Oz Politics Blog

According to today’s Mercury, Labor will get 15 seats in the recent Tasmanian election.

Counting of preferences at 9pm yesterday indicates that Labor will govern with an unexpected 15 seats in the 25-member Lower House.

With three members elected in all five electorates, Labor will now dominate the Parliament when it resumes in mid-May with one more politician than before the March 18 election.

The Liberals will have seven members, the same number as after the 2002 poll.

The Greens will have three representatives, one fewer than in the previous Parliament following the loss of Mr Booth.

The Poll Bludger’s latest analysis on the Tasmanian election is here.

Update 30 March 2005: Well the Mercury got that wrong! The Tasmanian Electoral Commission has the final results. It is the same as the last Parliament: 14 Labor, 7 Liberal, and 4 Greens.

Labor was up in today’s Newspoll and down in the ACNielsen poll. So much so, these look like contradictory results.

If you are a Labor voter, you will find solace in the 53 per cent national two-party preferred vote prediction from Newspoll. If you are a Coalition voter, there is hope in the 50-50 results from ACNielsen.

Newspoll had the primary vote results as 41 per cent for the Coalition and 42 per cent for Labor.

ACNielsen had the primary vote results as 43 per cent for the Coalition and 37 per cent for Labor.

The biggest difference was the prediction of Labor’s primary vote.

Who got it wrong? There is no way of knowing for certain, but I would guess it was more likely to be Newspoll on this occasion. The recent Morgan poll and today’s ACNielsen poll are telling much the same story.

Furthermore, according to Dennis Shanahan

The seven-point rise in Labor’s primary vote is the biggest single rise for Labor against the Howard Government, overtaking three previous six-point rises after Cheryl Kernot defected from the Democrats to Labor in 1997, Simon Crean’s budget reply speech in 2004 and when Mark Latham became leader of the Opposition in December 2004.

In my view, the happenings over the last fortnight were not in the same ballpark as the earlier six-pointer moves in voting preference. None of the fundamentals changed over the past fortnight. There were no breaking stories, no personality changes and no headland speeches.

However, as I said, it was only a guess and there is no way of knowing for certain. In these circumstances, I think the best thing we can do is wait for another fortnight to see what further trends emerge.

Why did someone get it wrong? Statistics is an inexact science. Theoretically, we expect the population estimate to be outside of the margin of error one time in twenty. In practice, opinion polling shows even more variance than we would expect from statistical theory. Over time, all of the opinion-polling companies are guaranteed to produce the occasional anomalous result. As a consequence, interpreting opinion polling is as much an art as it is a science.

Did they agree on anything? ACNielsen and Newspoll had more comparable outcomes from the attitudinal polling. Both rated Howard as the preferred Prime Minister by a similar two-to-one margin. Both also had Howard’s leadership/approval rating around twice that of Beazley’s.

Aggregated monthly results. In terms of the aggregated monthly polling, March was a better month for the Coalition, with its primary and two-party predicted results improving.

Tell me more. For the Newspoll result see Dennis Shanahan. For the ACNielsen result see Michelle Grattan and Louise Dodson.

The usual opinion poll graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

The Australian Parliamentary Library has released a research brief on the legislative authority of government officials to access and destroy the private computers of individuals should they hold sensitive information.

The case in point was Andrew Wilkie’s book, Axis of Deceit. The Government censored passages from an early draft of the book before publication. Between June and September 2004 (after publication), Government officials also ‘cleansed’ some 74 hard drives belonging to people who had received a copy of the original uncensored manuscript. Cleansing the hard drive necessitated smashing it with a hammer to make sure it was really erased.

According to the research brief,

This case raises several interesting issues around the legality of the incident, and broader policy concerns which arise as a consequence of the incident. Firstly, it is not clear which agency undertook the actions and under what legislative authority it acted. The media reported that the access to computers was undertaken by people identified as officials from the Attorney-General’s Department. It seems that accessing the computers of private individuals on the grounds of protecting security is an operational matter that should not be undertaken by ordinary public servants.

The legal regime governing access to private computers holding information which may compromise Australia’s national security is clearly covered by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (‘ASIO Act’) and should be undertaken only under a search or computer access warrant. If the officials involved were in fact from ASIO, they should not be operating outside their legislative framework.

Consent by parties should not allow government officials to undertake action they would not be authorised to do under warrant. It is unclear in this incident whether the participants could complain that their consent was only given under duress due to the threat of criminal prosecution or other action under the ASIO Act.

Finally, there are several broader concerns that arise as a result of this incident, involving lack of certainty when publishing on matters of national security, specific concerns over computer warrants, and the accountability of the government officials involved.

SBS Dateline covered this story on 22 June 2005 in its Sledgehammer Politics episode.

In today’s Age, Jason Koutsoukis has what looks like a well placed leak on a planned Cabinet reshuffle for July.

TRADE Minister Mark Vaile will swap portfolios with Transport Minister Warren Truss as part of a ministerial reshuffle being planned by Prime Minister John Howard for about July.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone, Sports Minister Rod Kemp, and Local Government Minister Jim Lloyd are among those to be asked to make way for new blood.

Among those likely to come into the ministry are Victorian parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs Andrew Robb and the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

…

Another source said Mr Howard was looking for “a posting” for Senator Vanstone to ease her departure from the ministry.

“There is not much respect for Amanda Vanstone in the PMO (Prime Minister’s office). She’s lazy, she’s rude and very difficult to deal with.

“But at the same time everyone realises that she can’t be moved out of politics without the PM giving her a senior job, so that’s what they are looking for.”

Today’s Morgan poll continued the all-poll trend since November 2005 of a swing back towards the Coalition. The headline result was a predicted national, two-party preferred vote of 51 per cent for the Coalition to 49 per cent for the Opposition.

The other interesting statistic: almost 7 out of 10 people now think the Coalition will win the 2007 Federal election.

According to Morgan’s qualitative polling …

L-NP supporters continued to be impressed with John Howard’s strong leadership of the party and the stability that has come with it. Common themes among the responses included: “I think John Howard is doing a good job. I think we have come a long way and I don’t like or trust Kim Beazley”, “Better leadership and direction with my choice. Other side doesn’t have strong leadership and doesn’t seem to have much of an alternative” and “At the moment Beazley is not ready. Howard is doing a good job.”

It is widely felt by L-NP supporters that the Opposition lacks credibility, which was most recently evident by the public spat between rival party factions: “The ALP is in such total disarray”, “In regard to terrorism I feel safe with the L-NP. The ALP is totally disorganised” and “The ALP is too wishy-washy. They have no projects. They are dictated to by unions. They have no foresight in administration.”

Conversely, ALP supporters continue to be concerned with, and alienated by, recent Government policy: “Ever since the GST and other policies we are working harder and harder and not getting anywhere”, “I am concerned about the Government regarding IR policy and the direction they are leading Australia (US Alliance)” and “The Government is getting too comfortable. They need to be listening to people rather than driving their own policies.”

The social policies and working-class roots of the ALP also appealed to many voters. Comments included: “They (ALP) are more approachable and come to the people to check ideas and attitudes”, “Out of the two major parties the ALP is the one that aligns itself best with my social conscience. This country is becoming more about those that have and those that haven’t and the Labor Party have the most potential to reduce that ever-widening gap” and “Their (ALP) policies are in line with my world view — social equality, social capital and infrastructure development. The ALP’s more about our society, cohesion.”

The usual opinion poll graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.