Oz Politics Blog

The SMH and Age reported an online ACNielsen poll: 58 to 42 in Labor’s favour.

The Australian reported on leaked Crosby Textor polling. This Liberal Party polling showed that the Coalition would have held all of its 10 West Australian seats and gained Labor-held Cowan if an election had taken place two weeks ago. Okay, the usual caveats apply when political parties leak internal polling.

Possum at his vitriolic best put the boot into Christopher Pearson’s analysis of the polls.

A new news aggregation site: Scopical

The latest Westpoll of 400 Western Australians predicted that Labor would win 54 per cent of the TPP vote in WA. Related coverage in the Age.

I am a little sceptical about the 8 point movement in this poll when compared with the previous few Westpolls. Those familiar with this site would know that I typically reject as noise any significant poll movement that can not be attributed to an event that one would reasonably expect to change voting intention. Even if I can point to a plausible explanatory variable, I usually suspend judgment on a single poll result that could mark a discontinuity.

To put it another way: don’t read too much into a single poll result.

The Parliamentary Library has just updated a research paper by Tony Kryger that summarises the performance of the economy during each administration from Whitlam through to Howard. The key graphs follow.

In a shock media statement, the independent member for Calare, Peter Andren MP, said he has been diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing treatment over coming weeks.

Because of the nature of the illness and treatment phase I have reluctantly decided to withdraw from the upcoming Senate election, and will be putting all my energies into my recovery over the next few months.

The latest CPI figures are out so it is time to revisit the Sawford formula. The formula states that if two or more of the unemployment, inflation and interest rates rise over a full, three-year electoral cycle, the government will lose. Conversely, if two or more fall the government will be returned.

The inflation news

The June quarter change in the Consumer Price Index was 1.2 per cent, and the annual inflation rate for the year ending 30 June 2007 was 2.1 per cent. This quarter’s rate was higher than expected, and if the quarter was annualised the inflation rate would be 4.8 per cent.

If volatile items are removed, the annual inflation rate to 30 June 2007 was 2.7 per cent. Both the high quarter rate and the highish annual rate once volatile items were removed have fueled speculation of an interest rate increase following the meeting of the Reserve Bank Board on the first Tuesday of August or September 2007.

For the historical record, average annualised inflation since March 1996 is 2.5 per cent. Average annualised inflation between March 1983 and March 1996 was 5.2 per cent.

The Sawford formula

Interest rates and unemployment are easy to call. The Reserve Bank interest rates are up since the 2004 election (indicated by the red line in the following graphs) and the unemployment rate is down.

More contestable is the inflation rate. Clearly the annual rate at the end of June 2007 is lower than it was in September or December 2004. However, the annual rate without volatile items is up, as are the two quarterly rates (albeit for one, only marginally).

It’s a hard call. Is it two up and one down, two down and one up, or one up and one down and one unchanged?