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- Date published:
9:15 am, October 24th, 2008 - 72 comments
Categories: polls -
Tags: herald digipoll
The latest Herald Digipoll presents quite a different picture to last night’s 3 News poll. While TV3 had the Left and Right blocs neck-and-neck with the Maori Party as kingmaker, the Herald has National still able to govern alone at 50.4% and 63 seats.
You can argue all you like over whether this result is plausible (personally I think it’s bollocks), but what’s clear is that something funny’s going on with the major polls. As 08wire puts it:
One of these polls is assuredly wrong.
It seems there are two camps. One the one hand we have Colmar Brunton/TVNZ and Herald/Digipoll, who are showing no major change during the campaign, and a likely solid National victory. Roy Morgan and TNS/TV3, on the other hand, show a tightening horse race between Labour and National, and a Maori Party dependent government.
From my experience and what I’m hearing from others on the ground the race is much tighter than the Herald Digipoll suggests, and a lot of soft National voters are swinging back to Labour, the Greens and even NZ First as the election nears.
Of course, that’s just anecdotal, but given this and what I’m hearing from my backchannels about internal polling, I wouldn’t put too much stock in polls that continue to put National at 50%.
Roll on Nov 9th, and then the actual result will/shall/might/hopefully be known*
* excluding any electoral petitions that may or may not be lodged.
Indeed
It is indeed hard to fathom the major difference between this result and TV3s poll?!
Someone has surely got it very wrong… could be the most interesting election in years.
“could be the most interesting election in years.”
No.
“Someone has surely got it very wrong”
some research companies are good at statistics some are not. Just remember that about something like 0.6% of the population can actually do statistic correctly. Research New Zealand on their website actually don’t seem to have a statistican in their research team, hmmm go figure when their head researcher said a sample is like a blood sample in a human body…. ummmm actually that is a bad example to use.
“And a lot of soft National voters are swinging back to Labour,”
None of my ‘soft’ National voting mates are.
If we’re to judge the Fairfax and the Herald polls by the standards of the newspapers they produce, then we really shouldn’t take those polls seriously at all. The Herald stepped over the line a lone time ago, from being an actual daily newspaper to becoming purely a proganda mechanism. Fairfax is notorious for its low standards. To think that more than 50% of New Zealanders support National is pure fantasy.
At what stage will these irreconcilable discrepancies undermine the credibility of all polling results once and for all? Almost every day there is a new set of data. Each one take up an inordinate amount of media time and yet none of them, individually or collectively, is able to tell us, the public, anything of substance.
Which leads to the question, what message is the average citizen (as opposed to the small clique of political junkies, media included) expected to glean from the continual publishing of polling results? Surely it really doesn’t matter how everyone else expects to vote – the only vote that matters is our own. It’s simply crystal-ball gazing.
Why doesn’t the media give up reporting these non-stories and devote its limited resources on details that do in fact help us all to make an INFORMED choice on polling day. Either that or bring in the Sensing Murder team who may be just as likely to predict the 8 Nov outcome as the polling companies.
The polls would be better if we could get reasonable polls of polls. However there are only 5 polls published regularly in NZ. It is simply too small to iron out methodology problems between companies.
I’ve been pointing out since this site began that the polls are only interesting for trends. I’m with hs on this. The only one that counts and is accurate is the nov 8th one.
I get the strong feeling that the Greens are doing a lot better than the Herald poll suggests. Their campaign is resonating with voters and being reflected well in the media. I think Lockwood Smith’s comments went down like a lead balloon with Pacific Island voters, and any sense of underlying prejudice doesn’t go down well with the NZ public, as a whole, including most conservatives. South Auckland will again remain with Labour due to the effectiveness of its ‘get out the vote’ machine, and the election will be decided by coalition and support deals.
Tim Murphy clearly believes his own polls, if the self-satisfied editorial in todays Herald is any guide.The bosses over at the Granny clearly thinks that they’ve done enough to deliver a National government.
I’ll be frank about this, I want a Labour victory just so I can get a nice bicuit and a pot of tea and luxuriate in shoving it down the Herald’s throat.
“Why doesn’t the media give up reporting these non-stories and devote its limited resources on details that do in fact help us all to make an INFORMED choice on polling day.”
Agree with that Pixie, right on the nail.
toms, I’ll join you on that big dump exercise
Think ZB could be shared with that experience
“Why doesn’t the media give up reporting these non-stories”
1. they generate cheap, easy copy.
2. they can be used to ‘validate’ news outlets’ editorial stances (polls that don’t do this are either misinterpreted or disgarded).
3. they can be used, a la push polling, to manipulate so-called opinion.
4. they provide a pretense of msm interacting with their audiences.
Polls are valuable tools for the commercial and propaganda interests of msm, so they won’t be dropping them any time soon. Thankfully the more they push their dodgey polls, the more the public begins to suspect their publishers’ credibility, but the msm also knows there are still more than enough inumerate and gullible people out there to make publishing polls worthwhile.
How is Labour’s internal polling going?
Greens said only a few days ago they will go with Labour.
http://www.odt.co.nz/election-2008/the-nation/28784/greens-consider-national
It is hard to draw any firm conclusions from the polls but it seems very unlikely that there will be a government-either left or right- with fewer than 4 parties involved. In previous elections the voters have moved towards the smaller parties as the election grew closer. I don’t believe National will get more than 45% of the vote.
If Winston gets over the 5 % mark my money is on a National, Act, United Future, NZ First coalition. John Key will negotiate with Winston if he needs to- if all that stands between him and power is Winston then Key will do what he needs to do. And although the Nats seem to hate Winston, and direct a good deal of vitriol towards him, Winston doesn’t seem to hold grudges against National- the 1996 election showed that.
Lampie: ZB audiences consist of a nutjob fringe group of Leighton Smith acolytes and some people who spend large parts of the day in the car and are looking for something which will simultaneouusly give them a laugh and reaffirm their sense of general intellectual superiority.
The Herald has always touted itself as an antipodean Times, but like the old Thunderer it has fallen under the spell of false Gods.
I spy this over at pundit.co.nz: “…Australian Provincial Newspapersthe publishers of the New Zealand Herald newspaper and website and the Listener amongst other titleshas announced it’s making “a small number of staff reductions”. I’m told that means three or four journalists from the Herald and one from the Listener…”
The real lesson of the sorry state of the Herald and the collapse of the Listener as a serious journal is the danger of having no media laws, and treating an important part of our democracy as if it were no different from widget manufacturing. We allow monopoly or duopoly foreign ownership of our fourth estate, and allow the profiting of Australian shareholders to be the driver behind gutting our media.
We need reform of the media ownership laws ASAP.
“and a lot of soft National voters are swinging back to Labour”
Actually the polls are aligned on Labours support, the difference is between National, Greens, and NZF.
This actually makes some sense to me – I quite like it. People who are pissed with Labour and want to express this have finally worked out that they don’t need to cut off their noses to spite their faces.
[Tane: Dude, you cut out half my sentence. Also, it’s not clear that because one party goes up and another down that they’re bleeding support to each other. The picture is far more complex, assuming the polls are even accurate and there’s no margin of error going on.]
Indeed Toms we should have state control of all media as soon as possible as that would undoubtedly produce less bias.
We need reform of the media ownership laws ASAP
yeap
HS, please don’t tell me you don’t understand the difference between regulating the media to ensure it is properly resourced to fulfil its democratic function and, um, Stalinism. You’re smarter than that.
I know I cut out half the sentence – I agreed with the other half!
I think you’re probably right, Labours polling has been improving dramatically (thought that could just be the result of polling methodology giving poor reads), and it’s safe to assume that the improvement has come at Nationals expense, just wanted to point out that the inconsistency between the two polls under discussion is not “National vs Labour” but “National vs Green/NZF”.
Tane – I may possibly have been taking the piss.
During election time people tend to rail against “the media” based on their latest story and whether it fits their political leanings our media is far less biased than it is superficial and reliant on fluffy pieces which masquerade as real news.
“South Auckland will again remain with Labour due to the effectiveness of its ‘get out the vote’ machine, and the election will be decided by coalition and support deals.”
Was this ever in doubt? South Auckland has been a Labour stronghold for decades.
We’ve done this before, many times.
*throws pen at inattentive students*
What do we look for, people? Yes, thank you, Jeanette … it”s Trends. Have a gold star.
The polls from different organisations are very different. But the trends are the same. Even in this one.
For homework, write out one hundred times “I must learn to look for the trends”.
Class dismissed. Rodney, see me.
HS. I think a lot of the problem is lack of depth and substance, both of which are consequences of the corporate media’s running down of journalism in the pursuit of profit. Like toms said, the news media is our fourth estate. We shouldn’t treat let the media corporations treat it like widget production.
“We need reform of the media ownership laws ASAP.”
we do – but first we need something to force the issue such as a Labour Land-slide victory that no-one in the MSM has come close to predicting.
re: soft support for national:
“Prime Minister and Labour leader Helen Clark has improved in the preferred Prime Minister stakes, by 2.3 points, putting her fractionally ahead of National leader John Key, 45.4 per cent to 44.8 per cent. It is the first time she has been ahead since January.”
Can the assumption be made that 6% (50.4 – 44.8 = 6ish) of National voters prefer Helen Clark as Prime Minister? Or is this just a reflection of the small difference between the left and right blocks? If so why is this not reflected in the main poll? Would people vote for a party when they would prefer a prime minister from the opposing side?
what’s missing from ALL the polls is a count of the ‘undecided’ if one pollster’s managed to get half of them to commit while the other hasn’t then the polls mean different things
Tane
1. It’s a business it should be run as such
2. Do you really think pouring money into these companies in the form of journalists or researchers would give better reporting and coverage or just more of the same vapid cak.
“what’s missing from ALL the polls is a count of the ‘undecided’ if one pollster’s managed to get half of them to commit while the other hasn’t then the polls mean different things”
THAT is the missing variable we need to know, it does make a difference
1. It’s a business it should be run as such
I think that’s where we fundamentally disagree. I don’t see why our news media should be run on purely commercial lines any more than our police, our judiciary or our education system should be.
2. Do you really think pouring money into these companies in the form of journalists or researchers would give better reporting and coverage or just more of the same vapid cak.
Yes. Better research and more journalists means better reporting and more in-depth and investigative journalism. That means a stronger and better informed democracy.
Anyone else smell a big fat rat in this poll bizzo? Not only the huge disparity in results (err.. it’s a science, people) but now twice in a fortnight Labour-favouring polls have been immediately followed by tory-leaners. The tories have long appreciated the huge influence and “self-fulfilling prophesy” aspect of polls – hence the massive emphasis and beat-up given them in the Herald and other propaganda organs.
Scoop in here for some keen young investigative reporter I feel (any that haven’t been sacked or sidelined by now) – I’d start with the ownership/affiliations of the polling companies, the political “lean” they have produced over years, and the correlation thereof with those who commission them. Could be very revealing…….especially if a former employee was willing to talk….
Paul,
Yep. And you can’t really extrapolate from the decided voters what the undecideds are likely to do, as undecided means a lot of things to different people.
e.g. voters undecided between nat – lab will have a big effect on the final result when they decide. Those undecided between green – lab or nat – act very little effect.
“1. It’s a business it should be run as such”
Further to Tane’s comment, do you believe the role for the Fourth Estate is purely to maximise profits to shareholders and always act in its own self-interest?
Oh – the NZHerald poll has a comment:
“* The DigiPoll survey of 750 respondents was conducted from October 15 to 22. Undecideds were 12.4 per cent. The margin of error is 3.6 per cent.”
Here.
12.4%… I don’t think you can assume undecideds are ones who won’t vote, as I believe Tim Ellis suggested in another thread. Those would be the unknown quantity: Refused.
“Do you really think pouring money into these companies in the form of journalists or researchers would give better reporting and coverage or just more of the same vapid cak.”
Indeed. I think this article, putting aside the religious emphasis, makes some good points about the problems with daily news in general:
“Why is dailiness a problem? Sommerville offers several reasons. First, the daily nature of the news (which means that publishers have to sell their product on a daily basis) encourages journalists to create a sense of crisis or tragedy.
Another problem with dailiness is that it discourages the placement of issues and events into a larger or deeper context. “The very survival of the news business depends on our seeing life as jumpy and scattered,” says Sommerville, rather than as falling into a historical pattern or embodying some philosophical outlook…
The news industry’s concentration on excitement and gossip exacerbated by the need to sell product daily likely causes it to ignore events which history will deem the most important of our time.
…
The impact of the daily news on our system of government is also disturbing. Again, because of the voracious appetite of the news industry for new events on which to report, journalists desire political change above all else.
What is Sommerville’s solution? To abandon the daily news outright in favor of reading periodicals and books. The very reason that Sommerville concentrates on dailiness rather than on the usual complaints, such as bias, commercialization, censorship, incompetence, etc. is to emphasize that the news industry is irretrievably flawed and must be discarded.”
http://www.boundless.org/2000/departments/pages/a0000322.html
MP
No.
Tane/MP: Perhaps the media should not be run as commercial enterprises putting profit ahead of everything, but that’s a decision for their owners to make.
The point is that they are run as businesses. The nature of the interaction between audience and advertiser and media means that if the quality of their output drops, they’ll lose audience and therefore revenue. It’s in their best interests to service business needs by acting as a robust fourth estate. So what they should be run like is somewhat irrelevant – unless you plan to compensate them for lost revenue when they stop giving the audience what it wants. It’s what they are run like which counts.
L
Lew, fully aware of that. Clearly a distinction made between descriptive and normative statements. I’m not naive enough to think business will run at reduced profits for some social good – they are what they are. I’m suggesting we change the system.
Tane: And as part of the blogosphere, in a way you are.
L
Perhaps, but only at the margins. A campaign for another day, I think.
“We need reform of the media ownership laws ASAP”
so true, but we all know what kind of media coverage any politician or political parrty that espouses that truth will get. the truth is msm are more powerful than any particular political party.
the Fourth Estate, once meant as a check on powerful institutional interests, now ARE the powerful institutional interests, and have in reality become defunct as a structural component of democracy.
re. Vote Cannabalizing and Undecideds
I think a lot of the shift in polls is coming not from preference shifts but from Undecideds starting to decide, that’s why talk of votes coming from X and going to Y don’t add up.
Right, it’s a sedimentary process, not a seismic one, because the industry itself can’t be changed – only the audience can be changed. Currently the reason many media focus on what you characterise as such trivia is because that’s what they’ve been led to expect – by the formats, their conventions and history, their sources and their own internal distortions. Change audience expectations and you change the industry which caters to them.
L
lew what a load of tripe. the industry has been going for a long time and its not going to change one iota. they are not obliged to explain themselves and its the job of the “people” to figure it out for themselves. dig? apart form that al the other tricks are in play. send $100 and I’ll tell you what nearly happende to me this weekend. nasty! better than a cheap novel.
randal: Of course they’ll change. They’re businesses, they’ll change when their audience demands something different from what they’re offering. The media does exert a great deal of control over what people demand, but that control isn’t complete. We’re already seeing the beginnings of decentralised, virtualised publication (though not ownership), and that’ll continue as the dead trees, sit-down-at-6-o-clock-and-watch formats continue to be replaced by more flexible and interactive formats. The audience – who advertisers will follow wherever they lead – is quite literally the only force in the world which will legitimately change the media industry. I say `legitimately’ because I don’t consider mass nationalisation of media interests to be legitimate – and even if it were, as the sprout alludes to, it would never ever fly (and nor should it).All things considered I’d rather have my media run by corporations who can be relied upon to maximise profit than by capricious governments.
What the media industry DOES need for these changes to really take hold is stronger powers for regulatory authorities such as the Press Council, more proactive courts prepared to prosecute,and stronger anti-monopolisation measures. But ultimately it’s the people who’ll decide.
L
HS – what, then? How does one reconcile the commercial nature of the MSM with the democratic necessity of an effective free media?
“It’s in their best interests to service business needs by acting as a robust fourth estate.”
This equates the best media to being the most widely read, and the most profitable, Lew. Is that really the best measure?
A brief hypothetical. Investigative journalist turns up a scandal that unseats a government, shakes up a nation and results in wide-spread law changes. The paper in question isn’t all that popular, has a brief spike in sales and then fades back into obscurity.
The lame polling/personality politics that we have now also occur in this hypothetical scenario, and are also what seems to sell.
Turns out the big story wasn’t good journalism after all…
“if the quality of their output drops, they’ll lose audience and therefore revenue”
I think this statement is pretty far from the truth. Perhaps I have a different perspective on ‘quality’, but doesn’t the Truth outsell SST and HoS? Women’s Weekly trumps North and South for sure…
MP
“How does one reconcile the commercial nature of the MSM with the democratic necessity of an effective free media?”
Apparently pretty much by doing what they are currently – unless you are suggesting that the media in NZ is either not commercially viable or not free.
MP: “Perhaps I have a different perspective on ‘quality’, but doesn’t the Truth outsell SST and HoS? Women’s Weekly trumps North and South for sure ”
Yes, this is the point: the measures of media success ultimately come down to who’s judging. Market measures of success don’t measure quality in some objective academic sense – they measure the ability to entice audience members to consume advertising. Quality of journalism (in the sense you describe), adherence to truth and ethical journalistic practice and so on are important – or their appearance is important, but only inasmuch as it enables a publisher to retain or promote its reputation.
So the problem is that you’re trying to measure the media industry by a yardstick which is relevant to them only in a collateral sense. Yes, there ARE good media outlets – and most media outlets strive to be good in the sort of sense you’re talking about, but there are a whole lot of structural, material and industry factors – even within public media who aren’t constrained by advertisers – which interfere with that pure quest for the impartial truth.It was this fact which led to the establishment of the Centre for Public Integrity.
In a sense the problem when looking to regulate a media industry is `who do you get to determine which media are good and which aren’t?’, because the answer to that question will determine which media some new regulation scheme or incentive scheme or whatever will favour.
L
Gobsmacked: it may be all about “trends” but you have to hunt high and low for a considered analysis of these so-called trends from the msm. What did we use to do without the blogosphere, I ask myself?
Instead, each story tends to be devoted to “the latest poll” and its own, “unique” perspective. The small print gives some inkling of how this poll differs from the last one. If you’re lucky, the newsgroup concerned may even refer to a competitor’s poll, but usually only to note that they do or don’t match up.
However, not one to shy away from a challenge, I’ve considered the latest TV3 and Herald polls for trends:
National TV3: +0.1; Herald: -1.0.
Labour TV3: -1.6; Herald: +1.3.
Greens TV3: +2.0; Herald: +0.5.
NZF TV3: +1.8; Herald: -0.7.
Act TV3: -0.1; Herald: +0.2;
Maori TV3: -0.2; Herald: +0.5.
Gap between Labour and National
TV3: 7.7 (+1.7); Herald: 13.4 (-2.3)
Gap between Labour/Greens and National/Act
TV3: 0.6 (-0.4); Herald: 9.2 (-2.7)
The only common “trends” between the two polls is increased support for the Greens (ranging from 0.5 to 2.0 points) and a narrowing of the gap between Labour/Greens and National/Act (ranging from 0.4 to 2.7 points)
Oh, and in the preferred PM stakes where TV3 has a dead heat and the Herald has Helen Clark fractionally ahead of John Key. Interesting…
i see the Herald is still diligently ignoring the Hide-Jones Scandal.
meanwhile they’ve just posted this gem on Key’s latest show of increasing desperation
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-election-2008/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501799&objectid=10539279
Pixie
I agree, the MSM analysis is generally poor. Your findings are more useful.
The narrowing gap between the Lab/Green and Nat/ACT blocs is a pretty clear trend, because it is supported by other polls. Ironically, the Morgan poll (out this afternoon) may buck that trend, because it was ahead of the game last time.
A 5 or 4 headed monster with Mickey in control will really take NZ forward, yeah right. The Greens are economic flakes, they don’t care about peoples hip pocket, they want the state to have the money to re distribute.
The ETS will also kill us financially and this will be rammed even harder on us with Greens having a significant say on this. Tax will increase dramatically even though there has been no warming for 7 years. (From their CO2 god’s data, NASA).
John, why don’t you email those quotes directly to Lynn (for his automated-troll project), I’m sure he’s the only one who will appreciate them. in fact, for what he’s doing, your material is gold, pure troll. Random comments, clearly parroted from the media or kiwiblog, a bit of classic right-wing propaganda and some discredited pap to pad out the vacuosity.
You can tell the dumb ones, they can’t even pretend to try to be be on topic.
[lprent: Bloody hell – I only just let him off moderation because he was starting to get coherent.]
good echoing of Key’s “5 Headed Monster” line there John Stevens.
yep a single party Govt with Key at the helm would be much better than an MMP coalition representing a diversity of views and interests. good luck selling that line mate.
The National Party front bench is a 5-headed monster in its own right (excluding the Pretty Face That Will Be Gone By Lunchtime), clearly.
Matthew thinks Lockwood is pretty. Matthew and Lockwood up a tree…
I’d like to lay a cyber-fiver that Key will retain the Nat leadership, whether or not he wins the election.
See me in 3 years to pay up/collect.
the national party front bench is an oxymoron. they are yestrerdays men without ever having been todays men. they will be consigned to the dustbin of history very soon. byeeeeeeeeee!
roy morgan poll is out.
i’ll see your cyber-fiver Pat.
Key won’t hang around for another 3 years of ridicule being called the Man that Lost National’s Best Chance of Winning an Election. He’ll be off, but not like Goff.
Will meet you at the Bust Stop to collect my winnings, we won’t have to wait 3 years – maybe 3 months. You will be able to recognise me as the vegetable wearing a hat.
here’s the Roy Morgan link
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2008/4330/
now watch all those who last week said RM was balls suddenly turn around and say how perceptive RM is.
Whoops
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2008/4330/
11.5%
And with the Greens at 11.5% in this poll it’s still not good news for the Nats. Looks like some drift from labour to National but it’s with the MOE. PLus just wait till the fallout from the Lockwood saga and I wonder if Rodney will be punished for his crime at the EC? I feel good about the possibility of a grand coalition of the left.
yes the strong support for Greens and NZ First will make it harder for the right to crow about this poll.
NZ First on 4.5% go winny!
Sprout anyone who mentions polls again between now and the election should give themselves a quick uppercut.
That being said I can’t see why anyone who would change their vote from voting Labour to voting Green.
agreed on both counts HS.
Ben R, the point I was making was that any Pacific Island voter that may have been considering voting National (and there would have been a few, based on Christian opposition to Labour’s social/moral agenda), will likely now return to Labour, nullifying JK’s recent attempts at garnering support in South Auckland. A brief flirtation torpedoed.
“Ben R, the point I was making was that any Pacific Island voter that may have been considering voting National (and there would have been a few, based on Christian opposition to Labour’s social/moral agenda), will likely now return to Labour, nullifying JK’s recent attempts at garnering support in South Auckland. A brief flirtation torpedoed.”
If they’re opposed to the social/moral agenda I doubt National would be going to overturn anything in that area. Better to vote for Destiny or Taito Philip Field’s party.
^That being said I can’t see why anyone who would change their vote from voting Labour to voting Green*
Its because of the cute girl on the ads.
And maybe our positive and principled politics
I like this poll 14 Green MP’s
Three from the top of the South
Yeah
OOB
Perhaps we should have Green led government for a term then after the economy is ruined and we’ve had to resort to burning our own dung to keep warm they would disappear back into anonymity.
now watch all those who last week said RM was balls suddenly turn around and say how perceptive RM is.
lol, yeah agree there
“PLus just wait till the fallout from the Lockwood saga”
the tolls the tolls as well 🙂 Wasn’t a good week for Nats