Newspoll: Polling changes with the aim of getting it right

Newspoll has a proud legacy and we are committed to modernising and improving how it is conducted.

The May election was a disappointment for the polling industry. Without exception, every Australian poll got the outcome wrong. This has ­resulted in considerable scepticism towards polls and a ­period of ­intense reflection for those of us who are active in the industry.

Australian polls, especially Newspoll, have been very accurate in recent years, while polls around the globe have struggled. For ­instance, the 2016 final Newspoll was the most accurate federal election poll on record. Some Australian commentators have come to see polls as almost infallible, which makes what happened this year all the more disconcerting.

Polling in recent years has ­become harder to conduct and ­interpret. A decade or so ago, most people had landlines and they tended to answer them. There was very little call screening. This meant getting a representative sample was easier and pollsters did not need to be so skilled in modelling and scaling their data. The truth is, the old days are never coming back. In order to do better, we need to consider what we can do differently.

At YouGov, we have conducted a thorough investigation of our practices and the results of the election. We believed that this process needed to be scientific and methodical and not be rushed. So we took our time to establish what went wrong and we have recommended changes based on that ­appraisal.

For these reasons, we are making some important changes to the way we conduct Newspoll for The Australian. As a global company, YouGov has already faced many of the challenges we’re now facing in Australia. Our experience has informed what we’re implementing now.

Firstly, we’re shifting from a mixed-methodology involving online and robocalling to a 100 per cent online approach. Australians are increasingly doing most of their media consumption and their social activity online and we can now better represent the population this way.

We’ve seen a consistent pattern overseas where phone polling has become less accurate and online polling more so as fewer people answer phone calls and more ­people are online. Unfortunately, response rates for robocalls in Australia have been falling and many people find them annoying and invasive. They tend to be answered largely by older people or those who are very interested in politics. Busy people who are less interested in politics either don’t answer or hang up. We believe this was a significant contributor to the inaccuracies seen at the election.

Conducting surveys online will allow us to construct better samples, in terms of age, gender, and socioeconomic representation. The more complex scripting we can do online will also allow us to tailor our questionnaires more precisely to reflect the choices voters actually face at the ballot box.

We will be also asking a more diverse range of questions beyond what is reported in the newspaper, including social measures and demographics.

This will give us the option to model the Australian voter population more precisely in terms of education, household income and other variables. For instance, our new methodology will weight the data by age interlocked with education and have precise quotas for different types of electorate throughout Australia.

It’s important to emphasise that while this methodology is new for Newspoll, it is not for YouGov. The methodology, which we have used successfully in many parts of the world, will be implemented using a team that is based in Australia and understands our system of government.

We’ll also be committing ourselves to greater transparency in polling. YouGov has called for the establishment of an Australian Polling Council that is the appropriate vehicle for the industry to set standards for disclosure and appropriate reporting. We are ­inviting other polling companies and other stakeholders to join us in establishing this important innovation.

We realise that many Australians were understandably disappointed in the accuracy of polling at the May election. Newspoll has a proud legacy and we are committed to modernising and improving how it is conducted to ensure that it remains the poll Australian decision-makers rely upon.

Campbell White is head of public affairs and polling, Asia Pacific, at YouGov