The Gillard Government

[Julia]

Essential is much less volatile than Newspoll, and is perhaps better reflective of overal electoral sentiment.

What do you think causes the difference?

 

[drsmith]

What do you think causes the difference?

It's two week averages, so, that would help.

 

[drsmith]

Widening cracks ?

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-new...-me-labor-senator-cameron-20121031-28irt.html

 

[drsmith]

And, perhaps another.

Having fully depressed the panic button over asylum policy, are they now preparing to push it through the control panel itself in another betrayal and trash it's relationship with the Greens over their renewable energy target ?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...e-energy-targets/story-fn59niix-1226507419224

 

[drsmith]

Julie Bishop vs Julia Gillard.

http://media.smh.com.au/national/selections/gillard-its-personal-3758026.html

Towards the the end, Julia Gillard missed the speaker's vibe on withdrawing a comment and had to be told bluntly.

 

[moXJO]

Thomson bad mouthing labor today, maybe those charges are just around the corner and labor has told him to distance himself.

 

[drsmith]

Thomson bad mouthing labor today, maybe those charges are just around the corner and labor has told him to distance himself.

I too am wondering what all that is about.

Peter Slipper's been doing the same with the Coalition. An extra second or two of being noticed I suspect in his case.

 

[Julia]

Thomson bad mouthing labor today, maybe those charges are just around the corner and labor has told him to distance himself.

I too am wondering what all that is about.

Peter Slipper's been doing the same with the Coalition. An extra second or two of being noticed I suspect in his case.

Yes. These two have been appropriately silent in the House but suddenly they are front and centre. Something is up.

 

[Julia]

It is hard to fathom out where these polls are being taken, nevertheless it may be a ploy to encourage Gillard to go to an early election which in effect may favor the coaltion and back fire on Gillard. It may lead her into a false sense of security and entice her to do something more stupid than she has in the past.

News poll may be manipulating voters trend to make the coaltition look like under dogs and bring some simpathy back their way.

I just do not believe Gillard has tunred things around so fast in jus twi weeks with this misogyny crap.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...isogyny-newspoll/story-fn59niix-1226504943610

I am puzzled as to what is going on with Newspoll...

I have always thought Essential Media were somewhat biased to labor and yet their poll out today has labor's 2pp slipping further behind to 54:46 in favour of the coalition.

http://essentialvision.com.au/federal-politics-–-voting-intention-140

I actually thought it was the other way around, that Newspoll favoured Labor and Essential tended to favour the Coalition.

I think it's not what they ask but where they get their sample from maybe. In any case, there seems to be some divergence in results from different polling organsisations so there must be some differences in the way they collect their data.

Essential is much less volatile than Newspoll, and is perhaps better reflective of overal electoral sentiment.

The following post will be split into multiple posts, because of the ongoing difficulty of ASF apparently finding long posts unacceptable.

In the wake of the above comments, plus similar from Ves which I cannot now find (might be on a different thread) I have contacted the CEO of Newspoll, Mr Martin O'Shannessy to ask him for his response to these assertions. I'm appreciative of his courtesy in being prepared to respond.

Amongst his reply is a table of Newspoll results. This has not come out well in copy and paste so is added as a screenshot.

Hope this is helpful to those alleging bias in any direction. Might also be good to check out the affiliations of other polling organisations, e.g. Essential Media just for one.

 

[Julia]

Next part:

Dear Julia,

Thanks for your inquiry.

How Newspoll opinion polls are conducted

Our voter intention polls are published exclusively in The Australian. Each Newspoll voter opinion poll is conducted on the Newspoll Telephone Omnibus.

This is a weekly survey in which we interview 1200 people each weekend setting age, sex and geographic quotas across more than sixty distinct regions in Australia. Our voter opinion surveys run approximately fortnightly during parliamentary sitting weeks although we commonly have a three week break when there is a big gap in parliamentary sittings or when we suspect another major company will be releasing a poll. Polling is an important part of our total business but Newspoll is also a major national market research organisation with hundreds of other commercial clients.

We have correctly called every one of the 55 state and federal elections since we were founded in 1985 using our methods. The accusations of some bloggers about Newspoll intentionally publishing figures to favour one party or the other are frankly foolish given our 27 year record and our status as a major commercial organisation.

 

[Julia]

Next part

Newspoll has not been volatile in recent times

You asked me to comment on the question of volatility. In the last six polls we published, the average ALP primary vote is 34.4%. The highest was 36% and the lowest was 33%

The greatest week-to-week variation in primary vote was 3% which is just inside the expected margin error – so the assertion of volatility just doesn’t hold water. The 2PP is an artefact of allocating votes for minor parties according to the way preferences flowed at the last election.

Even if I held the view that this led to a distortion on a week to week basis, I would continue to use the system as it is consistent with past practice. It is not open to me to ‘adjust’ polls according to what I think is ‘about right’ or on any other basis.

We publish 100% of our polls - none are held back and they are all conducted and reported in precisely the same manner as we have done for the last 27 years.

 

[Julia]

Next part

Here is a list of our results for the last few months. You will see clearly that our numbers sit tightly around their average of 34.4% for the ALP and 43.8% for the Coalition – in no way volatile.

As an aside, it seems ironic that I am now proving this to your correspondents by showing them widely published figures when it’s obvious that they are apparently unaware of or have not bothered to check before criticising however, here we go...

 

[Julia]

Next part

It’s interesting to note that both parties are now two points short of where they were at the last election. We are in the run-down to the 2013 election now and past experience predicts that the two will be even closer for a great part of the next 12 months. Most elections are won by a party gaining between 51% and 53% of the two party vote and that’s the sort of range we should expect to see in the year ahead.

Which polling companies are independent?

You mentioned other polling companies in our telephone conversation. The only truly independent, regularly published polling companies in Australia are Newspoll, Nielsen and Galaxy. Virtually all other organisations publishing polls are proactive campaigners with clear party affiliations and a very cursory web search using their names will show relationships between the organisations or their principals and one party or another. Given this, comparison between Newspoll and others is quite inappropriate.

 

[Julia]

Next part

Newspoll is impartial

The accusation of partiality invariably comes from the side that is losing. People try to discredit Newspoll when they don’t like the result but nod approvingly when the numbers sit well with their view of the world.

Frankly its appallingly childish and a phenomenon that seems to have been boosted by the apparent anonymity of the internet. Today, otherwise polite individuals seem to feel OK about publishing slander because they think they are anonymous.



Having said that a look at some recent history of criticism will be instructive...

Up to July this year I had just published 16 months of straight polls that said the ALP was in deep trouble but did not hear from any Coalition supporters during that time. I think I am right in deducing that they agreed with those results and so were not moved to question my impartiality. This might give you cause to pause if you think on it. That was before things turned slightly less unfavourable for the ALP.

Throughout those 16 months (while Coalition supports were still nodding approvingly) intellectual giants of the calibre of Bob Ellis took up the lance to joust Quixotically at the Newspoll windmill. Some very clear examples of the foolish poppycock posted by Bob and other bloggers at that time can be found on Bob Ellis’ blog (here’s the link so you don’t have to search) - http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2012/05/06/the-hypothetical-ashby-brough-conspiracy-an-exchange/

 

[Julia]

Next part

Of course, this period followed the Rudd era. Between 2007 and 2009 I published 73 straight polls that said the Coalition was in deep trouble. Would it surprise you to learn that no Labor supporters complained until the change in the polls in 2009? I assume that they also agreed with those numbers and therefore felt that my results must be impartial – that is until they heard a result they did not like.



Please excuse me if my response seems a little jaded – you are one of the few people who has posed the question politely in recent times –it has been posed often, rudely and aggressively of late and I’m frankly sick of the foolishly uninformed of both political persuasions parroting any rubbish they hear when it suits them to disagree with the results of a poll. A person in my shoes would feel that it was time for all the armchair experts to stop shooting the messenger, obtain a few basic facts and refrain from slandering people they have not met on the basis of information they have not examined.



I can promise you that the polls will turn in time and doubtless the views of today’s complainants will also turn. In the meantime, I will pursue my profession of thirty years in an honest and diligent way asking only the basic courtesy of silence in the peanut gallery.

Please feel free to write again.

My very kind regards,
Martin O'Shannessy
CEO Newspoll
T 02 9921 1001 M 0419 988035 www.newspoll.com.au

 

[drsmith]

Julie Bishop vs Julia Gillard round 2,

Part of the exchange in parliament as follows,

Julie Bishop: Given the Prime Minister’s involvement in the power of attorney in early 1993 and in the defamation case in late 1993, how can the Prime Minister continue to claim, as she did to journalists at her press conference on 23 August, that her involvement in the AWU fund ceased in early 1992?

Julia Gillard: I continue to stand by what I said at that press conference. What I said at that press conference was the truth.

That response is sounding very much like the last line of defence.

http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/11/01/1226508/705198-121102-question-time.pdf

Ms Bishop told The Australian she was examining a significant pile of documents and would continue to press Ms Gillard for a parliamentary explanation of her involvement in the fund.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...union-file-dates/story-fn6tcs23-1226508746180

The Opposition clearly has the confidence to proceed with a full scale assult on this matter. Are they also slow-roasting her for good measure.

Yes. These two have been appropriately silent in the House but suddenly they are front and centre. Something is up.

Yes indeed.

 

[Ferret]

In the wake of the above comments, plus similar from Ves which I cannot now find (might be on a different thread) I have contacted the CEO of Newspoll, Mr Martin O'Shannessy to ask him for his response to these assertions. I'm appreciative of his courtesy in being prepared to respond.

Julia,

Thanks for going to the trouble of contacting Mr O'Shannessy and posting his response.

Whilst he sounds a little exasperated, his response reassures me that Newspolls are legitimate gauges of public voting intention.

 

[dutchie]

Macquarie Dictionary redefines Hypocrisy

hy·poc·ri·sy
[hi-pok-ruh-see]
noun, plural hy·poc·ri·sies.
1.
Australian Labor Party decisions and actions
2.
a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
3.
a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.
4.
an act or instance of hypocrisy.

example:

Labor government rewards known misogynist -

Disgraced Peter Slipper's back in the jet set

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...k-in-the-jet-set/story-e6freuy9-1226508717871

 

[MrBurns]

Rare footage has emerged of Gillards childhood -

http://i.imgur.com/XaiUx.gif

 

[Miss Hale]

Julie Bishop vs Julia Gillard.

http://media.smh.com.au/national/selections/gillard-its-personal-3758026.html

Towards the the end, Julia Gillard missed the speaker's vibe on withdrawing a comment and had to be told bluntly.

Two days in a row Bishop has posed questions to Gillard in parliament and yet not a mention on Lateline despite covering extensively what happened in parliament each day. Fobbed off again on ABC radio this morning too.