Oz Politics Blog

The fall continues: this evening the bookmakers give the Coalition between 42.6 and 43.9 per cent probability of winning the 2007 election. The last week has seen all of our five bookmakers punch below the 45 per cent floor that has prevailed since early March.

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

This is the fourth Newspoll in two weeks. The national two-party preferred vote share prediction, were an election held last weekend, was 60 per cent for Labor and 40 per cent for the Coalition.

Outside of human error, there are four key interpretations for the 5 percentage point jump between Monday to Thursday, and Friday to Sunday in the last week. I have listed them below from (in my view) the least plausible to the most plausible.

• There was a statistically significant shift in voting intention over the week
• The 60-40 per cent result for Friday to Sunday was a rogue poll
• The 55-45 per cent result for Monday to Thursday was a rogue poll
• The underlying population voting intention for Labor was steady around 57 to 58 per cent, and both the 55 and 60 per cent results were within the error margin of 57 to 58 per cent.

I know my view on the most plausible explanation goes against the general approach to inferential statistics, which would opt for my least plausible explanation. In this case, I cannot see a compelling reason to believe the polls moved 5 points in a matter of days. Let’s just say that I am not a slave to p-values less than 0.05 without a compelling theory of action!

I suspect the best way to interpret the recent volatility in the Newspoll series is to take the moving average, which suggests the underlying support for Labor is around 58 per cent of the national two-party preferred vote share. The Coalition gets around 42 per cent of the national TPP vote share.

I remain of the view that the trend has effectively flat-lined since the beginning of April. This view is supported by my chicken entrails analyzer on the polling data since the first of April, which projects a flat line for Morgan, Newspoll and ACNielsen. Perhaps it is not called April fools day without reason.

The election calculator suggests Labor would win around 121 seats, if it managed to secure 60 per cent of the national two-party preferred vote at an election. It would win 111 seats if it managed to secure its medium term average of 58 per cent.

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.

I have been thinking about Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein’s recent difficulties and our expectations on the life partner of the Australian prime minister. I would like to think in this day and age the partner of the prime minister could be a successful and independent business person in his or her own right. However, the more I have thought about it, the more I think it very difficult generally, and in this case impossible.

First, however, the good news. I think it would be possible for Kevin Rudd to be Australia’s foreign minister, or even Australia’s defense minister, and for his wife run a job placement business that derives it largest share of income from the government. I think the declaration mechanisms for managing conflicts of interest in these circumstances are sufficient. And when employment services matters are discussed in Cabinet, it would not be too debilitating for Kevin to leave the room.

But if Kevin was the employment minister, there would be just too many conflicts of interest to contemplate. To begin with, there are a myriad of conflicts associated with policy design. If the Department of Employment recommended a funding parameter change, Kevin may know how that how that would affect his wife’s business or which parameter change would play to the competitive advantages of his wife’s business. If a Labor government was considering re-nationalising the employment services market (and I am not saying they would), would Kevin be an impartial minister? Specific funding decisions are no less vexed. How would staff of the department react — even if there was no hint of pressure from the minister — when the minister’s wife applies for funding?

At the heart of the conflict is the nature of marriage. I joked with my partner when we discussed this that the nature of marriage could be summarised as, “what’s yours is mine and what’s mine I am keeping”. While Therese may be the sole reason the company she founded has what some of the papers estimate as $180 million in net assets, Kevin is a beneficiary. If she sold up tomorrow, he would share a lovely retirement fund. By virtue of his marriage, Kevin has significant business interests in known policy area.

Furthermore, even if Kevin was absolutely scrupulous in his dealings as the hypothetical employment minister, the media would test and pressure him at every turn. At every media conference announcing a new policy, he would be asked how his wife’s company benefited from the decision. Furthermore, it would only be a matter of time before some spurious correlation was found and an impropriety alleged. It is simply not an environment a minister could work in.

As prime minister, the political testing and pressure would be even more intense. And not just on Kevin. Every one of Therese’s business decisions would be tested. She is just as newsworthy in the media’s quest to sell papers. Every disgruntled ex-employee would be interviewed. Cheque-book journalism would guarantee a constant stream of criticism. This criticism would not only be debilitating for Kevin as prime minister, it would harm Therese’s business interests as well.

In short, there are two core problems. The first relates to the potential for conflicts of interest, and the difficulties in avoiding the perceptions of a conflict. The second is the potential for spill-over embarrassments and ongoing media harassment for both partners. In this case, the roles of prime minister and business leader providing services to government cannot be accommodated successfully within the one marriage. As a consequence, the Rudds faced four options:

• Do nothing and have the conflicts, spill-over embarrassments and media harassment continue to impact negatively on both of their career aspirations
• Kevin gives up his aspirations to be Australia’s next prime minister
• Therese gives up her role as a successful and independent business person
• Kevin and Therese get a divorce

There were no “win-win” options here.

There is nothing new in this. Married couples across the nation routinely make joint decisions that favour one partner’s career or opportunities while reducing or limiting the opportunities or outcomes for the other partner. Life is like that. How many times have you heard stories like this: he wants the overseas posting, but she wants to stay with her job in Australia. If they travel, she will be out of the labour market for three years. If they stay, he is in a dead-end job, but her career will flourish. Because of the independent careers they have chosen, Kevin and Therese had no choice but to have one of those difficult family conversations.

Does this mean the partner of the prime minister must be unemployed? I don’t think so. There are many jobs where the conflicts of interest are minimal and where the potential for spill-over embarrassments are also minimal. If Therese were a school teacher, lawyer or doctor (for example) it would be possible for her to continue working after Kevin became prime minister. While the nature of marriage was part of the problem, so was the domain and scale of Therese’s business interests.

Today’s SMH and Age reported on an analysis of ACNielsen polling aggregated from November 2006 until May 2007.

The headline message: “Labor would be returned with 110 seats to the Coalition’s 38 — the most lopsided outcome since World War II.” “[T]he swing to Labor in Queensland alone could be enough to make Kevin Rudd the prime minister by Christmas.”

The state by state swings were as follows.

And there was a final note of caution.

ACNielsen research director John Stirton warns that poll findings and the election outcome are quite different things.

“Polls are not predictions of voting at the next election, which is still months away,” he says. “Polls measure current voting intentions, so changes can be tracked over time.”

Mr Stirton says the Coalition’s primary vote has risen by 2 percentage points in each of the past two polls. “It is possible that we will look back in several months and see this period as the start of the Government’s recovery,” he adds, predicting that the next month or two should make it clear whether any “bounce” back to the Government is under way.

Better late than never. Today’s Sunday Mail reported a poll of 601 South Australian voters. The headline prediction was a state-wide two-party preferred vote share of 59 per cent for Labor and 41 per cent for the Coalition.

The key issues for South Australians in the coming election were:

• The water shortage (84 per cent)
• Education and training opportunities (73 per cent)
• Climate change (66 per cent)

The Coalition holds three South Australian seats with less than a one percent margin: Kingston, Wakefield and Makin. All would become safe Labor seats with this sort of swing. If this poll is a reliable predictor of the next election, Labor should also have comfortable wins in Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt and Andrew Southcott’s seat of Boothby.

Details here. Interestingly, Coalition and Labor voters were pretty similar on the importance of the water shortage in South Australia.

Hat tip to Mystery and benunderscore