Essential Research has opened its account for 2016 with a poll that records a one-point shift away from the Coalition off what was already a very low base for them, relative to the other pollsters. Compared with the last poll in mid-December, the Coalition is down a point to 44%, while Labor and the Greens are steady on 35% and 10%. This being the first result of the year, the result encompasses 1011 respondents polled from Friday to Monday, rather than Essential’s usual two-week rolling average. Also featured are the monthly personal ratings for the leaders, which find Malcolm Turnbull down five on approval to 51% and up two on disapproval to 25%, while Bill Shorten is exactly unchanged at 27% and 47% respectively. Turnbull’s lead on preferred prime minister is down from 54-15 to 51-18.
The poll also has a straightforward question on favoured candidate to win the US presidential elections, offering four named options: Hillary Clinton on 40%, Donald Trump on 12%, Bernie Sanders on 6% and Ted Cruz on 2%, leaving 8% for “someone else” and 32% for “don’t know”. Remarkably, breakdowns by party support show statistically identical results for Labor and Coalition supporters (but nearly ten times as much support for Sanders among Greens voters). Further questions find consistent agreement that sexism and discrimination against women exists to at least some extent in workplaces, media, politics, advertising and sport (from 58% to 62% opting for a lot or some), but less so in schools, where 44% opted for a lot or some, and 41% for a little or none.
Election polling errors blamed on ‘unrepresentative’ samples
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-35347948
Tom.
Tom@1
Must take a genius to figure that out.
Reposting from the last thread:
I think we’ll have to wait for some of the non-Morgan or Essential polls before we can really get a good idea of the state of play right now. I don’t really have much faith in the accuracy of either Morgan or Essential.
The slight drops in Coalition support in both and in Turnbull’s personal ratings in Essential are somewhat encouraging, but until we see more it could all easily just be statistical noise.
Asha Leu
I agree!
[“Former Employment Minister Senator Eric Abetz has said he would be “very concerned” if the Labor party could get access to the sixth volume of the royal commission into trade union corruption, which the commissioner Dyson Heydon elected to keep confidential in order to protect the safety of witnesses.”]
Agreed. Labor has reminded us how ingrained union croyism is within it’s party when it attacked Dyson Heydon for being booked to speak at a Lib Party event despite the Royal Commission having nothing to do with Labor.
Now they want the names of witnesses?
Labor has a choice. They can either vote for the legislation or we can have a Double D Election on it.
[Labor has a choice. They can either vote for the legislation or we can have a Double D Election on it.
]
Oh goody. I’ll take the double D. Labor was born and bred in that particular briar patch.
The drop in Malcolm’s support seems more than statistical noise
TBA
Secrecy:
According to Machiavelli, honesty—and all other virtues—are expendable if deceit, treachery, and force would be more expedient. In short, he would argue, people in positions of power should choose to be, well, Machiavellian, even if that is not their natural leadership style.
That’s out LNP for you!.
TBA
I hate to burst your bubble by Labor already has copies of the Turc secret squirrel stuff.
This is because every State gave letters patent to Haydon. He gave his report to the Governor General and State Governors.
Thus every State Premier has a copy.
But good to see Abetz doing the ALP’s work in destabilising Turnbull.
Good afternoon all,
I believe this poll is still too early into the new year to take anything positive or negative out of it just the first Morgan poll was no real indication of what this year will bring.
However, the one thing of interest to me will be the comments, if any, from those posters who jumped on the Morgan result to hammer away at Bill Shorten and the labor party.
Given that this poll shows a move towards labor and a slight tightening of the PPM figures I wait with anticipation for certain posters to shower the labor party with praise for the improvement in the figures.
Surely the very posters who took so much joy in using the Morgan figures to slam labor and Bill Shorten last week will not try and now find excuses for not acknowledging the relevance of this poll.
Cheers.
DOYLEY – Morgan also showed a trend to labor.
The pool of respondents is very small at 1011.
A small trend is better than no trend!.
Ooops
[A social media blunder by Malcolm Turnbull’s staff has shone a spotlight on anxiety within the Prime Minister’s Office about perceptions that their new leader is soft on terrorism.
As hawkish Liberal MPs attempt to fuel concerns over Mr Turnbull’s reluctance to ramp up Australia’s military role in the Middle East, the PMO today used the Prime Minister’s official Instagram account to publish a photo of their boss meeting with US Defence Secretary Ash Carter.
However the caption included not only a description of the photo, but a note from one member of Mr Turnbull’s media team to another workshopping the proposed caption.
It read: “How can we be against the fight against isil??? How about this — With Secretary of Defence Ash Carter at the Pentagon today where we discussed our coalition against ISIL in support of the Government of Iraq.”
The photograph, published around 2.03pm, was quickly pulled down.]
MTBW@12
Aren’t Galaxy/Newspoll, Reachtel and the like all using around 1000 respondents? I think only Morgan uses more people per poll. Essential always uses around 1000 per week, which turns out to be around 2000 per fortnight.
The photograph, published around 2.03pm, was quickly pulled down in a dazzling display of agility.
FTFY
Slav G
I don’t remember the numbers selected on all polls you may be right.
Kevin @11,
That is correct but that did not stop the usual suspects glooming and dooming over the primary vote of 29 % and going on and on about how it was all the fault of Bill Shorten etc etc etc.
This poll has the labor primary significantly higher and a 2PP significantly closer at 51 – 49 so one would expect those who used the Morgan to bash labor will now recognise how much better this poll is for labor and treat it with the same respect they did with Morgan.
I do not expect the above to happen but it will be interesting to see how, if at all, the same posters now try to squirm and argue about taking anything out of this Essential.
It would not surprise me if they now start posting how it is too early to judge and it is only one poll etc etc.
That I will find interesting.
Cheers.
Slav G@15
It is a while since I studied statistics, but, IIRC, doubling the size of a sample does not double your accuracy.
To make a big difference to the accuracy you have to have a much larger sample.
The hardest part of conducting an accurate poll is to get a sample that is truly representative of the population. If you do that well, a sample of 1,000 will yield a good result. If your sampling technique is not good then it won’t matter how big your sample is, it will provide a poor estimate of the population.
[British foreign officials have privately expressed disquiet about Australia’s diplomatic post link to a shadowy security firm that sells intelligence to corporate clients.
Created by former MI6 British Secret Service agents, Hakluyt is an ultra secretive firm whose client list reads like a who’s who of the business world with corporations retaining their services for strategic intelligence and advice as they look to expand operations.
The group boasts it doesn’t offer “off the shelf” advice but rather uses a network of key operatives across the globe to instruct on a country, government, industry or company’s outlook and exploitable strengths and weaknesses.
Australian High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer had been on the advisory board of the London-headquartered firm since 2008 when he was a UN special envoy but was forced to give up the position when he was appointed to head the Australian diplomatic post in London in 2014.
But it can be revealed Mr Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soiree at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.
His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.
…
Mr Downer’s links to the group raised concerns in Australia in 2008, just months after he left parliament having served as the country’s longest serving foreign minister with access to top tier national secrets. His association was also noted in Greece and Turkey, where local media accused him of a conflict of interest, given he was also serving as a special envoy to the UN Secretary General for Cyprus, which is split between the two nations and in conflict over rich natural deposits that multinationals are clambering to be involved in exploring.
Hakluyt was caught out in 2001 funding a former German spy to infiltrate environmental groups in Europe allegedly on behalf of oil company clients and preparing analyses for an Australian mining group.
Most recently in 2012 it hit the headlines when one of its part-time investigators was murdered in a Chinese hotel room under mysterious circumstances involving a high-level Communist Party figure and claims of espionage.]
http://www.news.com.au/world/britain-is-concerned-about-australias-links-to-hakluyt-security-firm-created-by-former-mi6-agents/news-story/5d6a3c7ccbd5cd9992379aeecaa5e3dc
Comment from William in late 2014.
I wonder if the comments for Morgan back then still apply ?
Also how is Fairfax-Ipsos being treated within the BludgerTrack model ?
[ Nielsen of course closed up shop a few months ago, which was significant in that BludgerTrack deemed it to be the most Coalition-friendly pollster, and the only one which adjusted for any substantial bias to that effect. Now that it’s gone, the model has a clear tendency to skew to the right of what a straight polling average would tell you.
Newspoll is rated as neutral by the model, but it hasn’t reported for a fortnight. When it did report, it gave Labor a 51-49 lead when the primary vote numbers looked a lot more like 50-50. It’s the primary votes that BludgerTrack goes off, so this was a 50-50 poll as far as the model was concerned. Clearly Labor got rounded up in the Newspoll result – it follows that they also got rounded down in BludgerTrack.
Galaxy is taken very seriously by BludgerTrack, and receives next to no bias adjustment at all. This week it gave Labor a lead of 51-49, although putting its rounded primary votes into the model produces a result of 50.6-49.4 going off 2013 preferences (as BludgerTrack does). If not for this poll, the Coalition would have moved into the lead.
ReachTEL’s last poll a fortnight ago had Labor leading 51-49, and BludgerTrack adjusts this pollster slightly in favour of the Coalition.
Morgan is reckoned to have the biggest bias in the game, that being in favour of Labor. Its result on respondent-allocated preferences this week was 51.5-48.5 in favour of Labor, but the more telling point so far as BludgerTrack is concerned is that it was the Coalition’s best result since February.
Essential is noted for being slow to respond to changes, and for this reason, BludgerTrack treats its bias in a unique way, by dynamically adjusting it according to how its deviates from the model over time. Since it’s stayed stuck with Labor on the cusp of leading 52-48 or 53-47, while the other pollsters have moved to the Coalition, a Labor bias adjustment is increasingly being factored into its results.]
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2014/10/09/bludgertrack-50-0-50-0-4/
Ken Tsang @jxeeno 55s55 seconds ago
and now the flipside. Here’s why you’d want a VPN to watch Netflix US over local providers (3k extra movies, 666 tv) http://www.finder.com.au/netflix-usa-full-list-of-exclusive-titles-not-on-stan-presto-or-netflix-australia …
lizzie
INTEGRITY, was MURDERED in this country in 1996!.
Possum Comitatus @Pollytics 3m3 minutes ago
Possibly, the entire copper part of Turnbull’s NBN will be unusable with it because of latency alone
[I wonder if the comments for Morgan back then still apply ?]
No, Morgan is now being adjusted based on its performance since Turnbull became PM, i.e. heavily in favour of Labor.
[Also how is Fairfax-Ipsos being treated within the BludgerTrack model ?]
Based on how it performed in comparison with other pollsters on Tony Abbott’s watch, which means adding about a point to Labor and “others” and taking one off the Coalition and the Greens.
Thanks William.
Margin of error for a sample size of about 1,000 is about 3%. For a sample size of 2,000 (most polls) it’s about 2%.
The formula is
square root (x)/ x, where ‘x’ is the sample size.
Keep an eye out for Tory hi-jinks this coming weekend – there’s a Lib MP wedding on, with many Ministers (including the PM) invited.
Steve777@27
A long forgotten formula that I couldn’t be bothered looking up.
Thanks Steve777.
Doyley
I agre with your comments about certain posters using one polling period to attack Mr Shorten.
As always the trend is your friend and bludgertrack is the best indication of that we have in this country in my opinion.
The only question here is are the Essential results the start of a trend some signs which may be apparent in Morgan. Only time will tell
Ah, the Narrowing. 😀
Just saw Turnbull doing the hand on heart thing in America.
Just stand straight and be proud.No need for the cringe.
William Bowe@25
You mean heavily in favour of L/NP?
ZOILORD – What is possum talking about?
lizzie
[Just stand straight and be proud.No need for the cringe.]
Saw it this morning and thought ‘Do Australians really do that”.
guytaur @30,
I think both Essential and the Morgan from last week are too early in the year to use as any guide to future polling performance.
The only interesting takeout from this poll and Morgan will be the difference in the rhetoric from some posters from last week to this.
Cheers.
CTar1
Some footballers have taken it up, I notice, probably from watching American football. 😡
GuardianAus: Liberal plan for Bronwyn Bishop’s seat decried as ‘North Korean nepotism’ https://t.co/A0wOr1MC3n
Slav G, I mean it’s adjusted heavily in favour of Labor, because the poll is deemed to be heavily in favour of the Coalition.
Doyley – Most of the posters you refer to, I don’t read. But I agree it is very early days. The whips won’t start cracking until Prince Mal actually tries to do something (if he bothers)
With this proposed legislation the Liberals have reminded us how ingrained corporate ownership is within the party.
The multi-million dollar Royal Commission was evidence of the Liberal Party determination to do the bidding of its corporate puppet masters. This legislation is further evidence of the anti-worker rights agenda for the benefit of its corporate owners. It is evidence that it cares not for Australian workers.
Long may they rot in hell
Kevin @40,
I actually get amusement out of reading the posters I talked about. I read all the posts here but I just refuse to engage a number of them or actually give a rats about what they say.
I just treat them as my daily dose of humour. I live in Brisbane and treat the Courier Mail the same way.
I read it every day now just to see what angle they will try to use to make everything the Libs do fantastic and everything labor does terrible.
Great sport ! I treat some posters here the same.
Cheers.
SUSC – The Liberal Party are classic “Compradors”: Local representatives of foreign business interests. The Multis tell the BCA what they want, and the BCA tells the govt.
Tasmanians oppose GST increase
Fiscal policy is far more powerful than monetary policy for managing the economy.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=5240
lizzie
[
Just saw Turnbull doing the hand on heart thing in America.]
First noticed it with Howard. A nasty habit he picked while visiting Dubya.
bobjcarr: China’s 6.9% GDP growth rate is not the hard landing feared & Aus can benefit – @j_laurenceson via @ConversationEDU https://t.co/XCRpHGNKzy
They are polls by different pollsters – one by Morgan and one by Essential. Why would you suggest that an Essential poll represents an improvement on a Morgan poll?
lizzie
[Just saw Turnbull doing the hand on heart thing in America.]
Anyone who did that, I would not let back in the country.
Lizzie
[Just saw Turnbull doing the hand on heart thing in America.]
What is a woman supposed to do, put her hand between her boobs? Or do only men do it?
Anyway, Turnbull doesn’t have a heart. That space is where he stashed Eleventy Joe’s calculator.