Because Samara spends hundreds and hundreds of hours listening to what voters really think in focus groups and surveys. His company gathers the opinions of everyday Australians to paint a picture of the national mood. What's worrying us? What do we think of the prime minister's mansion or the opposition
leader's share portfolio? Which politicians can we trust? But he says, his picture gets warped by politicians who live and die by the two party preferred poll numbers and the twenty four hour news cycle, and they fail to learn from anything much beyond that.
I think the political class responds badly to numbers, you know, there's almost like they've got two speeds. One's arrogance, the other one's panic. And it depends what the numbers are doing, whether they actually are suffering from one or the other. But Poland's really powerful if you allow the numbers to do the talking for over a long period of time.
From Schwartz Media, I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM, director at Redbridge Cos Samaris on the one group, he'll decide the outcome of the upcoming election and the things they want that no one is offering. It's Saturday, March twenty two. Couse, thanks for joining us. I want to start with some numbers. How many people do you actually need to gain a proper view on any particular issue.
Yeah. Focus group's about nine to twelve people and it runs for an.
Hour and a half.
And usually it's not just one, so you've got to run a number of them, because one could be an outlier. If you're doing a statewide it's minimum twelve hundred, you can go up to two thousand.
People would be surprised by how the relatively small numbers, and that could lead into the view that, well, do we trust piles on such small numbers.
Yeah, that's right. So surveying on a thousand people it's mathematically robust because it enables you to capture enough people in that sample that is statistically representative of the broader popular So you'll get to about two thousand and three thousand sample, and your margin of error is like, you know, one and two percent. Beyond that, you're probably wasting money.
But the art is in the in the brief, and a good recruitment agency will do the job really well and put the right people in the room for you to interview.
So what lengths do you go to to make sure that the polling is representative? For instance, reaching young people, how do you get to them, especially young people that are just registering to vote for the first time.
Yeah, so this is where online panels work better because people will participate through that forum. It's a lot easy to reach people that can fill in the survey in their own time, much better than trying to call them, and you know, with a random number than that are recognized, particularly young people who won't pick up the phone if it's a number that's not recognizable. And I would say most of us now up the phone.
The poles have been spectacularly wrong on a number of occasions. They didn't get it right for most of the recent US election, but the betting markets did. Why is that?
Yes, it depends on which country you're looking at in terms of polling, but I would say polling in Australia has been generally pretty accurate. Even in twenty nineteen, when you're off by two percent, it ain't a disaster. But if the election results tight, which it has been since twenty sixteen, you're going to have to allow a bit of wriggle room. So the language we always use. If it's within the margin of error, which is about three percent,
If it depending on your sample size, then it's fine. Right, So fifty one to forty nine right now Labour's way. It could be forty nine, right, it could be forty eight. We don't know. But what I said about polling is it's a tool, right, It's a temperature gauge. I think where polling can be quite useful is viewed from a
long term perspective. So, for example, if I was to come to a government with some research that tells them that mental health is a brewing problem in the outer suburbs and regions of this country, and it's affecting young people disproportionately, but also young mums, and that that will have a political consequence in the years to come, perhaps you should listen to it. But they don't because they don't see an immediate political sugar hit. It won't be
my problem. I won't have to wear the consequences of that, or won't be around.
Right.
That's where polling is really useful. Where it's not useful in terms of public discussion. And I would say the way that politics is reported and how the political class respond is that it's oh look, Labour's primary vote is increased by one percent, therefore something must have happened. No, it's probably data noise, and so polling is a diagnostic tool. It's not a fortune cookie.
So okay, let's talk about short term is and what are the top issues affecting voters at this election.
Yeah, I mean the umbrella, it's cost of living. But really what's created that is a whole range of issues, right, housing being the absolute bond crater that is impacting so many people in so many ways in this country. Now, yes, it's young people, but it's not all young people. You know. We are seeing, for example, a small group of young people who are direct beneficiaries of this absurd housing market because their parents are really wealthy and attained assets and someone.
So that into generational wealth transfer is occurring right now. But it's forcing normal working class people into a debt environment that is completely unsustainable. Although the interest rates can drop and things get easier for them, they're probably not going to be able to pay off these mortgages in
their working life. You know, if you're particularly if you're working with your hands, you're working with your hands, your working life is not into your sixties, it's into your fifties and then the body starts breaking down.
So if we're talking about housing being a major issue, how much voters care about how rich politics are? So there was a big storm around Albanese's forming the house or Peter Dutton's portfolio of twenty six properties, how much do people care about I wouldn't.
Say they care, said they've made up their minds that they are not part of them. So voters view themselves distinctly different to the political class. Comments that are always repeated to us in groups are they've probably never checked the price of a loafe of bread. They would know where to go and buy X or Y. You know, they live a totally different life to you and I. I mean that's the sort of commentary we hear quite
a lot. And so when stories around, you know, Albanezi buying a four million dollar mansion or Peter Dutton's share portfolios and so on, people just go, yeah, well, that's what that's what politicians do. They're not part of us.
So as a result of that, partly the major parties are shedding primary votes. We know that more and more people are voting for minor parties and independence. How do you think this is going to affect the koind of the upcoming election.
At the last election, five point two million voter for something other than majors. I think that trend's going to continue. It will manifest in different ways, right, So in Victoria it's you know, you will see a hemorrhaging of the labor primary and it will spray everywhere, but it won't necessarily go to the coalition. Well, fundamentally, I think people are missing here is when we're talking about millennials and Gen Zenna, and the oldest millennial is now forty four
years of age. These two generations are very different to older Australians. So when we survey them, you know, we say do you have you know, can you name a political party that aligns with your values? Over half say no, not one, not a single political party. You go to boomers and it's almost eighty percent. So if you're in an urban and you've got a university degree, you're more likely to have a very progressive view about the world.
But as you go out to the outer suburbs, it's verse young families, you know, who've migrated over the last ten years whatever it is. You know, you could find contradrictory views within these voters right where they could be really really committed to voting for anyone that is going to tackle climate change, but then be quite right wing on immigration. Right, So there's a lot of mixed views in there. However, the glue that binds more is his
sense of being economically abandoned by the political class. A really good comment recently was made by a young man. He said, I feel they no longer of a benefit to me at all. I'm just getting buying life from our own means. And that's effectively how you'll probably sum up the sentiment out there.
So what's the consequence of that? That's after the break?
Hi Ruby Jones. Here seven am tells stories that need to be told. Our journalism is founded on trust and dependence, and now we're increasing our coverage. Every Saturday until the election, will bring you an extra episode to break down the biggest political moments of the week. If you enjoy seven am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at seven am podcast dot com dot au forward slash support. Thanks for listening and supporting our.
Work because in the lead up to this election. I love to get a sense of which groups within the community are going to decide the results. Say, can you allow for me the demographics that we're dealing with and how they've changed since the last election. Yes.
So in twenty twenty two it was the word I will define the progressive heart of this country screamed out loud and made itself hurt. And it was through the election of the till Independence and Labor winning in urban electrics like Higgins and Benelong, and so that community expressed itself very loudly. The outer urban areas and the regents were fairly predictable in they behaved. There wasn't much movement going on there. Fast forward to now and we have
obviously an inflationary crisis which has hit those communities. They are the ones who are going to basically express themselves this time. There's always some group within Australia that defines an election. You know, in twenty nineteen it was those mining communities in Queensland and so on. This time around it will be millennial young families in the outer suburbs and regions. Particular news of I was in Victoria and
particularly in the two big cities. They're effectively the groups that will animate the political landscape, but in a very different way. Victoria and New South Wales we're probably going to see a lot more volatility, and in Victoria a lot more volatility than any other place in the country.
What do you put that down to a number.
Of factors, obviously the state government, but the pandemic. Yeah, I think a lot of political commentators have not paid enough attention to the psychological consequences of what happened to this city and particularly those communities that suffered the most economically and psychologically. One of the most common things will get in Melbourne's out of suburbs from young parents is their absolute fear of what's happened to their kids. Kids
are different. My kids are different now than they were before the pandemic, and so there's a lot of anger with that, right They feel like they were completely abandoned, and of course then comes the inflationary crisis it hits them again. So you had these two massive economic events that have swept through these outer suburban areas of Melbourne and we're going to see it on election night. It's going to scream really loud. And if I was on the labor side, of politics.
I'll be worried. Let's talk about the type of campaigning that we're going to see. We've already seen some semear campaigns, of course, I'm specifically thinking of advanced targeting tills in the Greens. How much of people listening to that style of campaigning.
I would say that the communities within the electrics which the Tills and Greens occupy are probably the ones that are most likely to reject this type of campaigning. You know, We've done some research recently in this space, and yeah, I find it very, very hard to believe that these type of I would say antiquated approaches are going to work with probably what are the most politically connected astituents in the country.
What do you mean by antiquator.
Well, the antiquator because even in the outer suburbs, people are sick to death of this stuff, right, So, if you can't feed your kids, and you're having problems keeping a roof over your head, or you've got young children, or you've got adult children who you know won't be able to buy a home one day, and you're facing significant economic problems in your life, you're probably sick to death of hearing the political class play stupole. We did
close to four hundred focus groups last year. Can't recall anyone saying to me, you know what, I really hope one day some politicians come up with a policy where dual citizens are are treated differently in this country, where we should just sack more public servants, or actually those flags really bug me. No, I don't hear any of that. You know, like hundreds and hundreds of hours of interviews, never heard anyone get really worked up about a flat.
I have a personal curiosity around all this. We spend millions of dollars on spin merchants, on social media strategies, on traditional media strategies, on polsters. Do you have a sense, despite all of that, how many people actually make up their mind on election day in the polling booth, which may devote Yeah.
I've always had a view, and even with my old job on working for the labor side of politics, that people form political views over a long period of time, over many years. So trying to change political opinion, I used to use this analogy quite regularly with young campaigners. Don't try to wait for the last few weeks because it's too late. You've got years to to change people's views. It is like trying to turn an all tanker on
its accident in the bay. Takes a long time and so governments lose support over a long period of time through a death of a thousand cuts. And you know, in today's modern environment that doesn't necessarily mean they jump over to the other side of politics. They spray everywhere, and we saw that in Western Australia. The correction came but didn't help the Liberal Party.
And the question you've been waiting for, because if the election was today, who would win.
Labor minority government? I think that you know, Labour's running a better campaign. They are staying away from the culture wars, they're not taking debate and they're not running out there
running policies around how many people they're going to in sack. Now, if Dalton turns around and starts talking about the economy and starts putting up some very significant policies that are going to reform our economy and reposition his political party as the party that represents working people in out of subers and regions, could be having a very different conversations in three four weeks time, because that's how fragile the situation is.
Because thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you. Kys. Samaris has previously conducted work for the Labor Party, but hasn't since twenty nineteen. He no longer accepts work from registered political parties. Seven Am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. It's made by Atticus Bastow, Shane Anderson, Chris Danegate, Eric Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah mcvee, Travis Evans, Zultan Veacho and me Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of On
Below Bordier. You've been listening to seven Am, See you next week.
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