Oz Politics Blog

While the betting odds over the past six weeks have been unchanged, the first six months of 2006 saw the rise and rise of the Coalition in the minds of the punters. The Coalition began the year as even money favourites with Labor, following the drubbing the Work Choices legislation copped in the last quarter of 2005. Since then it is has been a slow rise in popularity until the current plateau.

The average of the four bookmakers suggests a 58.2 per cent probability of a Coalition government and a 41.8 per cent chance of a Labor government following the 2007 Federal election.

• For a Coalition win Centrebet would pay $1.57 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.25. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 58.9 per cent.
• For a Coalition win IASBet would pay $1.60 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.25. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 58.4 per cent.
• SportingBet is paying $1.62 for a Coalition win and $2.20 for a Labor win. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 57.6 per cent
• SportsBet is paying $1.60 for a Coalition win and $2.20 for a Labor win. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 57.9 per cent

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

The proposed redistribution for Queensland is out.

If you don’t like the proposed boundaries, written objections must be lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission no later than 6.00pm on Friday 21 July 2006.

Update: Courier Mail, ABC PM

The Poll Bludger has a good summary of last night’s changes to the electoral laws.

Update: According to the explanatory memorandum, the new laws will:

• increase a number of the disclosure thresholds to above $10,000 (with legislated Consumer Price Index increases) with effect from the date of introduction of this Bill;
• reduce the close of rolls period to provide that, in general, the roll will close at 8.00 pm on the third working day after the issue of the writ. However, persons who are not on the roll (with two exceptions, set out below) will not be added to the roll in the period between 8.00 pm on the day of the issue of the writ and polling day. The exceptions are for persons who are not on the roll who are either: 17 year olds who will turn 18 between the day the writ is issued and polling day; or who will be granted citizenship between the issue of the writ and polling day. Persons in these categories can apply for enrolment up until the close of rolls at 8.00 pm three working days after the day on which the writ is issued
• introduce a proof of identity requirement for people enrolling or updating their enrolment by requiring that they provide their driver’s licence number on their enrolment application. If they do not have a driver’s licence, the elector can show a prescribed identity document to a person who is in a prescribed class of electors and who can attest to the identity of the applicant. If an elector does not have a driver’s licence or a prescribed identity document, then they must have their enrolment application signed by two electors who can confirm the applicant’s name and who have known the applicant for at least one month;
• establish a proof of identity requirement for provisional voting. An elector (other than a silent elector) who wants to cast a provisional vote on polling day will need to show either their driver’s licence or a prescribed identity document (of the same type required for enrolment proof of identity) to an officer either at the time of casting the provisional vote or by close of business on the Friday following polling day. If the elector cannot show the document in person, they may post, send by facsimile or email an attested copy to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). Ballot papers will only be admitted to the count if the provisional voter has provided suitable identification and, if they were not enrolled, if their omission from the roll was the result of an AEC error;
• abolish the requirement for broadcasters and publishers to lodge disclosure returns;
• require that paid electoral advertising on the Internet be authorised in the same manner as printed electoral advertisements;
• require that third parties (people other than registered political parties, candidates, Members of the House of Representatives, Senators, and Commonwealth departments and agencies) must complete annual disclosure returns if they incurred expenditure for a political purpose or received gifts over the disclosure threshold which enabled them to incur expenditure for a political purpose during a financial year;
• increase nomination deposits for election candidates to $500 for candidates for the House of Representatives and $1,000 for Senate candidates with the threshold for returning the nomination deposit remaining at four per cent;
• provide for access to the roll by persons and organisations that verify, or contribute to the verification of, the identity of persons for the purposes of the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988 and provide that such use is not subject to the commercial use prohibition;
• require that, in the future, divisional offices must be located within divisional boundaries unless otherwise authorised by the Minister;
• provide for the automatic deregistration of all currently registered political parties six months after Royal Assent, with exceptions for parliamentary parties and parties with past representation in the Federal Parliament. Any political party that is deregistered will be required to re-apply for registration, and must comply with the current requirements in the Electoral Act, including the existing naming provisions. Political parties that re-apply for registration within 12 months of deregistration under this scheme will not be required to pay the $500 application fee;
• extend the definition of ‘associated entity’ to include entities with financial membership of a registered political party and entities on whose behalf a person exercises voting rights in a registered political party;
• amend the voting entitlement provisions so that all prisoners serving a sentence of full-time detention will not be entitled to vote, but may remain on the roll, or if not enrolled, apply for enrolment. Those serving alternative sentences such as periodic or home detention, as well as those serving a non-custodial sentence or who have been released on parole, will still be eligible to enrol and vote;
• expand the AEC’s demand power in subsection 92(1) of the Electoral Act to enable access to information held by State and Territory Government agencies for the purpose of preparing, maintaining and revising the rolls; and
• amend the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to increase the level of tax-deductible contributions and gifts, whether from an individual or corporation, to political parties and independent candidates from $100 to $1,500 in any income year.

Update: Alan Ramsey

For any given weekend since the last Federal election, it was not uncommon for ACNielsen and Newspoll to have estimates for the Greens that were statistically different. In plain English: at least one of the pollsters was wrong! This can be seen graphically.

This of course raises the question of systemic polling bias. To get a sense of the systemic differences between the pollsters, I have put together the following table. It gives the average poll results from the pollsters since the last election for each of the major party groups.

I am not convinced these results are necessarily meaningful. Morgan, for example, tended to report weekly on reduced sample sizes when it got anomalous results, which could skew its results in this analysis. For ACNielsen, I have excluded the results from June 2006, as its minor party primary vote prediction has not been made public yet.

Nonetheless, the results are indicative of a systemic polling bias problem - particularly with the Greens. I suspect this bias comes about from two sources. First, the way in which the pollsters develop their sample frame can bias the result. Second, the actual questions the pollsters ask and the sequence in which they are asked can also bias the prediction.

It is a significant issue, as these Green and minor party results feed into national two-party preferred estimate from each of the pollsters. From 2007, I expect Newspoll will report preference allocations according to the way in which people say they will vote, rather than use the preference flows from the previous election. Similarly, while Morgan reports both, I expect the focus to move to actual reported preference flows.

It is another useful reminder that interpreting polling results is as much an art, as it is a science. And it legitimises the practice of adjusting results from some polling organisations by a percentage point or two; although it is arguable which pollster is accurate and which is biased. For the record, I cannot quite come at the seven-point adjustment one of my regular commentators applies.

Note: in undertaking this analysis, I found an error in my earlier minor party charts in respect of the Morgan series. It has now been corrected. You may need to hit the refresh button on your browser to get the latest chart.

The Newspoll reported in today’s Australian predicted a national Coalition two party preferred vote of 51 per cent compared with 49 per cent for Labor, were an election held last weekend. Update: full results now available on the Newspoll site.

Newspoll estimated the Coalition’s primary vote would be 44 per cent (up four on the previous Newspoll, and three higher than ACNielsen for essentially the same period).

The estimated Labor primary vote was 38 per cent (down one, and two higher than ACNielsen for essentially the same period).

Unfortunately the Green primary vote prediction was not reported. Update: The estimated Green primary vote was 7 per cent (unchamged, and four points lower than the Green primary vote estimate from ACNielsen for essentially the same period).

What does it mean? It is hard to say. Both Morgan and ACNielsen dipped in late May; both have risen now. That movement could be noise (the more likely explanation), or it could be measuring something real. Interpreting polls is definitely as much art as it is science. The two-point 2PP difference between the two polls for last weekend is within the margin of error, so while it looks like a different result that difference is not statistically significant.

I suspect we can safely say that industrial relations is no longer the vote changing issue it was in the last quarter of 2005. The media may even be right in its assessment that Beazley’s no-AWAs pledge, while playing well to the party faithful, has not impressed the swinging voter.

Although I did not blog on it yesterday, the betting market remained unchanged since early May. For all the huff and puff about industrial relations, perhaps nothing much is currently happening to change voter opinion.

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.