Polling company surveying Bathurst mining mistakenly calls Newtown voters
Lithgow is a long way from Newtown - but try telling that to polling company uComms, who got them mixed up and surveyed the inner-city suburb about mining. HEAR THE CALL.
NSW
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A polling company was paid by a left-leaning think tank to quiz voters in the Nationals-held state seat of Bathurst about mining and the environment in the Lithgow area but asked people in the Greens-held seat of Newtown.
The robocall survey was conducted by uComms for The Australia Institute (TAI) on October 8.
When first confronted with the sample problems, TAI executive director Ben Oquist denied it had commissioned such a survey.
“Unless I am terribly mistaken we have no such poll in the field,” Mr Oquist, who was previously chief of staff Bob Brown and Christine Milne when each led the Australian Greens, told Daily Telegraph.
However, after being presented with audio from the robocall and then conducting checks, Mr Oquist clarified the situation.
“The Australia Institute did in fact commission a poll of the NSW seat of Bathurst on the night of 8th October 2020,” he said.
“After the project was decided upon some time ago, it experienced several months of delays due to a range of circumstances, and then unexpectedly was put into (the) field … without going through The Australia Institute’s usual internal processes.
“Unfortunately … it also appears that a number of respondents well outside the target electorate were surveyed,” Mr Oquist said.
“We have now spoken with the pollster about these sampling errors and they have apologised having discovered that there was indeed a source error. They are going to re-do the poll so that it does only focus on the target area.”
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Later Mr Oquist said: “The Australia Institute will review polling processes to seek to ensure such an event does not happen again, and have sought assurances that our pollsters do the same.”
uComms director James Stewart said the sampling problem was due to the use of a new data provider.
“Obviously it didn’t go very well,” Mr Stewart said. The poll was pulled and restarted using the previous data provider.
Mr Stewart said uComms began as the union movement’s polling arm.
Official company filings appear to show it is ultimately 50-50 owned non-beneficially by ACTU boss Sally McManus and CFMMEU head Michael O’Connor.
They did not respond to requests for clarification and Mr Stewart said he had been the sole shareholder since January 1 this year.
uComms has been used in the past by the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age newspapers to conduct polls.
It has also been engaged by political activists GetUp, Greenpeace and the Animal Justice Party.
Nationals MP for Bathurst Paul Toole said “mining in the Central West has been critical for the local economy and jobs. Many locals will tell you that.”
Originally published as Polling company surveying Bathurst mining mistakenly calls Newtown voters