pn891. A Funny New Poll

 

POSTSCRIPT. See new Talbot Mills poll result in the next post.

A new pollster has hit the NZ stage: Post/Freshwater Strategy. Hired by the Wellington Post, the head office of Freshwater Strategy is in Sydney, Australia. Its chief director is Mike Turner who has worked mainly with British Tories such as Boris Johnston and Liz Turner, and its NZ connector is Tim Hurdle, a former National Party staffer. 

Upfront about its probable right-wing political leaning, and the influence it could have on how people vote, the poll was surprisingly unclear about its methodology.  

Conducted on-line between 28-30 August (before the announcement of National's tax policy or Labour's free dentistry for the under 30s) 1,511 people were polled, 500 more than most polls. The stated margin of error was ±3%. Fine.

 But there was no mention of whether the poll used "weighting", the method used by pollsters to shape their sample to resemble the total population.  There was also no mention of those who refused to answer and about one in five (20%) of those polled were "undecided": a very high number.  Undecided and refused to answer usually account for 10-12% of those polled.

 Over 300 people  of the 1511 polled were "undecided" and  were excluded from the calculation of party vote totals and seats in Parliament.  This common practice, as I have noted in previous postings, distorts results.   I think they should be included in the analysis.  The poll showed National/Act to win 60 of the 120 seats in Parliament.  My estimate which included "undecided" resulted in 31 seats,  25 for Labour/Greens, and 18 undecided seats.

The poll showed NZFirst across the 5% theshold. With Labour having ruled out working with the party, NZFirst could give National/Act a more assured lead. One interesting finding was that the addition of Te Pati Māori party to the Labour.Greens line-up saw support slip 5%.  

The table below shows how the poll compares with the average of five other polls conducted in July-August by 1News-Kantar, Talbot Mills, Taxpayers’ Union-Curia, Roy Morgan and Newshub-Reid. It was slightly more favouable to National and the Greens, slightly less favourable to Act, and considerably less favourable to Labour.  Would I heed the results? No,it adds little and its methodology is unknown.  But the finding on the addition of TPM to the Labour-Greens line-up is disturbing and could speak poorly of our race relations.

-- ACW

pn853. Roy Morgan January Poll has National-ACT Ahead, But ....

 It's all a bit confusing with voting intentions going one way and confidence ratings the other —not to mention the marked differences between the Roy Morgan and 1NewsKantar polls and that the Morgan polls generally favour National —but the Morgan poll confirms that support for Labour continues to drop, and there's now a possibility it could lose the next election, an unthinkable prospect a month or so ago.

The poll comes against a background of Parliament in recess and the media's ongoing focus on Covid. Things could change now as parliament discusses a  range of issues, as Covid restrictions are eased,  and as the public react to the anti-vaxx protesters. 

The Morgan poll has National-ACT with 49.5% voter support and Labour-Greens with 43.5%. Even with the support of the Māori Party they would not have enough support to form a government. This is a surprising reversal given that most commentators were talking of a near certain Labour third term as government.  

But, as usual, not all is as it seems. 

pn845. Up the Pole. Ardern and Luxon Approval Ratings Meaningles, Misleading and Deceitful. UPDATED

Up the pole has various meanings including the literal, climbing on a pole, crazy and in difficulty.  

Up the poll (Updates highlighted)

There's something amiss in the reporting of the latest Kantar Political Poll.  1News  cites a statistic that does not appear in the Kantar report:  How well or how poorly those polled thought the PM and Christopher Luxon did their joh.  Where did 1News get its information?  I wonder why is it not in Kantar's full report?   Here are the results:

pn843. Returning to the Flock: Latest Poll Results: Updated

Christopher Luxon

A new leader for National has seen the shift from National to Act reverse and National's best polling for some time.  The latest 1News Kantar * Political Poll has also seen a consequent small drop in support for Labour. The results of the poll of 1,000 —50% by random cellphone calls and 50% by an "online panel"— are shown in the tables below.  The poll was  taken between 22nd and 26th of this month. Results  were weighted for age, gender, region, education level and ethnicity to reflect national proportions.  The figures are rounded and do not equal 100 percent.

The party results are not surprising. Declining popularity over time is common for most governments. The pandemic has not helped for while most people think it has been well handled by Labour, it has created uncertainty and adversely affected many livelihoods. The insiduous, constant barrage of negative anti-Labour media comment is also clearly having its effect.  The trend is downwards from around  50% a year ago, but the recent 1% drop is hardly significant.  National is where it was a year ago, and Act and the Greens are better placed.  See Kantar table below: 

pn818. Polls, not much change but BEWARE ACT, WAKE UP Greens

David Seymour as Prince
Charming

Two political poll results were published last week, the first conducted by 1News Colmar Brunton (see pn812), the most recent by Newshub-Reid (this posting.)  Both follow on from earlier polls by Curia and Talbot Mills reported in my posting pn809.

All four main polls showed similar results:  Labour is down a little or unchanged, National and Greens up or down a little but no real change, and ACT, the real winner, is steady or with significantly increased support.  

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Come election time next year Labour, or possibly National, will become the next government but Labour may need coalition support from the poorly performing Greens. National will definitely need ACT.

pn757. Samoa continues to be without a government, but decision probable next week

The contestants: HRRP and FAST leaders, (l-r)

Samoa continues to be without a government but a final decision on which party, Tuila'epa  Malielegaoi's HRPP or Fiame Mata'afa's FAST party, will rule should be made next week.

Samoa looks set to have a final ruling on whether the election-winning FAST Party's impromptu swearing-in as the government will be officially recognised.

pn586. Special votes results. Wins for Labour, Greens and the Maori Party

We have so much to be thankful for.  

As Aotearoa waited for the election special votes results there was no talk of violence in the streets or threatened endless litigation. Our citizens are more tolerant of opposition and more liberal than the citizens of the divided nation misnamed the United States of America. A womanising  egotistical, vain, ignorant and self-serving person would never be Prime Minister here.

So —feeling rather proud of ourselves— let us turn to the special votes announced this afternoon. 

National's agonies continue with its loss of two more seats, and Labour won three electorates that it lost on election night.