STOP THE PRESS - we want to get off
Dr Colin Benjamin OAM FAICD FISDS MAASW
Director General Life. Be in it.
As suggested in these posts all this year, it's time to stop the press - we just cannot believe that they are presenting a believable view of Australian public opinion.
The media managers of these polls refrained (sic) from enabling an independent review of their egregious errors at the last poll and still refuse to explain how they are manipulating their interpretation of the large number of people who turn them down or refuse to play their online, phone-in and very small focus group representations.
Last night's not-so-great debate was accurately described by the Australian's National Chief Reporter, Tom Dusevic as "messy, full of niggles and Alpha-male, index-finger emphasis. The referee was often ignored and the three judges were excellent in setting the terms of the engagement."
The natural bias of the paper, however, was its almost post-debate announcement that Morrison had won the debate and subsequent claim by its National Editor, Dennis Shanahan, that "Scott Morrison won the second leaders’ debate on the basis of the numbers and the fact Anthony Albanese was given no room to dwell on the vibe. It was the reverse of the first leaders’ debate. The Prime Minister’s pitch was for a choice and he dominated on Budget, economics and policy."
The Australian's investigations Editor, Shari Markson, writes "This debate reinforced the perception that Albanese struggles to grasp policy detail. ..The Prime Minister’s pitch was for a choice and he dominated on Budget, economics and policy."
All this as the same paper declares that Labor has stretched its lead over the Coalition after the interest rate rise, with Anthony Albanese closing the gap as preferred PM.
The West Australian's Kimberley Caines and Caitlin Rintoul summed it all up by writing " In fact, the tallying of the results of the debate descended into farce, with Mr Albanese first declared the winner, before broadcaster Nine declared the result a dead heat."
Over at the rival press establishment - the home of this "Not such a great debate" with its challenge to Channel 7's effort next week, five of the six 'experts" declared Albanese the winner. Its Economics correspondent mirrored the views of thirty thousand viewers who managed to get through the mangled polling mechanism to declare it a 50:50 tie.
At The Australian Financial Review, while this fracas was proceeding to a non-result, Phillip Coorey reports that "if the undecided votes are taken off the table, Labor's primary vote is 38% and the Coalition's is 32% and Labor is ahead on a two-party preferred basis by 57% to 43%.'"
Morgan Research has also given up following the legendary approach of Roy Morgan, who brought Gallup Polls to Australia by actually visiting people in their homes across the country and asking voters to fill in secret ballot papers. with real candidates, gives the same result as last night's figures.
It reports equal support for the two majors (35%:35%) with a significant 13% supporting one of the nearly forty independents, Pauline Hanson's mob getting 3% and Palmer's people getting1% despite both of these latter parties lodging candidates in all seats to try to win a Senate seat between them.
The highly regarded Newspoll, that had a lot better luck with its recent State election projections shows the ALP with a primary vote of 39% against the L/NP with the same 35% as Roy Morgan Research that indicates a TPP of 54%:46% projected result - clearly not the dreaded hung parliament that its media has been threatening with a vote for those many independents.
How can any responsible independent pollster ask us to be anything but bemused by their latest "results" when the IPSOS poll says that the Liberal primary vote is a devastatingly low 29%, which would mean a clear majority lead of 14 points with ALP on a 57%TPP lead over the LNP on only 43%? Stop the press when we stop the advertising avalanche and leave the decision in our own hands.