I know, I'm a pollster, so why don't I know? Well I don't but I have suspicions. It seems to me that what we are seeing in polls is more and more a reflection of mood rather than intention. So Newspoll today has a 4% swing away from the government on a two-party preferred basis over a similar time period to the Gippsland by-election which saw a 7% swing away.

Gippsland was about intentions, but either it was an aberrant result, or the pollsters are measuring something other than intention. That's what I'm calling mood.

I noticed this disjunct during the election campaign when the polls had Labor on anywhere up to 60%, but come election day it was only 52.7%. Very creditable, but nowhere near the same figure.

Now in Queensland I'm seeing similar volatility, and I don't trust it. If you've got any theories, or have recently answered an opinion poll, I'd like to know what you think, or why you answered the way that you did.

Perhaps its "civilisation tiredness" thats making us moody?
Ive got a theory that civilisation is getting towards some kind of use-by date where everything slows to a halt...maybe a fall, like other civilisations went through.
Where things no longer function as they did when they were young and fresh.

Most of us whove been around some decades are getting a bit tired of things like polls...and politics.
I guess we are getting moody; and most youngsters dont care about such things.
Im sure us baby boomers are tired.
I think we are on the backside of the hill.
When we were building up a civilisation, we seemd to have cared...but now we are on the shadow side, mostly through declining morlaity and high crime maybe we dont care much.
From Adam and Eve to the end of Revelation...maybe theres an invisible time limit on mankind and all he does?

Dear Graham,

I've always felt that opinion polls were rather limited in their
accuracy. That is, they're only valid for the time and place in which they were made.

People often change their minds on many issues
or they give an opinion
on something that they know nothing about.

I think by-elections are more difficult to guage than general elections. The economy does not look good. Even though it is probably not the Rudd Government's fault, it still does not look good. That is all people can see: the current outcome.

Also, Australians have also traditionally been suspicious of Governments getting too much power. It makes sense for some people to have a few "watch dogs" there just to give any opposition some teeth. Esecially when the economy doesn't look good now.

I know the Morgan Gallop poll is interesting taking information from various methodologies and techniques in a mix to try to be more accurate. Somewhere between the heart, the hands and the mind lies the pillars of civilization. Perhaps it is instinctual to try and balance something that could have gone too far one direction.

Another theory. hmm.

I wonder how much of the uncertainty in polls is due to the fickleness of those being polled, who don’t know who to support, because they really feel that neither party is worth supporting. They have to choose the least bad of two disliked entities. They could support different parties/leaders depending on the most minute differences in what they hear in the media, or how they happen to be feeling at the moment that they are being polled…..and they may very well express the opposite view the next time they are polled or when they vote.

There is such a tiny and intangible difference between Liberal and Labor. What is amazing to me is that there is consistently a big difference in the level of support for them, with KRudd and Labor being way out in front for an extended period of time. I don’t find the relatively small fluctuations or lack of reliability in the exact figures to be of any consequence at all.

The polls most definitely reflect the mood of the moment rather than intent.

I think some polls are mood not intention, some say one thing to let of heat but vote other way.
I do polls almost every week but have seen results that are unlikely to be true in an election.
I feel high fuel prices the shambolic mess of NSW and such is unlikely to see most want a change of government, polling however lets them let of steam.

Don't know the answer Graham but during the run up to the last Federal Election, a friend swore she was going to vote Labor for the first time in her life - even though it was going to "kill her" to do so (her words) but in the end voted for the Liberals.

Disappointment doesn't always influence vote in some cases but clearly in the case of the 2007 Federal Election, there was enough of it to go around to change government. Like Ludwig said, there is very little to distinguish the two majors, so it comes down to maybe one or two major issues and perceptions of a government having lost touch with the grass roots and the perceived 'viability' of the opposition.

We saw the seriously flawed NSW State Government elected not through popularity but through lack of a reasonable and viable alternative.

Like any survey, the accuracy of polls would probably depend on various factors in the sample taken (demographic, education, income) on any given week. There might be a tendency for some participants to provide a preference during the survey/poll even if their intentions are really undecided, and this percentage is reflected in the final results.

The Nationals have held the seat of Gipplsand for 86 years approx, so this result does not have any real meaning for the current Rudd government.

I think the answer lies in the question - not so much mood as opinion. Hugh Mackay talks about the mood of the nation which always strikes me as a fuzzy way of describing it.

Your mood is something within you, your opinion about something outside yourself can change with your mood, yes, but it mostly changes according to what that thing outside yourself does. So people can have a good opinion of, for example, Kevin Rudd while he was apologising and signing Kyoto, but their opinion changes when his deeds fail to match his words.

The mood of the nation does change, but much slower than opinions, which can change in an instant. Look what the handshake did for Mark Latham.

Opinion polls are measures of people's responses to whatever is happening at the time. In my opinion that's pretty important.

I think there are too many variables to make polls useful, Graham. I don't take any notice of them.

As the politicians say - the only poll that matters is the election poll.

Yes, polls are at best, a guide.

But before we criticise their accuracy too much, remember how many straight polls predicted a Labor victory at the last election. I seem to recall hearing that there were 40 or 50 consecutive newspolls that predicted a Labor win, without a single poll to the opposite.

That's quite persuasive. Not even a blip the other way.

I think polls have a very brief use-by date, and you need to factor in a certain 'mood' percentage. I define this mood percentage as an answer on the poll that is contrary to how you would really vote, because you may be annoyed about a certain issue adopted by your favored party, that isn't really enough to make you change your vote, but is enough for a spiteful entry on a poll.
These 'mood' percentages could be minimised by assessing when the poll was taken. Was it in the wake of a particularly controversial party stance? If not, then it's more likely to be accurate, I think.

Actually the question is not if they are 'accurate' but whether they are representative.

Being 'representative' depends on the questions and the questioned.

It does not matter how many polls are taken, if the questions or the questioned are skewed, the outcome will be skewed.

Col's right, of course - as is TRTL, of course :) I'd bet that's because they're both OLO members who take notice of public opinion polls, regardless of their opinions about their validity and reliability - and of course that's what this topic's about.

It all depends on the question, particularly if the sample favours the hoi polloi.

Graham,

Could the apparent aberration between the Newspoll result prediction and the Gippsland by-election result be related to voter turnout?

The Australian Electoral Commission's Virtual Tallyroom final results for the 28 June 2008 Gippsland by-election shows voter turnout as having been 89.68% of the 95,580 electors now enrolled. See: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefsByVoteType-13813-213.htm

At the October 2007 Federal elections the voter turnout for Gippsland is shown as having been 95.67% of the 94,967 electors then enrolled. See: http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefsByVoteType-13745-213.htm

Could it have been that there was a particularly heavy concentration amongst those who failed to vote at the recent by-election, of an intention to otherwise support the government that actually was expressed in the form of votes for it at the 2007 Federal elections?

Note the six percentage points difference (a decline) in voter turnout between the Federal elections and the by-election. It would seem that if there was such a concentration of intention to support the government amongst those who failed to vote on 28 June 2008, the decline in turnout was sufficient to have accounted for the disparity between the Newspoll prediction and the official result.