Australian federal election 2022

[#26]

Speaking of leadership changes Voss is the eigth coach of Carlton since 2001.

[Pies4shaw]

The wikipedia article on "Opinion polling for the 2022 Australian federal election" carries a fascinating graph of the two-party preferred polling (left hand graph under the heading "Graphical summary"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_Australian_federal_election

The LNP certainly needs to be doing something about now because that graph shows Morrison's re-election prospects going down the toilet.

The LNP were, of course, trying to pivot (understandably) from their handling of Omicron (which the pollsters - in their reasonably hilarious way - describe as a "weakness") to job creation, reduction of unemployment and the health of the economy. That will go better (well, less worse) for them than public health, provided the RBA does the right thing by them (as it usually does) and holds back the cash rate until after the election.

At the moment, though, the LNP looks a little like it might need to borrow the WA Libs' tandem bicycle to get the whole party to Parliament post-May. It won't be that bad, of course - the trends the polls show are never as pronounced in real life and the damage and swings will be in particular places. Still, there isn't much time to turn around an apparent 12.5% deficit (especially given that: (1) the deficit has the general gradient of the Omicron cases and deaths graphs have had since the start of January 2022 - just a coincidence, of course; and (2) the trend looks to have been all in the same direction since about July or August of 2020).

[stui magpie]

^

As discussed earlier, Australians have clearly become accustomed to changing Prime Ministers every 2.5 years.

Morrison is currently trying to navigate his canoe up a sewage outlet without a paddle. The only thing that may save him is that Albanese has the charisma of a dead carp.

[eddiesmith]

It’s less than 3 years since predictions of ALP cracking the triple figures on Election night and here we are and still the same fantasies…

[Pies4shaw]

It's certainly a problematic polling chart. Did you consider it - or did you just say to yourself "it didn't happen last time"? Perhaps you might look at the present chart and compare it with the one, here, from the polling leading into the previous election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_Australian_federal_election

In 2019, the polling showed opinion progressively reducing the two-party preferred vote for the ALP (and, of course, correspondingly increasing it for the LNP) over the 7 months leading up to the election. The widest gap was about 8% in October 2018 and it gradually closed so that by the poll the following May, the opinion poll gap was only 2% (effectively, just a 1% swing, of course), well within the margins of error for any opinion polling. Sometimes people just read polling data incorrectly and treat it as a certain prediction.

The present poll shows a gap of more than 12% and the election can't happen much more than 3 months from now, so there's not much time to shift that polling. And, before the LNP can "close the gap", it has to reverse the trend of an apparent present very rapid negative drift.

Of course, nothing is certain - and there is always the possibility that the pollsters are actually measuring the wrong things- but you shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that this polling is in any way like the 2018/2019 polling.

[eddiesmith]

As I said previously, I don't expect them to win, I still think independents will win a few and the ALP will have to do a deal with the Devil, but expecting wipeouts is a little bit of wishful thinking.

But given the sizes of some of these polls, you swing 45 people and it's back to what it was last time, swing 90 and it's even again...Hardly big numbers of people to change their minds.

A 3% drop after 2 months of the world is ending propaganda because some people couldn't find a RAT and they blamed one man for it isn't massive. If in 3 months time people are working and thinking things are great again their opinions will change again.

In January 2020 Morrison was getting smashed and Albo even had a few polls of being the preferred PM. By May it was a landslide the other way!

[David]

Interestingly, there’s suggestion that some errors crept into the pre-election polling in 2019 (particularly the last one that showed Labor in front 51-49), and Newspoll at least have apparently recalibrated their weighting system to avoid that issue this time around. So not only are the numbers worse this time around, but they may also be more accurate (i.e. less inclined to skew in favour of Labor).

After all of the famous polling mishaps of recent years around the world, I think it’s reasonable to treat any polling with a degree of scepticism. But it does seem worth noting that the government is currently breaking records in terms of negative polling if it is to be re-elected.

[#26]

IF the Libs or ALP win outright we won't see much change. I don't know why people are so passionate about it being one or the other. Doesn't really make much difference.

[David]

I felt the same in 2007, but to be fair Rudd and Gillard did govern somewhat differently to how one would have expected a continuing Liberal government to, sometimes for worse but generally for better. This article provides a fair assessment of their achievements and failures:

https://theconversation.com/labors-legacy-six-years-of-what-exactly-17526

Of course, the caveat here is that Rudd was an unusually ambitious figure in comparison with Labor Party leaders in recent decades, and Albanese is the opposite: unless he does a 180-degree pivot in government, all the signs he's offered so far point towards an extreme embrace of a Liberal Party-lite style of governance (much as Morrison has quietly walked away from much of the right-wing extremism that flourished during the Abbott and Turnbull years). I guess we have to wait and see, but I would expect at least some subtle differences; often it's the boring decisions behind the scenes to do with who and what gets funded that can make a huge difference on the ground for cultural, academic and public service sectors.

[stui magpie]

If Albanese wins (which is more likely than not) he'll be in a bind of his own making. Playing such a small target with no policies, if he does suddenly get ambitious he'll be slaughtered in the media for not taking those policies to the election and seeking a mandate for them.

Now of course he doesn't have to, but that's the generally accepted practice.

So pretty much either way, not much will change.

[David]

Part of me suspects their bet is that once in government they can do what they like and that nobody will particularly care about the fact that those policies weren't publicised before the election. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that they're being 100% honest right now and will govern exactly the way they're presenting themselves.

[#26]

[#26]

[David]

That simultaneous exaggeration is, by now (if it wasn't always), an essential crutch for political parties lean on. It's not enough to be a better alternative for reasons x, y and z; one party needs to be the devil incarnate and the other needs to be our only possible saviours.

Of course it would hardly matter if everyone treated such messaging as self-interested propaganda and dismissed it accordingly, but partisan followers do a great job of reiterating these tropes anywhere they can, and in doing so end up shouting down anyone who stands in the middle or on the outside of that dynamic.

Mind you, when it comes to the party loyalists on social media, this isn't just a tactic on their part – I think they generally believe with every fibre of their being that, say, Morrison is one step away from leading Australia into fascism, and that Albanese offers our only hope of a progressive future (or vice versa: Morrison is a safe pair of hands and Albanese is a closet socialist who'll destroy our economy and enforce gender reassignment surgery for three-year-olds, etc.). And they'll continue to believe in this kind of black and white dynamic with every future election that comes, regardless of the actual ideological positions or policy platforms of the major parties in question.

[stui magpie]

Many of those genuine believers, in my experience, inherited their views from their parents and never had cause to reflect or reconsider.