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The Newspoll numbers The Australian won’t print
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The Australian newspaper appears to have withheld the results of a Newspoll on voting intention to avoid embarrassment in the wake of last week’s bombshell that had Malcolm Turnbull gaining ground on Kevin Rudd and the ALP and Liberals toe to toe. On Saturday and Sunday, Newspoll, which is half-owned by News Limited, rang 1200 households across the country in response to a request from The Australian to take the nation’s temperature on asylum seekers. It appeared to be a single issue poll. However, the results were broken down by voting intention — enough to deduce whether last week’s shock two-party preferred result of 52/48, and a tied primary vote of 41 a piece, was a dreaded outlier or something more telling for the government. Since that poll was published last week, three separate pieces of polling data have contradicted the rogue result, instead confirming a massive lead for Rudd and Labor. However, the more recent Newspoll data is yet to see the light of day. The Australian has a deal with Newspoll to publish voting intention results every two weeks. This week The Oz went back into the field a week earlier than usual — with specific question on the asylum issue. Crikey understands that on Sunday morning, Newspoll chief Martin O’Shannessy contacted his Nielsen counterpart John Stirton and agreed not to release the two-party preferred vote to The Australian. Fairfax and News have a history of avoiding polling on the same day so as not to cannibalise each other’s results. The single issue poll was the only time in the last three years, according to a Crikey analysis of Newspoll releases, that a single issue poll hasn’t been coupled with a parallel release on voting intention. The Australian’s editor in chief, Chris Mitchell told Crikey that he had decided not to publish on the question of voting intention because he guessed that Nielsen would be polling for the SMH and the Age at the same time. “John Stirton from Nielsen will confirm Martin [O’Shannessy] never intended to run a full poll last weekend. Even Crikey should be able to understand the concept of ”fortnightly’,” Mitchell said. He said the full Newspoll has been published fortnightly for 25 years but that he had the “flexibility” to throw in extra questions, presumably related to voting intention, on the back of other Newspoll polling on the alternate weekends. Last week, The Australian ran hard on that Tuesday’s voting intention poll, under the front page headline “Newspoll: boat crisis hits ALP”. “Primary vote support for the Rudd government has collapsed by seven percentage points in the past fortnight amid increasing political tension surrounding asylum seeker arrivals,” the paper said. The revelations prompted a media blitz from the Prime Minister, who conducted interview after interview to hose down any suggestion he had lost control of the asylum seeker debate. The results were taken very seriously, not least of all in the PM’s office. According to one leading poll watcher: “Newspoll is the most authoritative poll” we are regularly told — and while some, particularly other pollsters, may disagree, it’s certainly the poll that carries the largest media weight in Australia. It receives the largest exposure into the largest number of Australian eyeballs as a result of it being an exclusive political poll for the largest media network in the country — News Ltd.” However, it appears The Australian has, for reasons unknown, made the decision to not correct the public record of the most “authoritative poll” in the country — allowing the outlier result of 52/48 to linger in the political air, even though Newspoll and The Australian are sitting on more recent data which should show the true underlying state of public opinion. According to a respected poll watcher: “The Australian may not realise it, but by delaying or not publishing the latest Newspoll results on voting intention, they are damaging — in an undeserving and totally unnecessary fashion — the reputation of, and public opinion toward, the Newspoll organisation”. |
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11 Comments
Actually, there is something on the Australian’s web site that shows 2PP being 55:45 ALP:LNP, and Rudd’s approval at 56, Turnbull’s at 40, and preferred PM 57:24 Rudd:Turnbull. It’s in the chart on their Politics page. Maybe that’s an old one though…but the numbers are a lot different from last week’s.
Well, of course they didn’t publish, it didn’t show a continued erosion in support for Kevin Rudd, probably showed a bounce-back to something approximating this week’s Essential Report poll.
One thing, Andrew, you might also like to investigate is the ABC’s News programs showing an increasing bias towards supporting the Coalition cause, or to be mischievous, I haven’t quite worked out yet. For example, yesterday on the News Breakfast program on ABC2, Virginia Trioli only made mention in the 1/2 hourly bulletin to the adverse Asylum Seeker polls but not the favourable Nielsen 2pp result. Juanita Phillips on the 7pm News in Sydney pulled a similar stunt, with, I swear, the graphic for the 2PP appearing for a nanosecond on the screen. Tony Jones almost hugged Joe Hockey after they found out the results and had a cosy self-congratulatory chat on Lateline the night of the disastrous Newspoll result.
If any of them are reading this, it’s becoming a bit obvious guys, and, like, you know, you don’t have to dance to Janet Albrechtsen and Keith Windschuttle’s tune, the old man who backed them up was given a slipper up the date by the electorate 2 years ago now. Though, suffice to say, I imagine there’s not one Public School attendee among the lot of the ABC journalistic cadre these days, so it’s understandable from that pov I guess. Sigh.
That is apparently old data from midyear. An overlooked link error perhaps, given the unusual concealing of this weeks results.
If I was Mr O’Shannessy, I’d be furious
News Ltd Australia, Fox News USA same boss, same stable, same unethical standards, same talentless jurnos/commentators…..says it all.
Shouldn’t someone be contacting the ACCC if pollsters/news orgnisations are contacting each other to agree commercial tactics at the cost of serving the public?
Come on people you know what the problem is here, Newspoll if half owned by News Corp. What would expect from an outfit that has the same owner as Fox News. What I can’t believe is that the PM’s office took it so seriously. I think it might be time for the Krudd to do what Obama has had to do in the US. Just come out and call Murdockites what they are, a seriously sick joke bordering on true evil. Turning news into the worst type of entertainment, which just happens to be a political wheelbarrow for all that’s rotten with western society. Luckily, enough people in Australia have seen enough of FoxNews on the pay TV. They know exactly what it is, the media arm for the rightwing nut jobs. Their soul existences is to panda to the loony right of Middle America where the remainder of the conspiracy loving conservative, brainless Republicans live and whose pockets Rupert can easily pick.
Most of these poor souls suffer from the same affliction as the Aussie OneNationers did, although the later to a lesser degree because we are little better educated in Aus, or well used to be. Those Howard cutbacks to public education are starting to come back and bite the Libs on the arse. You see Rupert and many top conservatives know that for right and them to survive into the 21st century long term they need to have a critical number of ignorant people prone to fear.
Well, we all know — because politicians tell us every day — that these polls don’t matter, so what’s all the fuss about?
Thanks for the article. I think the problem lies not with Newspoll, they like all polling organisations will occasionally publish those outliers, but with the indecent haste Murdoch journos wrote up the non-existent story.
More reflective analysis needed perhaps?
Typical biased Murdoch rubbish.
The Australian is slowly and rightfully dying. I personally can’t wait to see these Murdoch glove-puppets trying to get jobs in the ‘free market’ that they’ve written so much about.
Another outrage recently exposed is the amount ‘the Australian’ receives in public funds from running government job ads. These ads should be removed from this ‘news’ paper forthwith - with the internet there is no need to publish them. Australian taxpayers should quickly grab a copy of the paper, and start writing to the departments to stop these ads once and for all.
Good comment there Chris, anti competitive cartel behaviour.
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