THE LAST EMRS poll in November 2009 was a disastrous one for the Labor government, but in a state with so little opinion polling, that last poll is very old news now.  There will most likely be another one out around the end of next week or early the week after, and after that as the campaign really gets going there will probably be many from a range of sources.  In my comments (HERE)  about the now-distant November poll, I pointed out that Labor needs to combat the perception created by that poll that if anyone might win majority government it is the Liberals.  I suggested:

“Possibly Labor will (as they did in 2006) point to the very poor predictive record of past EMRS polls, and drag out mysterious “private polling” that alters the picture somehow.”

We have been down this road before, of course.  In 2006, well out from the election and when almost everyone was firmly predicting a hung parliament, Labor rubbished EMRS’s polling and released a strange internal polling result that showed them mutilating the Liberals 62-38 on a two-party preferred basis.  Whether the curious expression of the result in two-party terms was deliberate or accidental I don’t know, but the clever thing about it was that it created an impression of an impending thrashing when even such a wide 2PP gulf does not necessarily translate into an easy victory under Hare-Clark.  By election day, that Labor internal polling was actually extremely close to the mark and all EMRS polls taken more than a month out had been shown to be quite unreliable.

In this case Labor seems to have accepted the narrative that it was in deep trouble in the polls towards the end of last year, but the focus of internal polling releases has been to try to create the impression that it is rapidly recovering.  In the first volley, a month ago (HERE)  (wow, an Examiner link that isn’t paywalled) we read that “internal polling showed the Government’s position had markedly improved since the devastating November EMRS poll, but the party was still the underdog”.  The Liberals struck back belatedly in similar fashion (HERE)  but it was a feeble effort, based on a completely useless focus-group sample of only 12 participants (which is not to say Labor’s focus groups have been any larger), and in the latest version (HERE)  Labor support “has surged back in the past two months” and Labor insiders hope “they may only lose just one or two of their 14 Lower House seats.”

An unidentified Labor source, who of course refuses to be identified, says “The clincher that will decide if we get a majority or minority is now certain to be Braddon”.  This is an enormous call – the source is effectively saying that if the party holds three in Braddon, it will definitely also hold three in Lyons and Denison, although those seats lie on much smaller margins (Lyons especially).  It is true that Labor has more serious issues with its lineup in Braddon (with one retiring and another in some measure of disrepute) and it is also true that the Liberals have had all manner of candidate problems in Denison, where they face the very challenging task of electing two new members in a seat where Labor has three incumbents.  It is also true that Braddon has been the seat where Labor’s position has been most dire in EMRS polling.  It may yet be the case that Braddon is the decisive seat but it is very premature to say that it definitely will be, whatever the sample size.

It is hard to tell whether it is Neales’ interpretation or the source’s interpretation when Neales states that losing one or two seats will “keep Labor in power without a challenge, unless the Liberals and Greens form a formal coalition.”  Whoever’s interpretation it is, it is certainly balderdash and possibly spin.  If Labor loses only one seat it remains in power in its own right no matter what the Greens and Liberals do.  If it loses two (12-9-4 or 12-8-5) it is in much the same boat constitutionally as if it loses four or five.  That is, it can stay in office in minority until removed, and the mechanism for removing it is much the same whatever the outcome – in no case is a formal coalition needed.  Indeed, 12-9-4 is the same as the 17-13-5 scenario in which the Gray government was deposed by a motion of no-confidence backed by a formal accord, but not a formal coalition.  The most significant difference between, say, 12-9-4 and 10-11-4, is that in the latter case a Liberal no-confidence motion could be carried even if the Greens abstained from voting.

Just because this opinion polling has been “leaked” (cynical translation: deliberately given and doubtless with the knowledge of those commissioning it) to the Mercury does not mean its findings should all be believed.  In the leadup to the 2006 election, Sue Neales reported that internal Labor polling showing that Lisa Singh was likely to unseat David Bartlett. In fact, no sitting Labor member was unseated in Denison or anywhere else, and Bartlett polled more than 2000 votes more than Singh and topped the Labor ticket.  One should also be cautious of any reporting of focus-group results where analysis is partly qualitative and the questions given are not explicitly stated, and where it is often hard to tell whether particular comments were made by one recipient, by a handful or by many, and to what extent leading questions were employed.

Furthermore, whether the interpretations of the internal polling are accurate is unknowable without actually seeing the figures, the questions and the sample size, and having them filtered through another level of potential misunderstanding (a reporter) is more likely to hinder than to help.  And something that would be good to know is whether there is any Labor polling that confirms the EMRS November poll as a valid baseline, or whether the interpretation of the previous internal poll simply assumes that it is so.  Quite simply, if Labor wants its claims about internal polling to be trusted by any but the most gullible observers (a rather large “if” in my opinion) it needs to publicly release the results and methods.  The Liberals may be afraid to challenge Labor to turn the rock over, and the press might be reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them copy, so it looks like the task of making such a call must be left to observers like yours truly.

My final question is: where are the Liberals this time?  Expectation management is a substantial issue in Tasmanian elections because there is a stability bonus for the party that can convince the public that it can plausibly win majority government (even if its chances appear small) and the opposition can’t.  Even with the edge having been taken off that issue by the personnel instability of the last few years of majority government and receding memories of the last hung parliament, the issue remains, especially if Labor can actually show the voters that it can actually go a few months without a resignation or a significant scandal or stuffup. 

EMRS traditionally start their polling a few days into the polling month and if the contents of this reporting of Labor’s internal polling (and the negative views of the Liberals contained within it) are being swallowed by voters without effective and rapid reply, then that may affect the outcome of the EMRS polling, at least in the south.  Therefore it would make sense for Will Hodgman to nip this “internal polling” tactic in the bud, whether he has his own polling indicating otherwise or not. 

If he just allows Bartlett to get away with selling this narrative of a rapidly rebounding government facing an impractical and somewhat divided opposition, there is some risk it will harden into self-fulfilling prophecy and reduce the damage Labor has inflicted on its own foot throughout much of its current term.  And this brings up my biggest reservation about the Liberals so far: they tend to be flat-track performers. Will Hodgman is well regarded and his party is considered to be a safe and unthreatening alternative when the Government is on the nose, but when the Government is having an even remotely good run, they don’t seem to know what to do except to hold back and wait for the next stuff-up.  Perhaps the Government is really so far gone that nothing it says or does now can save it from losing at least four seats and its tactical ploys can just all be left flapping in the breeze, but I am not entirely convinced this is the case. 

Without attempting to claim that there is any kind of method behind such a view, I do expect the next EMRS poll to show some (and it could well be significant) recovery by Labor, although it is likely (based on both the 2002 and 2006 elections) to be too early to see which way the “undecided” vote is shaking out.  But in the last decade of EMRS polls, the greatest net swing to the government from poll to poll outside of the campaign proper has been around six points.  Even a swing of this size to Labor and away from the Liberals would only give Labor a trivial lead and place it in a position about five points worse than Paul Lennon was in at the same stage in 2006.  To win outright from such a position, Labor would most likely need the benefits of a similarly bad campaign from the Greens and Liberals, a similarly strong break in the undecided vote and an extremely lucky distribution of the anti-Labor swing.  It would be plausible, and I do now think my November article was a bit over-dismissive of the nonetheless slim prospects of Labor somehow keeping its losses to one seat, but a lot would have to go right and we don’t yet know whether Labor is even in that sort of position to begin with.

Unless there is a very big swing back to the Government in the February EMRS poll, the 2010 election could well be a polling-credibility cage match to the death between EMRS and Labor’s “internal polling”, with the loser seldom to be taken seriously again.  Now that would be most entertaining!

(The author still has no real idea who he will be voting for in this year’s election, assuming even that he votes for anyone at all!)