Source : the age
The apparent fracturing of our two-party political system has catapulted an unlikely group of people to stardom. No, I’m not talking about One Nation politicians.
I’m referring to experts in the shadowy art of telling us what we think: pollsters. Most media outlets have one on the books. Businesses and politicians employ them too.
It’s rare that five months out from a state election, and just over a year into the federal government’s latest term, political polling features so prominently in the national conversation. The profound shift in Australia’s voting intentions, however, puts us in rarefied air.
To help our subscribers understand what is happening both nationally and at a state level, The Age uses Resolve Strategic to produce what you know as the Resolve Political Monitor, run by Jim Reed.
Some people are understandably sceptical about polls. They question their accuracy or motivations. They wonder if the result is influenced by the person commissioning the research. They wonder whether the research is thorough.
That scepticism is healthy. Pollsters don’t always get it right. At The Age we apply the same level of caution when we don’t know the methodology behind polling. In recent years, some pollsters have been wildly off the mark.
With RPM, however, we believe we’re in safe hands. Reed does things a little differently to others and at recent elections his predictions have been close to the mark. He eschews single-seat polling, where results can be unpredictable without highly detailed research. Two-party preferred results are not given prominence due to their overly simplistic representation of complex preference flows.
In our reporting, we attempt to be open with subscribers about the way RPM is put together, clear about when the survey is conducted and transparent about the sample sizes involved and the margins of error in the results. Feedback I’ve received suggests our readers appreciate this transparency and the meticulous approach Reed takes to his work.
If you want to comb through our latest state or federal poll results at any time, bookmark the page at this link. It can be hard to find on our website, but it’s a great resource for anyone interested in current voter sentiment.
In the lead-up to the Victorian state election on November 28 this year, you will see more Victoria-specific polling in The Age, as people start to decide who they want to represent them and run our state for the next four years. Subscribers can expect larger sample sizes at state level, more frequent polling and perhaps even some qualitative research (let’s talk more about that closer to November).
The latest Victorian RPM polling, revealed earlier this week, showed support for One Nation continuing to eat into the primary vote of the major parties, in a result that could have produced a hung parliament if an election was held last weekend.
In his commentary about the result, Reed told our state political editor Chip Le Grand that voters were drifting away from the incumbent Labor government after three terms in power.
“The question is whether One Nation and the Liberal Party share the spoils, or one gains the upper hand before November,” he said. “Many people will vote for whoever they think will win and bring about change.”
If a week is a long time in politics, five months is an eon. Where voters will ultimately land on the question of Victoria’s leadership is becoming increasingly difficult to predict.
I hope, however, subscribers take some reassurance from the fact they have Reed to grapple with that complex task on their behalf.
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