Kiwiblog

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the results of the latest Te Karere Digipoll.

I read a column over the weekend about how the Maori Party was basically dead and they should accept Hone Harawira’s generous offer to let him become leader and merge with the Mana Party. With that in mind it is worth looking at what the results for each party.

Labour

33.5% party vote, with party vote on the Maori roll up 3.5% (from last poll in January 2012) and on the general roll (of Maori voters) down 13.1%.

On the electorate vote, Labour are 8.9% below what they got in the 2011 election.

Maori Party

27.5% party vote, with party vote on the Maori roll up 2.7% (from last poll in January 2012) and on the general roll (of Maori voters) up 7.7%.

On the electorate vote, Maori Party are 4.8% above what they got in the 2011 election.

Mana Party

5.7% party vote, with party vote on the Maori roll down 5.3% (from last poll in January 2012) and on the general roll (of Maori voters) up 0.2%.

On the electorate vote, Maori Party are 1.2% below what they got in the 2011 election.

David Shearer

They asked those Maori voters who said they would party vote Labour if they could name the Labour Party Leader. Only 34.7% could name David Shearer as Leader.

Of the 34.7% who could name him, they asked if they thought he was providing good leadership on Maori issues. Only 28.0% agreed.

Commentary

Labour has gained some support on the party vote from Maori on the Maori roll, but on the electorate vote they are polling well below what they got even in 2011. Also they have had a drop off in support from Maori on the general roll.

The Maori Party has increased party vote support with Maori on both the general and Maori rolls, and are polling higher in the electorate vote than they got in 2011.

The Mana Party has almost halved its party vote support from Maori on the Maori roll, and has also dropped in electorate vote support from 2011.

Two elements of caution. Maori voters tend to be harder to poll than non-Maori, so there is a greater chance of sampling errors which can impact accuracy. Also tensions around the Maori Party leadership occurred during the polling period and may not be fully reflected.

However even with those cautionary notes, I would say that those writing off the Maori Party are incredibly premature.  The poll shows they have retained and grown support, while Labour and Mana have stagnated or dropped.

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the latest Roy Morgan poll. National and Labour are unchanged (14.5% gap) but what has moved significantly is the country direction which has increased from a net +20% to a net +26.5%.

And in my final look at a Gallup poll, it is the issue of guns. They tested the nine proposals put forward by Obama and found each one had majority support – in some cases overwhelming. In order they are:

1. Require criminal background checks for all gun sales 91%
2. More spending on youth mental health 82%
3. Increase training for Police etc on responding to armed attacks 79%
4. Increase penalties for buying a gun for someone not authorised to own one 75%
5. $4 billion on 15,000 more police officers 70%
6. $30 million to help schools develop response plans 69%
7. Ban armour-piercing bullets except for military and police 67%
8. Reinstate and strengthen assault weapon ban 60%
9. Limit sale of ammo mags to 10 rounds or less 54%

Only the first one and the last three are really about gun controls or restrictions. The background checks has huge support. The last three majority support but some significant opposition – 30% or more.

So does this indicate Obama will get it through Congress? Not a lot. Why? Because they do not ask how strongly people feel on an issue. Let’s say 60% are in favour and 30% against. But what will impact politicians is will those 60% in favour change their vote based on how they vote on this issue and will the 30% against change their vote?

And the reality is that those pro gun control feel pretty strongly on it, but are unlikely to vote for a Representative or Senator just because they voted for gun control. However those anti gun control regard it as a deeply personal issue where it is their rights being taken away. They will never vote for you if you vote against them on it.

The same logic applied in NZ on nuclear ships visit. It was possible to get a 50/50 split on the desirability of allowing nuclear powered (not not armed) US ships to visit. However repealing the ban would not gain you a single extra vote while for 5% to 7% of the population (mainly women) it would shift their vote. So a passionate minority can trump a majority.

Also of interest is the partisan split, on the nine issues. The per cent agreement from Democrats and Republicans on each is:

1. Require criminal background checks for all gun sales 97% and 92%
2. More spending on youth mental health 93% and 67%
3. Increase training for Police etc on responding to armed attacks 87% and 71%
4. Increase penalties for buying a gun for someone not authorised to own one 81% and 75%
5. $4 billion on 15,000 more police officers 81% and 63%
6. $30 million to help schools develop response plans 81% and 61%
7. Ban armour-piercing bullets except for military and police 80% and 49%
8. Reinstate and strengthen assault weapon ban 80% and 56%
9. Limit sale of ammo mags to 10 rounds or less 74% and 39%

So of the nine issues, Republicans only really oppose the last one around size of mags.

Also of interest is given a choice of priorities, 65% of Americans said the focus should be on school security and mental health system and 30% on gun laws. So they support the measures but don’t think gun law reform is the priority.

When I was at the Gallup site, there was quite a few interesting polls on issues. This is their Roe v Wade graph over time.

Not a lot of change for 25 years of heat. Of course this is not the same as asking views on abortion laws, as you can be pro-choice and think Roe v Wade was a very bad judicial decision (as I do). But they ask on specifics:

• Abortion legal under any circumstances 28%
• Abortion illegal in all circumstances 18%
• Abortion legal under certain circumstances 52%

So in fact only 18% of Americans think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. And while I am pro-choice I’m not sure even I would quite tick the  box legal under any circumstance as I would not support an eight month abortion unless the mother’s survival was an issue. Most Americans are actually in the fairly sensible middle.

So how about when abortions can happen. the results are:

• 1st trimester 61% say should be legal
• 2nd trimester 27% say should be legal
• 3rd trimester 14% say should be legal

I’d be interested in seeing a similar question in NZ. The results might not be vastly different. I can’t imagine a huge number of people would say they support third trimester abortions. I note the official NZ stats indicate only 5% occur after the first trimester and that after 20 weeks, they will only occur if necessary to save life or stop serious permanent injury.

The point I’m trying to make is that while the issue is very political and volatile in the US, I’m not sure the overall opinion on legality is vastly different from NZ.

Finally they ask US respondents if they would call themselves pro-choice or pro-life and it is 48% pro-choice and 44% pro-life. What is interesting is the demographic differences of those who say they are pro-choice. They are:

• No religion – 80% pro-choice
• Democrat – 63%
• Income > $75k – 58%
• Under 30 – 54%
• Women 50%
• Men 47%
• Catholics 48%
• Republicans 28%

The small difference between men and women is unexpected (for me).

T

This graph is from Stats Chat. It’s amazing how much views have changed over 50 years. In 1958 only 4% of Americans approved on interracial marriage. That implies both a majority of white and black Americians were against interracial marriage.

The poll is from 2011, but I was fascinated enough by the chart to look up the source data. As Stats Chat pointed out, still a bit alarming 14% don’t approve of interracial marriage, but what I found interesting was the breakdown of the approval rate by age. It was:

• Under 30s 97%
• 30 to 50 91%
• 50 to 64 88%
• Over 65s 66%

So almost one in three Americans aged over 65 disapprove of interracial marriage. Very interesting when you consider the opposition in NZ to same sex marriage is primarily (but of course not exclusively) over 65s.

The Herald reports:

The Labour Party housing policy for first-home buyers has struck a chord despite the Government’s attempts to write it off as expensive and unrealistic.

Just over 70 per cent of the 500 respondents in the Herald-DigiPoll survey approved of Labour’s promise to enter the housing market to build 100,000 low-cost homes over the next 10 years.

I’m surprised it isn’t 95%. Who is against a political party saying they can wave a magical wand and produce houses  $150,000 to $200,000 cheaper than normal.  The problem is their numbers simply do not and can not add up. It is a con.

The HoS publishes a Key Research poll:

POLL

Do you think that same-sex civil unions should be extended to marriage?
• Yes 53.9%
• No 38.1%
• Unsure 8%

Do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end an incurable patient’s life, if the patient requests it?
• Yes 60.5%
• No 18.2%
• Depends on situation 16.2%
• Unsure 5.1%

A very low level of outright opposition to the euthanasia proposition.

The Herald reports:

Most Kiwis support paying compensation to David Bain, even though Justice Minister Judith Collins says many New Zealanders will be upset at any taxpayer payment for the man once convicted of murdering his family.

A Herald-DigiPoll summer survey found 74 per cent of those polled believe Mr Bain should be compensated if the judge who reviewed the case recommended that. (The survey was started on December 7, before Justice Ian Binnie’s recommendation of compensation became public.)

The results are reasonably meaningless. My view is that Bain should get compensation if an independent report concludes he is innocent on the balance of probabilities, and that report has followed the NZ law of evidence.

The Binnie report has been shown to be significantly flawed. It is quite possible another report could reach the same conclusion. But we need to be sure, before any compensation is agreed to, that you are not handing over millions of dollars to someone if they probably did kill their family.

Ms Collins dismissed the poll for asking an invalid question, as Justice Binnie was asked not to make a recommendation on compensation.

One of the many mistakes Binnie made – not understanding your terms of reference is a most basic error.

Labour justice spokesman Charles Chauvel said the “ad hoc” process had become “rotten”. He said Justice Binnie’s report was “perfectly adequate” and did not deserve “bile” from an “Auckland tax lawyer” like Ms Collins.

Chauvel thinks the Binnie report is “perfectly adequate”. I’ll be generous and presume he is speaking as a politician, and not a lawyer.

Been sent a link to a poll commissioned by the First Union on the TPP. It looks like 64% oppose TPP, but look at the question:

New Zealand is currently negotiating a free trade and investment treaty with ten other countries called the Trans Pacific Partnership. As part of the negotiations, there is a proposal to allow foreign investors to sue governments in private offshore tribunals if government actions threaten their future profits. The US advocates it while Australia says it would not sign a deal with this in it. Which one of the following statements do you most agree with:

That’s such an outrageously worded question, I am surprised they didn’t get 90% opposed. There is no proposal to allow investors to sue if their “profits are threatened”. The proposal (which is in many other trade deals we have) is to sue if the government discriminates against the company based on their country. You can’t simply sue because the Govt passes a law that will harm profits.

The difference is massive. As that poll question describes the proposal, a normal respondent would imagine that there would be potentially hundreds of law suits – because many many Govt actions impact a company’s profits. In reality law suits under this provision are massively rare – one per decade maybe, because any action is restricted to whether it is discriminatory (ie would not impact local companies also).

Again, based on that question, I’d expect 90% to be against. There is a legitimate debate about investor state provisions, but this loaded question is all heat and no light.

The lesson for media should be to always look at the actual poll question asked, and don’t just go off any media release. And ask yourself if the poll question is a fair representation of the issue being debated.

Some interesting results from a You Gov poll in the UK:

•  48% support tax reductions for businesses with 33% opposed
• Only 19% support tax reductions for high earners
• Only 3% support the planned 5% increase in the EU budget
• 57% support a referendum being held on UK membership of EU
• 49% would vote to leave the Eu and only 32% would vote to stay
• 46% want the UK in an EU that is a free trade area only, 19% want the EU as it is, and 26% want the UK completely out of the EU
• 63% say prisoners should not be able to vote, and only 17% say those serving sentences of less than four years should be eligible to vote
• 78% say the Church of England should allow female Bishops, with 10% against only

Curiablog has the latest polls from One News and 3 News.

Both are good news for David Shearer. It looks like the public like him sacking David Cunliffe. National also down a bit in both polls.

3 News would have the Maori Party hold the balance of power on their poll, while One News would have a centre-left Government able to form.

The last election was very close between the CR and CL, and these polls show 2014 is likely to be also.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The political emperors have no clothes, stripped bare by a big-data wizard named Nate Silver who showed dispassionate maths was more reliable than pundit intuition and cherry-picked polls.

Silver, 34, a statistician who previously predicted the career trajectories of baseball players, accurately tipped 49 out of 50 US states (with the 50th, Florida, highly likely to be accurate as well as Obama is ahead with 97 per cent of the votes counted) and most Senate contests.

As right-wing pundits attacked him and his “voodoo statistics” for failing to see that the election was on a knife edge – and in the case of some conservative wingnuts, for being openly gay and “effeminate” – Silver held his nerve and for the entire election cycle maintained that the data always pointed to an easy Obama victory. …

Even after Obama’s dismal first debate performance, Silver’s probability of Obama winning never dipped below 61.1 per cent, rising to more than 90 per cent on election day.

I am a big fan of both Silver’s analytic skills, and his demeanour while under fire. He deserves a lot of credit.

It is worth pointing out though that all the major polling aggregation sites did very well as reported by Cnet:

But Silver wasn’t the only one to do exceptionally well in the prediction department. In fact, each of the five aggregators that CNET surveyed yesterday — FiveThirtyEight, TPM PollTracker, HuffPost Pollster, the RealClearPolitics Average, and the Princeton Election Consortium — successfully called the election for Obama, and save for TPM PollTracker and RealClearPolitics handing Florida to Romney, the aggregators were spot on across the board when it came to picking swing state victors.

So if you listened to the polls rather than the pundits, you were likely to be correct. Why then is Silver the new political celebrity rather than say Mark Blumenthal who does HuffPost Pollster?

I think it is partly because Silver was attacked by several prominent pundits before the election. Those attacks backfired by giving him not just accuracy but vindication.

The other reason is that Silver does a bit more than just aggregate and weight the polls. His extra tweeks may not make a huge difference but they are seen as useful by many.

In addition to picking the winner in all 50 states — besting his 49 out of 50 slate in 2008 — Silver was also the closest among the aggregators to picking the two candidates’ popular vote percentages. All told, he missed Obama’s total of 50.8 percent by just four-tenths of a percentage point (50.4) and Romney’s 48 percent by just three-tenths of a point (48.3) for an average miss of just 0.35 percentage points. HuffPo Pollster and RealClearPolitics tied for second with an average miss of 0.85 points.

This may change a bit as the final votes come in. It is worth noting also that Silver didn’t have a 100% accuracy rate with calling Senate races. Again this takes nothing away from his highly deserved reputation – just that even his model is not infallible  The strength of his model, as I see it, is that it learns from the past.

So what does Silver do to predict who wins. His exact methodology is secret (he has said he may reveal more over time) but he has detailed what he does for Senate races. My summary of it is:

1. Average the polls for that state
2. Give more recent polls a higher weight using an exponential decay formula
3. Weight by sample size so larger sample polls have more weight
4. Assign an accuracy rating to each pollster and weight those historically more accurate, higher. Exclude polls from very dodgy pollsters or polls released by parties. Note that many other polling aggregators also do steps 1 to 4. What is unique to Silver tends to be the later steps.
5.  Adjust the result based on the national trend, so if nationwide one party has dropped say 5% in one week, assume it applies to that state also.
6. Adjust the result based on observed “house effects” for pollsters. So if one pollster consistently has Democrats 2% higher than they get, then take 2% off their poll.
7. Adjust polls of registered voters as if they were of likely voters, based on the normal difference between such polls (Republicans do better with likely voters).
8. Do a regression analysis of the state based on their partisan voting index, their party identification, donations to candidates, incumbency status, approval ratings for incumbents, and previous offices a candidate has been elected to
9. Add the results of the regression analysis to the weighted average of polls, as if it is a poll.
10. Do an error calculation
11. Stimulate the election and report how often one candidate beats the other over multiple simulations

So Silver has a very sophisticated model. I think for presidential elections he also uses economic data such as GDP growth and unemployment rates. Over time as more and more data is gathered, his model should remain accurate or become even more accurate.

There will be times when it will be wrong, just as the polls sometimes get it wrong. No model can compensate if the election is very volatile and large numbers of voters change their mind or are undecided in the final few days. Events will always matter.

The CNN exit poll has some interesting breakdowns of how people voted:

• Men Romney +7%
• Women Obama +11%
• Under 30s Obama +23%
• Over 65s Romney +12%
• Urban Obama +26%
• Suburban Romney +2%
• Rural Romney +20%
• Whites Romney +20%
• African-Americans Obama +86%
• Latinos Obama +44%
• Liberals Obama +74%
• Moderates Obama +15%
• Conservatives Romney +65%
• Independents Romney +5%
• Under $50k income Obama +22%
• $50k to $100k income Romney +6%
• Over $100k Romney +10%
• Protestants Romney +15%
• Catholics Obama +2%

The urban vs suburban split is quite fascinating. Also that Catholics backed Obama.

President

Obama looks set to win Florida also (he is 50,000 votes in front) which will give him an electoral college margin of 332 to 206. That’s down from 365 votes in 2008, but still very healthy.  Bush in 2004 got 286, Clinton in 1996 got 379, Reagan in 1984 got 525, Nixon in 1972 got 520 and Eisenhower in 1956 got 457.

Vindication for Nate Silver at 538 who called all 50 (51) states correctly. But to be fair so did Pollster at Huffington Post and Real Clear Politics got all but Florida correct. So a good vindication for polling and science!

On the popular vote it is 50% to 48% for Obama. Again 538 pretty close to this (they had Obama 51%) and RCP spot on and Pollster a bit out at 48% to 47% for Obama. Again all well within margin of error.

Obama’s second term will be interesting. Now he no longer needs to be re-elected will he veer to the left, or govern from the centre?

Best tweet of the day was the person who suggested he should start his re-election speech with “Allahu Akbar”

Senate

A miserable day for the Republicans here. Two thirds of the Senate seats up for election were Democrats which meant the Republicans should have picked some up. They were hoping to get 54 seats or so this time, so in 2014 (when again two thirds are Democrats up for election) they could get a filibuster proof 60. That strategy is now dead.

The Dems and allies look to get 55 seats, up from 53. The lesson for the Republicans is not to elect candidates who will talk about rape in a way that would have been creepy even 100 years ago.

The polls were not so accurate for the Senate, as most were saying it would end up 533 to 47. However some seats are very close and may change.

House

The House is 232 to 192 with 14 races not called. In 2008 it was 242 to 193 so likely the Dems up slightly up – but the Republicans still with a solid majority.

The big challenge for Obama and Congress will be agreeing a Budget that doesn’t trigger the mandated across the board spending cuts in the Budget Control Act. However I can’t see the House agreeing to any tax increases (closing loopholes yes) so there could well be stalemate there as Dems and Obama will be most reluctant to do spending cuts only.

3 News reports:

Voters think Labour leader David Shearer is the most effective opposition leader, but only just.

A TV One opinion poll released on Monday night showed Mr Shearer favoured by 25 percent of respondents, with NZ First leader Winston Peters just behind him on 24 percent.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman rated 18 percent and Mana’s Hone Harawira six percent.

The Green Party’s other co-leader, Metiria Turei, was on five percent while 10 percent of those questioned didn’t think any of them were effective.

Not a huge surprise that Peters is high. Few doubt his capacity to oppose. What should worry Labour is that 23% name one of the two Green co-leaders as the most effective opposition leader and 25% their own leader.

The executive summary of the newsletter:

October saw six four polls published – two Roy Morgan polls a One News Colmar Brunton poll and a 3 News Reid Research Poll.

 The average of the public polls has National 13% ahead of Labour in October. In September it was 12%, so the gap has slightly increased. However the centre-right would have had just 56 out of 120 seats in October and the centre-left (including NZ First) 62 seats.

Australia now has the Labor Party leading or tied in the polls.

 In the United States all three “polls of polls” show Obama marginally ahead in the popular vote and with a more comfortable margin in the popular vote. Unless the Democrats have a poor turnout for the election (and the early voting has shown lower turnout for them, than previously), then Obama looks likely to be re-elected, but with a greatly reduced electoral college margin from 2008, when he won by 192 electoral college votes and 7.2% on the popular vote. The Republicans look likely to win at least 235 of the 435 House seats but only 46 or 47 of the 100 Senate seats.

Romney’s best chance of victory is to win Ohio (18 votes) and Colorado (9 votes). Pollster and RCP say that Obama is 2.6% to 2.8% ahead in Ohio and 0.3% to 0.6% in Colorado. It is fair to say that if Romney wins Ohio, he could well become President. But the gap behind Obama in that state has been persistent and fairly stable.

In the UK the Conservatives remain 10% behind Labour.

In Canada the Liberal Party have shot up 7% on the news that Justin Trudeau (son of Pierre) has announced his bid for the Liberal leadership. They are now tied for second place with the NDP.

The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment and head of government approval sentiment for the five countries. New Zealand continues to top both.

We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on National’s achievements, Kim Dotcom, John Banks, the drinking age vote, plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

The full newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself.

Have just published my monthly newsletter summarising the polls last month. The summary is:

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 60, September 2012

 August and September saw six political polls published – four Roy Morgan polls a One News Colmar Brunton poll and a NZ Herald DigiPoll.

The average of the public polls has National 12% ahead of Labour in August and 13% in September. In July it was 16%, so the gap has narrowed. The centre-right had 57 out of 120 seats in August and 60 seats in September. In both months the Maori Party would have held the balance of power.

Australia has seen the Labor Party and Gillard rebound massively. They are now tied with the Coalition in one poll, and Gillard’s approval rating has improved by a net 14%.

In the United States things were going well for the Democrats up until the first debate. Barack Obama remains slightly ahead of Mitt Romney in the polls, and further ahead in likely electoral college votes – but the gap has narrowed. His re-election chances on the Intrade market are now 62%. On the plus side, his approval rating has gone positive for the first time, and over the last two months country direction sentiment has improved by a net 15%.

The Republicans remained favoured to keep control in the House (88%) but have plummeted to only 27% probability to gain a majority in the Senate.

In the UK the Conservatives remain 10% behind Labour.

In Canada the Conservatives have are 2% ahead of the NDP, at 33%. The Liberals remain in third place at 22%. But Justin Trudeau (son of Pierre) has just announced his bid for the Liberal leadership, and polls indicate he could boost the Liberals into first place if elected.

The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment and head of government approval sentiment for the five countries. New Zealand continues to top both.

We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on, same sex marriage and adoption, school data, breakfasts for schools, the next King, euthanasia, plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please  go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself.

This graphs is to the end of September, so excludes the polls out in October so far.

The latest Roy Morgan poll is sober news for National. They are still 8% ahead of Labour, but 5.5% behind Labour and Greens combined. On this poll the seats would be:

• National 51
• Labour 41
• Greens 17
• NZF 8
• Maori 3
• United 1
• Mana 1

You need 62 seats to govern, so either Lab/Gre/NZF or Nat/NZF/Maori. United Future and Mana might be there but wouldn’t make the difference.

The Roy Morgan poll can be quite variable but they have shown a 5% drop for National in the last month, and with the constant bad headlines this is not surprising. The Government is still progressing some very good policies, and making progress on the economic front (despite the high profile job losses).

I think the Govt needs to do a number of things to regain momentum. They include:

• A commission of inquiry into the GCSB. The fact three other cases have been disclosed as being of uncertain legality gives the Govt grounds for this. Without an inquiry, the issue will drag on for the next six months or longer. The GCSB, with all respect, has displayed signs of incompetence.  It is almost unforgiveable that they took two weeks to recall that Kim Dotcom had been mentioned to the PM at a general briefing. They should have located that within hours, not weeks. I personally don’t believe there has been any ill intent, but there has been enough errors made, that it is difficult to see public confidence being restored without a more rigorous inquiry – not just into Dotcom. Such an inquiry could also review the legal framework around the GCSB, so it is future looking also.
• Significant change to the Christchurch schools debacle. It could well be that all the changes are justified, and sensible in the long-term. But the why it was done has resulted in such ill feeling, that the Government needs to go for less change there. People know some stuff has to change, but go for the essential, not the “ideal” in terms of efficiency.
• Amend the ECan legislation to make it a hybrid body as the Commissioners recommended. When not even the Commissioners are wanting to stay on as a purely appointed body, you have to ask why would the Govt do this?
• Deal with the child poverty campaign (which is in fact a campaign for higher taxes and more welfare). National’s policies around welfare reform, national standards, reducing child abuse, better domestic violence laws are in fact all about reducing real child poverty, and giving more kids a better start in life. The left’s only answer to these issues is tax and spend. They won’t confront the much tougher issues of welfare dependency, the bottom 20% of students etc. National will. But National is not making the case well enough, and allowing the left to define child poverty as being just about “relative poverty” which in fact is just another name for income inequality.
• Position the left as the party of higher costs for struggling households. People forget they want to ramp up the ETS so petrol and electricity prices increase. They want more inflation, which will hit struggling families. They want more taxes.

All Governments have had spells when they struggle in the polls. It happened to Labour six months into their first term (the winter of discontent). It seems to be happening to National six months into their second term. The challenge is to respond to it, and respond to it well.

Gallup has released the latest of its annual polls measuring trust or distrust in the US media by Americans.

A record high 60% say they have not very much trust or no trust at all in the media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.  This has declined 14% over the last decade.

What is interesting is the breakdown by affiliation. 58% of Democrats say they have a fair or great deal of trust in the media and only 26% of Republicans say the same. Now some may say that this is because Republicans are detached from reality, but they also found that Independents have only 31% trust in the media. What this suggests to me is that the majority of the media are seen as Democrat-aligned and too sycophantic to the Democrats – hence the rest of America has little faith in them.

The Herald reports:

The Conservative Party has had a bump in the polls following Parliament’s passing of the first reading of a bill to legalise gay marriage, the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey shows.

The Conservatives would not make it to Parliament on its 1.5 per cent rating (up from 0.5), but if the threshold of the party vote is lowered from its current 5 per cent to 4 per cent under reforms to MMP before the next election, it has to rise only 2.5 percentage points to make it into Parliament with several MPs.

Wow this is trying to talk up a pretty minor movement. Small parties regularly move up or down by 1%. The reality is that even on 1.5%, that is barely over half of what they actually got at the last election.

Personally I would have expected they would have got a much larger and more significant bump, considering the publicity Colin Craig has had.

The full poll results are at Curiablog. On this poll the CL and CR both have 60 seats, so the Maori Party would have the balance of power.

Stuff reports:

The Conservatives hired Research First to poll Helensville voters on the issue of gay marriage and gay adoption.

About 89 per cent said their MP should consult their electorate over conscience votes and vote the way voters wanted them to, it found.

While the majority did sat y they want their MP to vote as they say (no surprise), there are a few things to note about the poll. If you look at the small print on the pamphlet, it is actually a poll of both Helensville and Rodney electorates.

The full poll results are online on the Conservative Party website. It was done by Research First.

I blogged last year my criticisms of the poll done by Research First for the Conservatives in Rodney. It purported to show Craig ahead of the National candidate and had serious flaws such as mixing results from an unprompted question with a prompted question. It is a matter of record that Craig lost the seat by over 12,000 votes.

I’m pleased to say that this poll is, in my opinion, much sounder than last year’s Rodney one. In fact in some areas it is more transparent than almost any other poll report. There are also some areas you can be critical, and I’ll get into those also, but first I’ll highlight the really good stuff that Research First have done with this poll.

1. The full report has been made available online.
2. They disclose their call-back policy – a laudable six times.
3. They disclose their response rate, and detail the reasons for non-response. This is an A+ level of transparency. I don’t think I have seen another NZ poll report that does this.
4. They disclose their demographic breakdown, and what variables they weighted on.
5. They include the full questionnaire as an appendix to the report.
6. The question order appears to be sound, with the question on marriage vs civil unions at the beginning of the poll

UPDATE: Forgot to mention one other issue which occurred to me. Respondents were told up-front that the poll was on gay marriage, and this led to around 100 people saying they didn’t want to take part. This may have impacted the results a bit also, as it is more likely those with strong views on the issue will want to take part. Ideally, in my opinion, you want to tell respondents generally what the poll is about (such as saying “on a current political issue) but need to be careful not to be too specific as it may then become a bit self-selecting.

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 59, July 2012

 July saw five political polls published – two Roy Morgan polls a 3 News Reid Research poll, One News Colmar Brunton poll and the new Fairfax Ipsos poll.

The average of the public polls has National 16% ahead of Labour, up slightly from 15% in June. The centre-right has 62 out of 121 seats on the July average, so could govern without the Maori Party.

Australia has the ALP 8% to 12% behind the coalition.

In the United States Barack Obama is 1% ahead of Mitt Romney in the polls, and remains ahead in likely electoral college votes – but Romney has gained on him. However his re-election chances on the Intrade market improved from 55% to 57%.

The Republicans remained favoured to keep control in the House (85%) but are now at only 49% to gain a majority in the Senate.

In the UK the Conservatives are 11% behind Labour. The Lib Dems have picked up some support.

In Canada the Conservatives have regained the lead from the NDP – ahead by 33% to 32%. The once mighty Liberals languish at 22% and look unable to regain support from the NDP.

The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment and head of government approval sentiment for the five countries. New Zealand continues to stand out in both.

We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on alcohol minimum pricing, same sex marriage, asset sales, school achievement, the court system, Auckland CBD rail loop, Christchurch Cathedral, and plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself.

The Government is considering changing the requirement for WOF checks from six monthly to annually for some vehicles. Only vehicles less than six year olds do annual checks. Most countries only require a WOF every two years or so.

The WOF checks costs $250m a year, so obviously the garages represented by the Motor Trade Association (MTA) are not keen on reducing the frequency. They’d probably like monthly checks.

Now the MTA has announced:

 A recent telephone survey of 1,000 drivers, completed by the Motor Trade Association (MTA), showed that 63 percent were concerned to some degree about the possibility of fewer WoF inspections as a result of the current Vehicle Licensing Reform process.

This raises so many questions. It appears the poll was done by the MTA itself, rather than by a research agency that follows the international and national code of practice ofr market research and polling.

Also the statement “some degree” conceals more than it reveals. This may be 60% were “a tiny bit concerned” and 3% “very concerned”. The MTA has not made available the actual results – just some cherry picked numbers.

The survey showed 98 percent of drivers agreed that WoFs are a valuable safety check, and an important part of road safety. More than half (56 percent) agreed that they would not feel safe on the road if WoF inspections were to become less frequent, emphasising the role that the current system plays in reassuring motorists.

New Zealand’s current vehicle inspection regime means vehicles less than six years old are required to undergo a WoF inspection every 12 months, with vehicles older than this being inspected every six months. The survey also showed there was clear support (67 percent) for retaining the frequency of WoFs as is.

Again we are not shown the actual question asked, or what questions were asked before this question.

The MTA has sent this release to all MPs, as I understand it. I hope they will now release the full poll report showing who conducted it, how the sample was selected, what exact questions were asked, and the full results. Then MPs and the public can draw their own conclusions on it.

UMR has done polling of residents and business in Christchurch. Some of the more interesting results:

• 61% of residents say Chch heading in right direction and 21% wrong direction – more positive figures than for NZ as a whole
• 95% are aware of the CBD rebuild plan and 56% support it, 30% are neutral and only 13% opposed to it
• 78% of Chch businesses say Chch heading in right direction and 8% wrong direction.
• 99% of businesses are aware of the CBD rebuild plan and 74% support it, 15% are neutral and only 7% opposed to it

I’d say the CERA team will be delighted with those results. It’s also good to see that the Christchurch residents by a 3:1 majority are positive about the direction of their city as that stands in contrast to the daily doom and gloom pushed by some of the local opposition MPs.

Colmar Brunton have kindly published the demographic breakdown of their May poll on same sex marriage. Overall New Zealanders were 2:1 in favour with 63% supporting and 31% against. But the demographic breakdowns are fascinating:

• Amongst under 35s, it is over 4:1 in favour or 76% to 18%
• Even amongst 35 to 54 year olds, 66% are in favour
• This suggests that combined, around 70% of people aged under 55 are in favour of allowing same sex couples to marry. This is why I believe it is absolutely inevitable
• Women support same sex marriage by around 2.5:1 or 69% to 26% – and women are key swing voters
• The more someone earns, the more likely they are to support same sex marriage – those earning $70,000 or more are almost 2.5:1 in favour
• Those who identify with a religion are split evenly on the issue, while those who do not are around 3.5:1 in favour being 75% to 21%
• Rural and small town respondents are in favour by 59% to 33% – just slightly less than the overall average of 63% to 31%.

Very fascinating results. They do not provide the breakdown for combined gender and age but looking at this I’d estimate that women aged under 55 are around 80% in favour. No demographic is strongly against with those aged over 55 being only 48% opposed – a plurality margin of just 2%.