Oz Politics Blog

Yesterday, the Coalition announced its tough on drugs policy.

Labor announced support for the world game, its commitment to lift school standards, and its plan to reduce violence against women and children.

Morgan: Morgan released a phone poll of 1670 voters on 15-17 November. The sample was weighted to marginal seats, with 1,025 electors in 22 key L-NP marginal seats. (I gather the other 128 seats were estimated with a sample of 645 voters) . The headline prediction was Labor on 55.5 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. The Coalition got 44.5 per cent. As can be seen from the next graph, this series has been pretty much a flat line during the election period. Note that I graphed how voters said they would vote, rather than the TPP figure based on preference flows in 2004, to maintain consistency with earlier Morgan phone polls.

I do not have enough data to confirm a house bias with the Morgan phone poll; nonetheless, it appears to track to the left of ACNielsen and Newspoll (see next graph). House bias effects should be taken into account when using a poll series to estimate the final national TPP outcome.

Other polls: In today’s SMH and Age, we have an ACNielsen poll for the seat of Wentworth. The headline result was 52-48 in Labor’s favour.

The SMH reported a Patterson poll of Eden-Monaro, which had Labor ahead 53 to 47 per cent.

Mumble has the latest demographic breakdown from ACNielsen.

Yesterday was the 26th full day in the formal election campaign. There are only fourteen more days (13 sleeps) until the tally for the 2007 election.

The Coalition had no new policies listed on its website.

Labor announced GP super clinics for Cairns and Onkaparinka, and a commitment on Adelaide’s South Road.

ACNielsen on-line: Today’s Age reported ACNielsen’s third on-line poll. If this poll comes from the same panel as the previous polls, it is arguably the most significant poll so far this campaign. The use of a panel for ACNielsen’s on-line polls was reported with the first on-line poll. The advantage of panel based polling is that the movement between polls represents genuine movement within the panel group. Poll-on-poll differences are always significant and not subject to margins of error (although the application of the poll result as a population-wide prediction is subject to both sampling and systemic errors).

The most compelling observation from the latest ACNielsen poll is the absence of movement between polls. If today’s ACNielsen poll is from the same panel as the earlier on-line polls (see table below), it would suggest the election campaign to date has been a fizzer for the Coalition. There has been no narrowing of the gap between Labor and the Coalition during the campaign.

Update at 10am: I was wrong. I have just received this email, “I thought I better let you know that the Nielsen online poll actually draws a sample from their 90,000 Your Voice panel each poll, so the people doing the poll aren’t the same every poll … As nice as it would be to have a true longitudinal poll, unfortunately this aint it ;-)” Oh well, what can I say? I should have re-read the first report more closely before blogging. Anyway, maybe next election one of the polling companies could organise a longitudinal study (just for the period of the election campaign) of (say) 2000 randomly selected voters so that we can follow the impact of the campaign from week to week.

Finally, while I was wrong about the ACNielsen on-line polls using longitudinal panel data, I was probably not wrong on the flat line observation.

Morgan: Morgan released two poll results yesterday. Last weekend’s face-to-face poll of 990 voters yielded the (implausible in my view) headline prediction of 62 to 38 in Labor’s favour on a two-party preferred basis. I suspect Morgan agrees with me on the plausibility of this poll result, as Morgan did not include this data point in its graph at the top of its report. The chart of the longer-term Morgan face-to-face polling follows. You can see that this series is often quite volatile. I reckon the latest result is more likely to be noise associated with that volatility, than a significant population wide change in voting intentions.

Morgan’s Wednesday to Thursday phone poll of 552 voters yielded a prediction of 56 to 44 in Labor’s favour (which showed some statistically insignificant movement on the previous phone polls - see below).

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.

Yesterday was the 19th full day in the election campaign. There are twenty one days to until the election tally on the eveneing of 24 November 2007.

Labor made statements on the Northern Rivers growth corridor, health and education support for Melbourne’s western suburbs, Indigenous customary law and water desalination.

There were no new policy statements on the Coalition website.

Candidates: The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) released the list of candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was amusing to see Australia’s most prolific unsuccessful candidate — Marcus Aussie-Stone — up for election in Joe Hockey’s seat of North Sydney.

Political parties must lodge their above-the-line party voting tickets with the AEC by noon today if they wish to have a box above the line on the ballot paper. Once these tickets are published, I am sure there will be a number of Senate calculators on the net.

Morgan released poll results for last weekend. The headline prediction was 42.5 per cent for the Coalition and 57.5 per cent for Labor.

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.

Electorate polls: The Herald Sun published an internal poll for Deakin in Victoria (N=314, Labor=55, Coalition=45, Swing=10).

The Australian, published a marginal seat poll for Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia (N=3500) which Dennis Shanahan interpreted as suggesting “the extent of the Coalition’s losses will be between eight seats — which would allow it to easily retain government — and 22 seats, a six-seat win to Labor”. The analysis from Sol Lebovic is worth reading.

October aggregated: The Morgan poll was the last opinion poll for October. The weighted aggregation of all polls for October, with a combined sample in excess of 13,000 voters, yeilded a predicted vote share for Labor of 55.8 per cent. The Coalition had 44.2 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.

Poll trend: The next graph charts a weekly poll trend based on the average of Morgan (face-to-face). ACNielsen and Newspoll. The weekly averages are then smoothed with a 13-term Henderson moving average. The current poll trend is 44.4 per cent for the Coalition and 55.6 per cent for Labor.

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 Coalition released policy statements on renewable energy and cancer care for teenagers and young people.

Labor released policy statements on solar schools and homes and open government.

Enrolment: George Megalogensis reported on a large youth enrolment for the 2007 election.

Late yesterday the Australian Electoral Commission released its final head count for who is registered to vote. It showed the number of 18-year-olds eligible to vote jumped by 10.3 per cent when compared with the previous election. The upshot of this is that in 2004, when the roll closed a leisurely week later, the number of 18-year-olds had fallen 0.2 per cent against the 2001 figure.

Others commenting on the level of youth enrolment include: Mumble, Simon Jackman, Paul Bibby and Sarah Miles.

Polls:

• Morgan face-to-face: 56-44 (Labor) [20-21 October 2007, n=996]
• Morgan phone: 54.5-45.5 (Labor) [24-25 October 2007, n=520]
• ACNielsen online (from a randomly selected panel): 56-44 (Labor) [23-25 October 2007, n=1415]
• Patterson Research Eden-Monaro: 56-44 (Labor) [22-24 October 2007, n=400]

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.

Poll trend: The next graph charts a weekly poll trend based on the average of Morgan (face-to-face). ACNielsen and Newspoll. The weekly averages are then smoothed with a 13-term Henderson moving average.

Yesterday, Morgan released two poll results: a face-to-face poll of 850 electors on 13-14 October 2007, and a telephone poll of 598 electors on 17-18 October 2007. Last weekend’s face-to-face result was 57 per cent to 43 per cent in Labor’s favour. The Wednesday-Thursday phone poll result was 55.5 per cent to 44.5 per cent in Labor’s favour.

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.