The Federal Election Thread

[DIEHARD]

Liberal disunity fuelling polls: Rudd

Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd says the disarray in Liberal ranks is behind the government's poor showing in opinion polls.

The latest Newspoll shows Mr Rudd and Labor still holding an election-winning 10-point lead after a fortnight of bad publicity for Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal-National coalition government.

In more bad news for the government, the poll found that any last-ditch effort to replace Mr Howard with Treasurer Peter Costello would not turn around the coalition's fortunes.

Nearly one in three voters say such a change would make them less likely to vote for the coalition, while 60 per cent of those polled said it would make no difference to their vote.

Mr Rudd, who is campaigning in Tasmania, said he was not concerned about Liberal Party tactics ahead of the election.

"I'm completely relaxed about what tactics the Liberals want to adopt," Mr Rudd told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"The truth is that they are in quite a degree of internal disarray at the moment.

"Remember, Mr Howard is the one who told the country that disunity is death in politics and there's a fair bit of disunity in the Liberal Party at the moment.

"They are in disarray. Australian people spot all this at a distance. They see through it all. You can't pretend that this is just a fine and dandy relationship between the prime minister and the treasurer."

Leadership tensions re-emerged last week when excerpts from a new biography of Mr Howard were published in which Mr Costello made disparaging remarks about Mr Howard's record as treasurer.

Mr Rudd said the comments had completely undermined the government's scare campaign against Labor's economic management.

He said it was time Mr Howard, who turns 68 this week, told voters whether he planned to remain for a full term if re-elected this year.

"Mr Howard, when repeatedly asked this question, refuses to commit to that," Mr Rudd said.

"And part of the reason he refuses to commit to that is because of the massive internal instability in the Liberal Party between himself and Mr Costello.

"Remember how disabling it became for the Labor Party when you had Mr Hawke and Mr Keating at each other for a long long time? I believe the Liberal Party is getting to that same level of internal disabling."

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott says the Howard government's good but not perfect record will see it win the next election.

"The government has a record, it's not a perfect record but it's a good record and all Labor has is a wish list," he told reporters in Sydney.

"The Howard government is not perfect ... but we have successfully steered Australia through all of the storms of the last 11 years."

Asked whether the government had manipulated those storms, Mr Abbott said; "I don't think that's fair. Obviously there are various policies the government has adopted over the years which have turned out to be electorally popular, but what's wrong with that?"

Mr Abbott, who is attending a state and territories health ministers meeting, said it would be unprecedented to lose the next election.

"It would be unprecedented for a competent government in a time of economic success to lose office ... records do get broken but certainly it would be unprecedented and that's why I remain confident that if the government stays the course ... we will be appropriately recognised by voters," he said.

"(Opposition leader) Kevin Rudd can't have it both ways.

"He can't support all the government's significant policies while at the same time claiming there is something fundamentally dishonest about the way this government governs."

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has dismissed the latest biography of Prime Minister John Howard which goes on sale on Tuesday as disappointing and lacking in insight.

"I've flicked through it, I don't think it's much of a book myself," Mr Downer told ABC Radio.

The biography, John Winston Howard, by academics Peter van Onselen and Wayne Errington, has caused ructions within the government, revealing Treasurer Peter Costello's criticism of Mr Howard's tenure as treasurer from 1977 to 1983 and his spending as prime minister.

Mr Costello is also shown to have suggested Mr Howard leaked a memo to damage him in 2001.

Mr Downer said the book had created some controversy and media excitement.

"I'm very disappointed with it. I thought it might have been a little more insightful," he said.

"At the end of the day, the public are concerned about their own lives, their livelihoods, issues like interest rates, their jobs, the children's jobs, their income, their mortgages.

"These are the issues that are important to people, not a bit of gossip about whether John Howard said this, or Peter Costello said that, or I said something else years ago."

Source: http://www.ninemsn.com

[DIEHARD]

It should be Kevin in a Ruddslide

KEVIN Rudd has surged in popularity despite a week of reports about his jaunt to a strip club and a record bumper surplus by the Howard Government.

The Labor Party now leads the Government by an extraordinary 14 points on a two-party preferred vote in the latest Herald Sun/Galaxy poll - a result that would see a landslide ALP win if repeated at the coming election.

Instead of damaging Mr Rudd's standing, revelations of a visit to the strip club appear to have helped him, with 85 per cent of voters polled saying it showed he was "a normal bloke".

A third said he was unlucky to be caught out. Just 10 per cent said it showed poor morals - and opinion was almost universal with male and female voters taking a similar view.

However in more bad news for the Howard Government, its economic credentials have taken a battering after Treasurer Peter Costello unveiled a $17 billion surplus last week.

Rather than attributing the surplus to good economic management, 51 per cent of those polled believe the Government accumulated its surplus by setting taxes too high.

Even 29 per cent of Coalition voters said the surplus had been achieved by excessive taxing.

Just 32 per cent of voters overall gave the Government credit for building the surplus through good economic management.

The Coalition's primary vote has shrunk to 39 per cent - down three points on last month - while Labor's primary vote has shot up three points to 47 per cent.

Support for the Greens and other minor parties was largely unchanged.

On a two-party preferred vote, the Labor Party now holds a 57-43 point lead over the Coalition - the overwhelmingly dominant position it held in April-May.

Over recent months the Galaxy poll has shown the Coalition clawing back support from Labor, but the weekend's poll shows those gains may have been wiped out.

The Government had hoped its strong surplus and the recent international market turmoil might boost its stocks with voters wary of Labor's inexperience on economic management.

However Galaxy Research pollster David Briggs said the impact of the recent rate rise weighed more heavily on voters than the strip club visit.

"The poll suggests that voters have been able to distinguish between issues of substance and non-issues, with the Government taking a hit on its economic credentials," he said.

Voters are also cynical about attempts by the Government to buy its way to an election victory with just 5 per cent saying that was the best way to spend the $17 billion surplus.

By contrast, 95 per cent said it should be spent on hospitals and schools, 72 per cent said spend it on infrastructure, 66 per cent said it should be given back to taxpayers as tax cuts, and 56 per cent said it should go to the states.

The Galaxy phone poll of 1004 voters was taken over the weekend.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday called on Labor to reveal where it would cut government expenditure to pay for its promises.

Opposition treasury spokesman Wayne Swan earlier accused the Government of failing to be prudent in making election spending promises.

"Its approach has been to hoard the money and then to throw it at the electorate just before an election," he said.

Mr Howard used his weekly radio address to hit back at Mr Swan and accuse Labor of playing a "double dishonest game with the public".

"While Mr Swan fails to acknowledge that Labor's own post-Budget commitments exceed $4.6 billion, the weekend attack raises an obvious question," he said.

"If Mr Rudd has now decided to oppose the Government's commitments, which of them will be axed if Labor wins government?"

NEWS.COM.AU

[jenny]

Latest poll 'very bad' for Coalition
September 04, 2007

PRIME Minister John Howard has described the latest opinion poll showing the Government slipping further behind Labor as a "very bad poll for the Coalition".

The Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper today, shows two-party-preferred support for the Opposition rising to 59 per cent compared, to 41 per cent for the Coalition.

"Yes, it's a very bad poll for the Coalition ... I recognise that," Mr Howard said on Sky News.

"What it does though is to encourage me, enthuse me to work even harder to convince the Australian public that the future prosperity and security of this country would be better under a Coalition Government."

Mr Howard also gave an insight into when the election would be called, ruling out a January election as "ridiculous" and saying it would be "well before Christmas".

Mr Howard said he did not deny the importance of the poll result, and his fellow Coalition members should do the same.

"Political figures who say they don't take any notice of polls are misleading the public and indeed being contemptuous of the public," he said.

Deputy Opposition leader Julia Gillard said the poll should be treated with caution.

"The latest Newspoll result shows Australians are rejecting Prime Minister John Howard's extreme Work Choices laws in favour of the Labor Party's plans," Ms Gillard said.

"The poll .... indicates people are embracing Labor's fairer and better alternatives."

It also showed Mr Rudd's drunken visit to a New York strip club have failed to dent his prospects of winning office.

But Ms Gillard cautioned against taking the poll at face value and warned that it would take a huge swing for Labor to win the next election.

"Labor knows that polls will go up and they will go down," she said.
TELEGRAPH

[Ryan]

DO POLLS LIE?

With Athens behind us, a new sport has burst into the limelight: poll-watching. If you thought Olympic commentators could be predictable, stand by for four weeks of, ?How should we interpret the latest poll figures, Minister?? and ?Do you feel you?re the underdog in this race?? and the hoary reply, ?At the end of the day, there?s only one poll that matters?. But do the polls lie? And if so, how often?

In an Australian Journal of Political Science article following the last federal election, Justin Wolfers and I noted that the two grand dames of election polling - Morgan and Newspoll - had similar success rates in forecasting the election winner. In its election-eve polls, Morgan got it wrong on three of the past six elections (1990, 1993, 2001), while Newspoll did only marginally better, incorrectly calling two of the six (1993, 1998). As for relative newcomer AC Nielsen, they correctly forecast the 2001 election, but are yet to demonstrate a long track record. Indeed, we found that in 2001, election betting markets, run by the Northern Territory bookmaker Centrebet, were a better guide than the pollsters (as in horse-racing, when there?s money on the line, bookies have a strong incentive to get the odds right).

It is hardly surprising that pollsters don?t do a perfect job of predicting elections. One problem is that voting patterns are never stable. On average, my research shows that about 10 per cent of us change our vote from one election to the next. But a bigger issue is that since a typical poll samples only 1,000 to 2,000 voters, we can?t be confident that the poll result is an accurate reflection on the whole electorate.



What is the right margin of error to employ? The most common approach is to use a margin of error such that in 19 polls out of 20, the gap between the real figure and the poll estimate will be smaller than the sampling error. If the poll samples 1,000 people, its sampling error will be 3 per cent either way. With a sample of 2,000, the sampling error falls to plus or minus 2.2 per cent. Sample sizes for recent polls have been Newspoll, 1,100, AC Nielsen, 1,400 and Roy Morgan, 1,900.

But although the sampling error is sometimes noted in small print at the foot of an article, it rarely makes its way into the text. By contrast, the best US papers take a much more careful approach, explicitly using the statistical margin of error in discussing the results. This better informs the reader, and can be done without needless jargon. For example, the New York Times last week said of the US Presidential contest: ?the Times poll and several others released on Thursday showed the race to be deadlocked, with neither candidate holding a lead beyond the margin of sampling error.?

Taking into account sampling error, what do the polls tell us about the Australian race? In their latest polls, AC Nielsen and Roy Morgan have Labor with a lead that exceeds the margin of error. However, according to a Newspoll released yesterday, the gap between the two parties is smaller than the sampling error.

Another factor to remember is that the sampling error when comparing two polls is larger still, since both polls have their own margins of error. For example, while the usual sampling error for a single AC Nielsen poll is plus or minus 2.6 per cent, the standard error of a movement from one AC Nielsen poll to the next is plus or minus 3.6 per cent.

The bottom line? Changes in polls from one week to another are even more error-prone than the polls themselves. So statements like, ?since the last poll, Labor?s vote share is up 2 per cent?, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Accurate reporting of the polls may make for less reading of the tea leaves by the nation?s amateur psephologists. But if this clears more space for journalism about the parties? vision for the future, that?s no bad thing.

First published in the Sydney Morning Herald September 1, 2004.
source

I know it's an old story, but it still has some relevant info....

The only good poll's are the one's that ladies dance on :woot:

[Social Loafer]

I know it's an old story, but it still has some relevant info....

The only good poll's are the one's that ladies dance on :woot:

I agree

So does Kevin Rudd

[jenny]

I know it's an old story, but it still has some relevant info....

The only good poll's are the one's that ladies dance on :woot:

[Coaster]

I often wonder how the hell the get those poll results??

I have never been asked who i was voting for, and i know nobody who has.

Most of these polls are from Students, and biased news stations like Sun Lies.

[Ryan]

Basically 47% of 0.000002% of the population who were polled, are gonna vote for labour. And then take into account that previous election polls have a strike rate of 50-60%..............

[Capital_Shark]

Anyone can come up with useless statistics. 14% of everyone knows that.

[Ryan]

Anyone can come up with useless statistics. 14% of everyone knows that.

86% of everyone blindly eat them up.......

[nflin3]

The galaxy polls survey only 3000 people by phone.

[jenny]

The galaxy polls survey only 3000 people by phone.

Never ever happened to me

[nflin3]

The polls are inaccurate and dont show a true indication of preference to party or leader.

it is designed foe media uses and can easily be swayed or corrupted.

[jenny]

The polls are inaccurate and dont show a true indication of preference to party or leader.

it is designed foe media uses and can easily be swayed or corrupted.

Ohh OK

[jenny]

I agree

So does Kevin Rudd