'; ?> Latest Newspoll shows trend towards Labor | What The People Want
Latest Newspoll shows trend towards Labor
Tuesday, 05 April 2005 21:40 | Written by Graham Young

Newspoll's latest poll is of 1145 people and puts its accuracy at plus or minus 3%. So when it shows a swing towards Labor of 3.8% one should be cautious. However, there are grounds for thinking there might be something in this poll. The result is in line with the Morgan poll that I reported on a few days ago. It is more or less permissible to combine the two samples, which gives us 3,036 respondents (1891 from Morgan and 1145 from Newspoll). Except the sample isn't quite that large as Newspoll excluded 8% of their sample because they didn't answer this question with a preference. Adjusting for this (and assuming Morgan didn't do the same and didn't tell us) the total is 2,944. Still pretty large. The adjusted totals are 44% Coalition, 40% Labor, 7% Greens and 10% other with a sample error of plus or minus 1.8%. In other words this is a statistically meaningful move since the last election. Newspoll also tends to confirm the results in its own terms because of the trend. Unlike Morgan, where the results have bounced in both directions, Newspoll shows a clear trend since the election. This trend is important because just as I can combine results from different surveys that occur over more or less the same time period, you can do the same with different samples within the same survey over a time period. By producing a rolling average (which is all a trend actually is) you can get a more certain result. ABC news reports Opposition Treasury Spokesman Wayne Swan on the result:
"Labor treasury spokesman Wayne Swan says the result is welcome but it is a long time before the next election. He says the poll reflects the public's disappointment in the recent interest rates rise.
He's right to be cautious about the poll result, and politic on the reasons for the change. While we can measure movement on these figures we can't measure cause. That's why What the people want asks qualitative questions and combines them with regression analysis based on the ABS statistics, wherever possible.
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0 #1 Comment — Pollyfodder 2005-10-10 02:11
Peter Beattie and Queensland Labour are as popular now as the Nationals and Liberals were in Queensland at the last election. FEDERAL Labour will BOOM at the next federal election where Queensland Labour will be dead and burried forever after the cover-ups, Dr Death, Asbestos cover ups in our schools and all the other dirt that has and surfaced and the dirt that is yet to come.