Polling still works, even if we don’t trust it

The opinion polling industry may have shockingly misread the federal election this year, but that’s no reason to dismiss its long history of accurately representing people and holding politicians to account, writes Paul Williams.

It started out as just a bit of harmless fun about 35 years ago.

Of course, they were much harder to get back then. But I’d always find time to consume a quick one here, a couple more there, with like-minded mates.

Soon I found I was sweating anxiously for the next one, unable to go more than a couple of weeks before satisfying my craving. I knew I was hooked, and I still am.

So here’s my public confession: my name is Paul, and I’m an opinion poll junkie.

It’s been more than two months since I read my last opinion poll, and I can’t take it anymore. I need a poll, now. Even a quick survey will do.

More seriously, it’s not hard to understand why the major polling firms — YouGov/Galaxy (partnered with Newspoll), Ipsos, Morgan, ReachTel and Essential — have baulked at publishing a single poll after most were catastrophically wrong in the lead up to the May federal election.

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Imagine the trepidation pollsters now feel. It must be like a chain of mountaineers watching the lead hiker disappear down an icy crevasse. Panic sets in, and no one dares to be the first to step forward.

Morgan, however, did publish a poll earlier this month on voters’ opinion of Australia’s direction. Happily for the Coalition, 43.5 per cent (up six points) now feel the country is headed in the “right” direction, and 39 per cent (down 5.5 points) do not.

But mention opinion polls to most after 18 May and you invite gut-heaving guffaws. Indeed, I was speaking to a politically literate relative only recently who declared “all opinions polls are garbage” even before I finished my sentence.

Let’s not write off opinion polls just yet. Picture: Kym Smith

So, can we still trust opinion polls? Yes, we can. Their record of enviable accuracy since beginning operations in Australia in 1941 — largely due to Australia’s system of compulsory voting — speaks for itself.

The last Newspoll before the 2016 federal election, for example, was exactly right in both its primary and after-preference vote. ReachTel, Essential and Galaxy were also very accurate — well within their 2.5 per cent margin of error. The same can be said of most federal and state pre-election polls at least since the 1980s.

In short, just because the major polling firms got 2019 spectacularly wrong doesn’t mean we should throw the confidence baby out with the polling bathwater.

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Perhaps the real question is whether we should still care about opinion polls? Again, the answer is yes. We voters get too little opportunity to pass judgment on our elected elites. Offering one’s opinion to a polling firm is a simple but effective way the ordinary voter can have their voice heard between elections — a voice pollies listen to.

In fact, regular opinion polling sits comfortably within the democratic ‘social contract’ theory of 18th century political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. By allowing the public to regularly feel the pulse of government — and by reminding the government its pulse is being taken — opinion polls forge a healthy link between leader and led. If governments break their contract with the people and govern badly, opinion polls alert poor performers long before an election. It all adds to the democratic surplus.

One bad election prediction isn’t indicative of all the times opinion polls have gotten is right. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/The Australian

But none of that answers the question of why so many pollsters got it so uncharacteristically wrong — and, suspiciously, by the same huge margins — this year.

YouGov Galaxy boss David Briggs suggests the “shy Tory” effect — where voters are allegedly embarrassed to confess their conservative preferences to others — was at work. We undoubtedly saw that in Queensland in 1998 where most polls underestimated support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

But Scott Morrison’s Coalition is not PHON, and I can’t see too many being acutely ashamed to admit they voted for it. Moreover, most polling today is conducted via robocalls (to landline and mobile phones) and preselected internet panels — each largely anonymous forums where respondents don’t speak to live humans.

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No, the problem instead appears two-fold. One, ‘herding’ — where pollsters refuse to publish polls that conflict with the polling pack — is a fixable problem. But a second, unrepresentative samples, is harder to solve.

The problem is that telephone robo-polls — too often calling when parents are preparing family dinners — are now answered disproportionately by political junkies who like nothing better than to spend their evenings pushing keypad buttons. As Pew Research recently found, just 6 per cent of voters are now willing to answer surveys, down from 36 per cent just 20 years ago.

So, to keep your finger on the pulse — and to keep governments in line — take the time to answer that next opinion poll. But be careful. It’s addictive.

Paul Williams is a columnist for The Courier-Mail.