I think Absolute Power may actually be Wishart – in his ‘interview’ with whaleoil, Wishart made a typical tory comment about the downside of democracy being that people with sub-100 IQs (that’s 50% of people) can vote, and here’s AP calling the new zealand people morons.

Oh and AP. Labour has outpolled National in 8 of the last 12 elections. If you include the Alliance with Labour, that figure goes to 10 out of 12.

“Hoolian. I think he makes that statement on the basis of being better informed than yourself. have a look at the polling agencies’ performance in 2005. http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2005/3898/ ” – Steve

I’m loath to let the facts get in he way of your good story, but CB was third out of five in that link – ahead of Fairfax ACN and Morgan in terms of average error across all parties… so much for “worst performer”

[play nice, 'sod. SP]

I haven’t seen figures but I hear that in the last two decades you had a better change of predicting the election outcome correctly by flipping a coin than by using colmar brunton.

And yeah, I know Labour haven’t been doing well, and the Greens have been all over the place. The trends seem to be going in the right direction though, Colmar Brunton notwithstanding.

On what basis are you making that outrageous assertion, Tane? Colmar-Brunton is one of the county’s leading telemarketing companies. Admit it, the only reason you seek to undermine it’s credibility is because it put a Key-led National way ahead, and that doesn’t sit right with you.

Instead, we should see polls for what they really are: a bit of fun for political junkies and a useful indicator of trends over a period of time.

Yes, well, if you take that viewpoint of polls as trends, then you must also admit that Labour is not actually doing all that well. They have polled consistantly behind National. A pity really.

Does anyone know if polls are usually better scheduled than this?

This incident illustrated the inaccuracy of polls (or at least the influence certain non-random factors have upon polling) and I would imagine it damages the credibility of the political market research industry. Maybe next time they should compare notes and delay the release of one poll to avoid something like this.