Today we’ll solve that concern by introducing a new addition to our Pollytrend – the Phone Trend. The phone trend line is calculated a little differently to our all pollster Pollytrend line.

First and most obvious, it uses only phone pollster data.

Secondly, only the most recent two polls of each phone pollster get entered into the initial calculations. We use the most recent two polls because any given pollster’s “poll before last” still contains valuable information about the state of public opinion today, but the information is just not as valuable as their most recent poll.  In order to differentiate between “best” information (the most recent poll) and “second best information” (the poll before last) from any pollster – we simply take a rolling all phone pollster average of the two most recent polls from each phone pollster, but weight all results by time – so the further back in the past a poll was taken, the less weight that particular poll carries when we calculate the weighted average. For example, a poll taken 60 days ago will only have one tenth of the weight of a poll taken today.

Thirdly, every time a phone poll is released we calculate our new weighted average to build ourselves a time series.

Finally, as we do with the all pollster Pollytrend, we then run a locally weighted polynomial regression through the results (which itself gives more weight to the most recent values compared to past values) and we end up with a relatively smooth and highly adaptable trend line that carries the advantage of being able to accommodate the uncertainty of sampling error in the polling results – giving us a phone poll trend line that attempts to “see through the short term noise”.

When we compare the all pollster Pollytrend against our new phone poll trend, this is what we end up with.

We’ll also run a version of it that covers the last 12 months in the sidebar to replace our old Pollytrend chart:

If we plug this Morgan result in with the other ultra-regular polls of Newspoll and Essential Report, we now come up to date as of November 1st.

Outliers are simply part of life for a pollster – they happen and there’s absolutely nothing they can really do about the odd one popping up. So the first thing to point out is that if the last Newspoll was an outlier – the probability of which has just increased – there is no Newspoll conspiracy here. We actually expect pollsters to give us a WTF moment every now and again.

What catches my eye about these three pollsters is the way the ALP primary vote most likely did actually drop a tad between the 25th of October and the 1st November. Both Essential and Morgan had the Labor primary dropping a point over that period – after having tracked each other virtually identically over the period since late September.  Newspoll showed a drop too, but it looks like it overshot the true underlying movement of the public by 3 or 4 points. The direction of the change was consistent with the other 2 pollsters, only the magnitude of the size of the change differed.

The Coalition primary however is where it get’s interesting, with both Essential and Morgan showing a slight drop (1 point for Essential, 2 points for Morgan) while Newspoll gave them a 7 point increase. Not only did the magnitude of the Newspoll change differ from the Morgan and Essential, but the direction of the change differed as well. One thing the pollsters did all pretty much agree on though was the Greens vote:

So if Newspoll was an outlier, it all came down to a direct substitution between ALP and Coalition supporters on measuring the vote estimates – with the Greens vote effectively staying consistent across all three pollsters. However, the satisfaction ratings and preferred PM figures didnt move in Newspoll as much as a 7 point change in the primary would ordinarily suggest. If it was just sampling error responsible, we’d have expected those non-vote metrics to move more since effectively all that would be happening is a larger proportion of Coalition voters was sampled by chance.

So it’s probably something more complicated – some form of non-sampling error. However we know that Newspoll runs a kick arse sampling frame so it’s not some structural problem, but rather most likely a human issue, or more particularly, a respondent issue. That gets us into navel gazing areas of what makes a significant number of ordinarily Labor voting people keep their preferred PM and satisfaction ratings the same as if they were voting Labor, but tell the pollster instead that they’re actually intending to vote for the Coalition? That seems to be what happened to Newspoll.

The alternative is that Newspoll picked up a change of voter sentiment earlier than the other two polls. If that was the case, we’ll know on Monday with Essential Report.

Also worth having a squiz at are three charts that I used in a Crikey article on Tuesday that shows how the three pollsters that have been in the field of late – Essential, Morgan and Newspoll -  have comparatively behaved, with a focus on the last 3 weeks.

The Parliamentary Library has released a new paper on population change in Commonwealth electorates over the period of 2007-2008. It uses the 2007 electoral boundaries. The top and bottom 20 electorates in terms of population growth come in like this:

The paper also looks at population growth among cohorts of 0-4 years, 5-14 years and 65 years and over.

Is this an outlier?

Probably, and it comes from something Newspoll head honcho Martin O’Shannessy said to the Australian.

The majority of the change in the Labor primary vote is attributable to a fall in Labor’s primary among those aged over 50 under 50

The only issue over the last fortnight in media has been asylum seekers, and all the polling we’ve ever had on that issue suggests that it is the over 50’s that are the strongest supporters of tough border protection – and as yesterday’s Essential Report suggested, the over 50’s are also more likely to believe that the Coalition would do a better job at managing this issue..

If this wasn’t an outlier – we would expect the over 50’s to move strongest, so the composition of the poll is inconsistent with what we would expect to occur if the poll was, in fact, an accurate representation of the true state of public opinion.

There is also other evidence for it being an outlier. Firstly, we expect that, on average, 1 in 20 polls are out by an amount larger than the margin of error – which in Newspoll’s case is 3%. Further, we expect that, on average, 1 in 100 of all Newspoll’s will be about by a margin larger than 4%.

This is simply the probability statistics of random sampling in action.

Secondly, this issue has been in the field as a dominant news item for well over a month now. If people were changing their vote so dramatically over the asylum seeker issue, we would have expected to see the ALP vote start leeching away with the last Newspoll, the last 2 Essential Reports and the last Morgan – if not earlier.

Yet that didn’t occur.

Thirdly, all political polls in Australia over any given period of time “move together”. The various pollsters might all have their relative leans – some have a relatively higher vote estimate for Labor, some relatively lower – but they are generally consistent relative leans. Essential Report was in the field over the same period and didn’t pick up any movement at all.

Fourthly, as William Bowe at Pollbludger has pointed out, big moves in the primary vote like this are extremely rare – usually the preserve of polls taken directly after an election, or directly after a leadership change. There are a few exceptions like horror budgets and the occasional, inexplicable random poll (what we would expect), but they are rare.

Finally, this is just completely out of whack:

Only time will tell if public opinion has shifted, and by how much – but on the balance of probability, this is a dreaded outlier.

So kick back, grab some popcorn and enjoy the political show – it should be a doozy. The usual charts come in like this.

Additional questions this week are on the asylum seeker issue and one on climate change. These come from a sample of 1122 for an MoE that maxes out around the 2.9% mark.

This is the long awaited polling on public perceptions of the asylum seeker issue and it’s politics – what is really worth noting is how the set of responses collectively paint a far more sophisticated picture of the country than a simple pro/anti asylum seeker stance leading into a pro/anti government policy stance and any consequent  pro/anti Labor/Coalition position.  Yet again, the public shows itself to be a little more complicated than some of our punditry muppets would have us believe. I’ve reordered the questions from as they appear in the actual report to start with the wider issues, before narrowing to the politics and finishing off with the ultimate political question on the issue.

The Federal Government is currently working with the Indonesian government to stop asylum seekers entering Australian waters. For each of the below statements that have been made about current incident of asylum seekers, please indicate your level of agreement.

The cross-tabs tell us:

Labor and Coalition voters were more likely than Green voters to think the Federal Government is doing the right thing in discouraging people smuggling and turning back the boats (72% Labor, 69% Liberal v 51% Green).

Coalition voters were more likely to agree with the statement that the Federal Government is weak on border protection which is why more boats are entering Australian waters (79%), while Labor voters were more likely to disagree (32%). However, 40% of Labor voters agree with this statement.

Green voters were more likely than Labor and Coalition voters to agree that the Federal Government should be allowing legitimate refugees to enter the country and contribute to the nation (62% Green v 47% Labor, 45% Liberal).

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Which country do you think most of the asylum seekers who have been trying to get into Australia in recent weeks are from?

The cross-tabs say:

People aged 55 years and over were more likely than those in other age groups to think that most of the asylum seekers who have been trying to get into Australia in recent weeks are from Sri Lanka (79%), as were males (67%) and Coalition voters (70%).

Respondents who were aware that the current asylum seekers were from Sri Lanka were more likely to agree that the Federal Government should be allowing legitimate refugees to enter the country and contribute to our nation.

51% of people aware that the most recent asylum seekers are from Sri Lanka (compared to 35% of those not aware) agree that the Federal Government should be allowing legitimate refugees to enter the country and contribute to our nation.

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Which of the following statements is closer to your view?

On the cross-tabs we have:

Males were more likely to agree with the view that suggests the reason for the recent influx of asylum seekers because of soft border protection approach of the Rudd Government (45%), while females were more likely to agree with the view that push factors such as violence and persecution result in refugees (63%).

Coalition voters were more likely to agree with the view that the Rudd Government has softened their border protection policies and this is the reason for the recent influx of asylum seekers (69%), while Labor (74%) and Green (83%) voters were more likely to be of the view that refugees are coming from places that have seen an escalation in violence and persecution that have pushed people to flee their homelands.

People aged 18 – 24 were more likely than those in other age groups to agree with the view that emphasizes push factors when it comes to explaining the issue of refugees (71%).

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Overall, how would you rate the record of the Rudd Government when it comes to dealing with the issue of asylum seekers in Australia?

The cross-tabs tell us:

Results followed party lines – Labor voters were more likely to rate the Rudd Government’s handling as excellent/good (58%), while Coalition voters were more likely to rate it as not so good/poor (81%). 34% of Labor voters and 65% of Green voters rate the Government’s performance on this issue as not so good or poor.

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Do you think a Liberal Government would do a better, worse or much the same job in dealing with the issue of asylum seekers and refugees in Australia?

On the cross-tabs we have:

Coalition voters were more likely to think a Liberal Government would do a better job (54%), while Labor (43%) and Green (41%) voters were more likely to think a Liberal Government would do a worse job.

35% of Liberal voters and 42% of Labor voters think a Liberal Government would do much the same job in dealing with the issue of asylum seekers and refugees in Australia.

People aged 55 years and over were more likely than those in other age groups to think that the Liberal Government would do a better job at dealing with the issue of asylum seekers (30%).

Do you agree that there is fairly conclusive evidence that climate change is happening and caused by human activity or do you believe that the evidence is still not in and we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate which happens from time to time?

The cross-tabs have us:

People aged 25 – 34 were more likely to think climate change is caused by human activity (67%) while those aged 55 years and over were more likely to think what we are witnessing is a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate (44%).

Labor (63%) and Green (85%) voters were more likely to think climate change is caused by human activity, while Coalition voters were more likely to think what we are witnessing is a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate (54%).

Along with the voting intentions, this poll also had all the metrics running against the Rees government with his satisfaction down, dissatisfaction up and preferred premier dipping a point as well. On the other hand, Opposition leader Barry O’Farrell had a mixed bag with his satisfaction and dissatisfaction both up (at the expense of his undecideds), while his preferred premier metric bounced up 3 points to 36 – giving him a 5 point lead over Rees.

With the ALP primary vote so low and optional preferential voting running in NSW, the two party preferred continues to understate the size of the electoral flogging Labor would get were an election held and these primary vote figures repeated. It’s interesting that the O’Farrell just can’t  seem to pull his net satisfaction rate up very high considering the rather tragic nature of the NSW government.

The usual charts come in like this:

In the usual charts below, you’ll notice that Ted Baillieu has a bit of a kick upward in his satisfaction rating, his dissatisfaction rating went down and his preferred premier level lifted – yet the Liberal Party vote contracted by 3 points over the period. Sometimes you can’t take a trick.

Not much to say about this except that it’s the sort of business as usual poll in Victoria we’ve been seeing for the last 6 months. The charts come in as:

Of particular interest to this point is the idea that I’ve heard floated around on broadband subsidies for low income households being a possibility further down the track, and how that would fit into the wider policy mix that seems to be falling under the broad banner of the Education Revolution.

Yesterday the ABS released an interesting set of data on sporting, cultural and technological activity undertaken by 5 to 14 year olds over the past 12 months, broken down into a number of demographic cross-tabs.

Within this ABS release is some pretty interesting data on internet use by kids that’s worth looking at and keeping in one’s thought orbit when it comes to some of the issues surrounding the NBN.

First up, the basics – the proportion of 5-14 year olds that accessed the internet in the last 12 months, and broken down by urban geography.

Figures 1 & 2.

The big jump in net access for kids comes between the ages of 9 and 11. Also interesting is that total net access for the 5-14 year cohort starts falling off the further away you get from a capital city.

On the question of where it is that kids access the internet from, the results show some interesting trends across age.

Figure 3

While home based access grows slightly as kids get older, it is primarily the jump in access at school and “Other Places” in the 9-11 year cohort which appears to be one of the reasons for the jump in overall net access for that age group.

Also worth noting is how these overall access changes align with the change in the number of hours the internet gets used each week.

Figure 4

They’re the broad basic stats, but where it gets particularly interesting – especially in terms of the NBN debate – is where the ABS broke some of these stats down further using family type and parent’s employment as cross-tabs.

Figure 5

As generic household employment reduces, so does children’s internet access, with smaller numbers of kids accessing the internet in the past 12 months in those households of either family type where parents were not employed. Some of this is likely to be caused by the affordability of net access at the home, but there’s also a likely to be a big suite of other socio-economic issues involved as well – and it would probably be impossible to pull one apart from the other.

But the prism that this data is worth looking through comes in the next chart – internet use among 5-14 year olds by activity type:

Figure 6 (click to expand)

In the past 12 months, a higher proportion of children accessed the internet for educational purposes than any other, by a significantly large margin – something those banging on about the internet being for porn and music piracy might like to sit on and spin for a while.

When we look at the big jump that occurs in total net access in the 9-11 year age cohort, and how that corresponds to the big jump in access at school – we also see the same jump in using the net for educational activities among that cohort.

Figure 7

Net use for educational activities, which are most likely driven by use at school, is becoming ubiquitous – by the age of 11 – which is worth thinking about in terms of the likely counter factual of the NBN. If that isn’t built, high speed broadband will still exist in Australia – but it will be more expensive per Mbit and where higher speeds will be limited to a much smaller geographical area.

I wonder what impact if any would be had on ultimate educational outcomes if schools had access to next generation internet applications based only on their geography and capacity to pay for high speeds rather than a more universal availability that would occur with the NBN?

How important is high speed access at home likely to be in terms of education outcomes? Taking into account what we already know via the data contained in Figure 5 – could we use employment as a proxy for income, and if so, is there a case for some form of government subsidisation for home access for low income families?

If there is, I’d be interested in your thoughts on whether or how the benefits accrued would be larger than the costs?

We have two pollsters that publish these two different ways of allocating preferences to get a two party preferred estimate – Morgan and Nielsen – and in both cases the same phenomenon occurs. There’s been 72 Morgan polls and 13 Nielsen polls since Rudd was elected, so we have a decent set of data to work with – certainly enough to imply that the polls might actually be a little better for Labor than the published headline results suggest.

UPDATE: Nielsen’s headline numbers use respondent preferences even though they measure both , while Morgan and Newspoll use 2007 election preference distributions.

First up, if we run the ALP two party preferred results of each pollster using the two metrics, we get:

In both cases, the ALP two party vote is consistently higher when respondents get to allocate preferences than when we use the preference distribution of the 2007 election. It’s worth pointing out that the ‘headline number’ used when reporting polls is based on the 2007 preference distribution for Morgan and Newspoll, but not for Nielsen.

If we take the difference between the ALP two party results based on how voters say they will allocate preferences and the ALP two party vote based on the 2007 preference distribution for each pollster, it tells the basic story.

If we now transform those raw results into the percentage of time that the voter allocated result is higher than the 2007 preference distribution result, and by how much we get:

Only 12.5% of all Morgan Polls have the ALP TPP based on the 2007 preference distribution higher than when voters allocate preferences themselves (2.8% for one point difference, 9.7% for half a point difference). 19.4% of the time the two measures are the same 68.1% of all Morgan polls had the ALP TPP higher when voters allocate preferences compared to the 2007 preference distribution.

For Nielsen, not one of the 13 Nielsen polls has had the ALP TPP based on the 2007 preference distribution higher than what happens when voters get to allocate their own preferences. It’s also interesting that both pollsters have the same approximate proportion of their polls having a ALP TPP when voters get to allocate preferences rather than using the 2007 preference distribution.

Yet, if we run a scatter and regression on Morgan and Nielsen results where the left axis is the ALP two party preferred poll result based on how preferences were distributed at the 2007 election, and where the bottom axis is the result from the same poll but where poll respondents allocate their own preferences – a noticeable difference emerges between the two.

The dots are the actual poll results, the red lines are the linear regression line of best fit through those poll results and the black lines are where we’d expect the regression line to be were the differences between the 2007 preference distribution and the poll respondent preference allocation essentially random.

With Morgan – the higher the ALP two party preferred vote becomes according to the 2007 preference distribution, the more voters tend to give an even higher vote to the ALP when they allocate preferences themselves. Nielsen on the other hand has a consistent difference regardless of the size of the vote – with 9 polls out of their 13 giving the ALP a two party preferred vote 1 point higher than the published headline figure that’s based on the 2007 preference distributions.

The basic statistics for the difference between voter allocated preferences and the 2007 preference distribution for the ALP TPP come in like this:

The difference between the two TPP measures is, on average, half a point higher for the ALP with Morgan polls and over two thirds of a point higher with Nielsen polls.

The big question here is whether the ALP two party preferred is actually being undercooked a little by using the 2007 preference distribution. If we look at the way preference distributions have been changing at elections for the last 20 years, the ALP is currently on a bit of a preference harvesting upswing. The interesting bit is that the Greens vote basically stood still between the 2004 and 2007 elections (7.2% in 2004 compared to 7.8% in 2007), but the ALP preference allocation still increased – so it’s not just a higher Greens vote that’s causing this Labor preference growth.

Mayhap, the polls are actually a little better for the ALP than the headline figures for Morgan and Newspoll based on the preference allocation at the 2007 election suggest.

Additional questions this week go to who is best perceived to measure various issues of national importance, as well as some questions on the CPRS. These additional questions come from a sample of 1097, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 3% mark.

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How important are the following issues in deciding how you would vote at a Federal election?

It’s worth noting how the importance of issues changes as those issues dominate the media cycle. Consider the issues that have been dominating the media cycle lately – things like border security, post-stimulus economic issues and the CPRS – and the categories they could broadly fit into have all lifted, with Security/War on Terrorism and Climate change lifting by large margins compared to public perception back in March of this year.

Leadership also had an interesting drop down the list over the period.

Which party do you think is best at handling each of the following issues?

The ALP’s lead margin has reduced in 10 of these 13 policy areas, improved in 2 and the Managing the Economy issue has come in as a tie – removing the last area where the Liberals held a lead.

Do you think the Federal Government’s emissions trading scheme:

On the cross-tabs, Essential says:

Females were more likely to think the emissions trading scheme goes too far in favouring big business (35%), while males were more likely to think it goes too far in favouring the environment movement (22%).

People aged 55 years and over were more likely to think the emissions trading scheme goes too far in favouring big business (37%), while people aged 25 – 34 were more likely to indicate they don’t know whether the emissions trading scheme goes too far in favouring business, the environment movement or has the balance right (49%).

Green voters were more likely to think the scheme goes too far in favouring big business (61%), Coalition voters were more likely to think it goes too far in favouring the environment movement (34%) and Labor voters were more likely to think the emissions trading scheme has the balance about right (25%).