There's still time to tell pollsters who got it wrong where to go...

As business is being urged to stick to its knitting by the Government; bankers are facing court cases and another inquiry into malpractice; the industry lobby for media owned polls is holding an internal inquiry to "position our industry for the benefit of members."

AMSRO , the peak organisation for Australia's market and social research organisations, presents its primary objective as ' to protect and promote the industry' "Our mission is to position our industry for the benefit of members."

John Utting, Veteran Research, Polling, Reputation and Issue Management Consultant calls out the industry as broken and completely discredited, saying "Discredited, distrusted, even despised, the pollingindustry has reached its nadir. It would be hard to imagine how things could get worse... I write is to ensure this doesn't happen again and suggest a series of initiatives to clean up and rehabilitate our industry and the health of our democracy."

 Professor Murray Goot , an advisor to the Industry inquiry into where the polls got it so wrong, addresses the many myths that attempt to explain why the media owned published polls for the 2019 election were way off the mark. But we still don’t know why.

Readers can see his challenge to the variety of excuses that continue to be offered up including that voters changed their mind as they headed for the ballot box, that they were shy and didn't6 want to share intentions or other Quiet Australian rationalistions for the "miracle result" can get all the evidence - see table above - at https://insidestory.org.au/did-late-deciders-confound-the-polls/

The Australian Market and Social Research Society (AMSRS) has 2,100 individual professional researchers as members. It proudly announces itself as the peak organisation for Australia's market and social research organisations stating, "Our primary objective is to protect and promote the industry so that its important contribution to our economic Our mission is to position our industry for the benefit of members."

The Association of Market and Social Research Organisations (AMSRO, its partner organisation, represents market and social research organisations, has 90 member organisations, accounting for approximately 75 per cent of the industry's employment. The market research industry turns over approximately $750 million annually but reserves to itself access to the systematic errors that influence voters' choices.

Craig Young, AMSRO President says Young said. "I note that access to a single, comprehensive, national sample source for telephone interviewing, such as the Integrated Public Number Database, is not currently available to the industry. This will no doubt be one key issue for the review to explore,” "

Craig justifies the internal nature of the inquiry saying: “Significant uncertainty and disquiet has emerged about the performance of the major opinion polls in the lead up to the 2019 Federal Election. An impartial and comprehensive industry-wide inquiry process is required to examine the performance of the polls and restore public confidence in the credibility of polling. While each of the polling companies is likely undertaking internal analysis of their own polling practices and performance, we anticipate they will agree to share all relevant data and practices with the Inquiry Panel, once they see the robust process established.”

Craing Young explained : “lt is important to note that in Australia, we have a long history of the major polls usually getting it right. That makes it critical that we look at what might have changed recently in terms of methods employed, sample sources used, and the environment within which polls are conducted, to get to the bottom of what went wrong and how we can do better as an industry. “Similar reviews have been undertaken in recent years in the US and UK, also in response to the polling results not matching election outcomes, so there are international precedents for what may have happened to polling accuracy, as well as industry responses."

One one of its first tasks will be to engage with the polling organisations directly and canvass their assistance, but there is evidence that they are failing to provide access to their sampling, manipulation of the views of people who don't have landline phones, use of robopolls while refusing to analyse those that hang up, don't answer or rely on mobile phones.

Craig explains  "I note that access to a single, comprehensive, national sample source for telephone interviewing, such as the Integrated Public Number Database, is not currently available to the industry. This will no doubt be one key issue for the review to explore,”

Ipsos CEO Simon Wake, whose company produces the Ipsos Poll, said: “We welcome the review and as an AMSRO member company we look forward to participating. While our published figures on the two party preferred outcome did not accurately predict the final outcome, they were within the poll’s margin of error. We do, however, believe it is important we do better in future

The Inquiry Panel is Chaired by Darren Pennay, the founder and immediate past-CEO of The Social Research Centre (SRC), one of Australia’s leading social research organisations, and part of the Australian National University.

The focus is on achieving collective, collaborative improvement where required, with any evidence, gathered to be ‘masked’ wherever possible in the Inquiry report. Processes, techniques and the environment within which polling is conducted are under scrutiny, not individual polling organisations.

Pennay says: “The focus of the review will be to objectively assess the quality of the polling data by looking at the techniques and processes employed across the different polling organisations. But the approach needs to be broad and comprehensive, without any a priori assumptions about what, if anything went wrong. We need to adopt a purely evidence-based approach. We also need to examine the role of the media in communicating polling findings to the public.

“It’s important to note that the Inquiry will not be focused on assessing the relative performance of individual polling companies, but rather on practices and processes in use across the industry. We will aim to mask or de-identify the polling companies’ data, and Panel members will sign non-disclosure agreements. The Inquiry aims to deliver an evidence-based approach to find ways to improve the processes and methods of political polling in Australia, so all companies can operate with a full appreciation of contemporary best practice

Terms of Reference are available on the AMSRO website, including

• assessing the accuracy of the polls at the 2019 Federal Election (both national and sub-national);
• evaluating whether there is any previous pattern of inaccuracies and the reasons and causes for any inaccuracies;
• to consult and seek evidence and insights from polling companies and other relevant stakeholders, including those who commission and publish polls;
• to assess the adequacy of information provided to, and by, the media and other commentators about how polls were conducted and what the results mean;

There's still time to tell the media owned pollsters who got it wrong where to go...by contacting Sarah Campbell, Executive Director, AMSRO Telephone (02) 8017 6717 Email [email protected]