that we are here for the long term, we’re here to make this minority government work and that we have another 2 1/2 years to go, so I don’t detect any panic.”
She continued to express frustration with the way that the government is perceived by the public – and reiterated her plan to keep explaining policies to people face-to-face.
However, Unions Tasmania secretary Kevin Harkins said the poll results could be interpreted as a condemnation of the government’s budget cuts
– and eventually spell the end of Ms Giddings’s leadership.
“If the trend continues there will certainly be angst within the Parliamentary Labor Party to consider who will be leading the party at the next election,” Mr Harkins said.
ALP state secretary John Dowling doesn’t see any benefit in a change of leader, and believes the party is on the right track.
However, even he acknowledged that it is failing to sell its message.
“Clearly, we have to be out there engaging with the community and providing voters with a greater level of understanding about what we’re trying to achieve,” Mr Dowling said.
Political analysts are describing the results – which would deliver a majority Liberal government if an election was held today – as catastrophic for the ALP.
“The Labor vote has dropped 21 per cent since March 2010 … and I’m not sure whether the party will be able to retrieve its position,” Dr Tony McCall said.
His comments were reiterated by his University of Tasmania colleague Associate Professor Richard Eccleston, who said the results were so strong for the Liberals that it may shift the political debate from what the government was doing to what the opposition would do.
While Ms Giddings pointed to budget cuts and the forestry deal as primarily to blame for Labor’s unpopularity, Greens leader Nick McKim acknowledged that the school closure debacle may have contributed to fewer votes for the Greens.
He refused to speculate on another leadership change within the ALP this year, and like Ms Giddings said the government was focused on getting the state back on track – not on polls.
Opposition Leader Will Hodgman – who commands a record high approval rating as leader of 52 per cent – said the poll showed that, like him, Tasmanians had no confidence in their government.
“I’m not even speculating about when an election may or may not be, other than to know it might be some time away,” Mr Hodgman said.
“There’s a lot of hard work to do between now and then, and we’ll get on with the job.”
http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/politics/giddings-brushes-off-woeful-survey-results/2277250.aspx?storypage=0
Ros Barnett
August 31, 2011 at 19:06
Hey Karl, your remark sounded a bit pouty. Good criticism is NOT easy – it takes time and skill to acquire the knowledge to apply to the material. I imagine many of us on TT appreciate the rather droll Dr Kev giving us the benefit of his wisdom though we might not always agree with his analysis. This time I did agree, and this article will change my behaviour. If polled I will say ‘undecided’ rather than hang up.
Dr Kevin Bonham
August 31, 2011 at 19:56
Karl (#4) I doubt I have the capital to do that (although the thought has crossed my mind a number of times) but there is absolutely nothing that is rocket science or in any way difficult about just asking questions in the proper order as the major pollsters do.
And having known several people who have worked for EMRS I can tell you that they use local talent, or at least have conventionally done so. It would, however, be very interesting to compare them with the major pollsters on issues of wages, staff turnover and interview technique to see if any explanation could be found for EMRS’s high undecided rate, which has not been a problem experienced by major agencies doing state polling in Tasmania.
By the way the Dinah Arndt article (#7) commits the common howler of referring to Will Hodgman’s preferred premier score as his approval rating – there really should be some kind of swear jar for journalists who do this. We do not know whether the number of Tasmanians who approve of Will Hodgman is about 52% or higher or lower. We just know that that many respondents (to the design-flawed EMRS poll) said they preferred him as Premier to Giddings and McKim. There may have been people who approved of Hodgman’s leadership while liking one of the other leaders more and there may have been people who disapproved of the lot and thought he was the best of a bad bunch.
As an example of this when I was Newspolled in their last sample I indicated Gillard as preferred PM over Abbott. But this does not mean I approved of Gillard’s leadership and in fact I gave her a disapprove rating. Gillard’s preferred PM score is often much higher than her approval rating. There are reasons for this and they will be explored in detail next week. You have been warned. 🙂
Justa Bloke
August 31, 2011 at 21:06
The “capital”, Dr Bonham, the “capital”? I do believe I remember you saying some time back in an admittedly different context that there was no such thing, only wealth.
Dr Kevin Bonham
September 1, 2011 at 19:47
I’m afraid I don’t remember the putative conversation referred to in #10 at all but in this context it is the same thing. That may change in the not too distant future however. 🙂
Neil Smith
September 2, 2011 at 02:28
The thought of the Hodgman-Gutwein style Liberals being the beneficiaries of public disenchantment with Giddings Labor gives me the creeps.
When have these Libs ever articulated any meaningful alternative policies which might improve the lot of Tasmanians? And when has the Party been in government and delivered anything half decent? Robin Gray and his treasury results? Yeah, sure.
Sadly, when Tweedledum goes down, Tweedledee always goes up. It’s the infuriating reality of Australian politics, Hare-Clark notwithstanding. Polling companies (and more particulary the media) are considerably to blame for actively perpetuating the general public tendency to see politics as pretty much the same as a footy match. If one side is going to lose, the other has to win.
The Greens – with their unique opportunity in Tasmania due to Hare-Clark – were clearly challenging the duopoly until their core followers were split. By their joining the minority government of proven shonkies on the one hand, and on the other by their support of the “forestry peace process” with non-critical acceptance of the so-called “jobs-rich plantation-based industry” – the P-word justifiably being anathema to a lot of erswhile true believers.
As a Green myself I’m hoping that these wounds will heal soon, because there is a good case for considering them minor hiccups in the overall public progress of social and environmental core values. The Greens party still provides a considerably experienced organisational nucleus too useful (and too good actually) to throw away lightly.
Meanwhile, there is also something to be said for the encouragement of credible independent candidates as advocated by Simon Warriner and others. But they face a formidable barrier being up against the establishment.
We are much more likely to end up with those abysmal Libs. And that will be a tragedy.