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Be right into the politics solo. Last week, as I referenced briefly, the latest one News variant pole had national and labor down, while an r NZ Read poll done the same week had national down, Labor up, and one of them had one side forming a government, the other had another side, and the Taxpayers Union Courier poll had both up. You'll see the same with overlapping polls by different agencies showing significantly different results. So why are we
doing polls this far out from an election? What are we looking to learn from them? And so I thought we'd have a chat with our Taxpayers Union executive director Jordan Williams, who joins me now, Jordan, good afternoon.
Get Tim.
What's the point of political polls at this time of year.
Well, it gives you a snapshot on the government. Is that relative to the other parties of course, or you always say, you know, don't look at any particular poll. It's the trend that matters. And what all the polls are telling us is that it's actually very close each In the TVNZ and the r n Z Read research. You know, TVNZ had a majority of the center right, I think of two seats. R INZ had a majority of the cent to the center left of two seats. Both of those tell you it's very close indeed.
Okay, so just explain to me. I've got a bit of a beef, which you can probably allay with the margin of area of three point one percent. So one News spend a lot of time talking about all such and such as down one or down two. It's all within the margin of era being three point one percent, which I understand means if somebody scores, say ten percent, we're confident that they're in reality between seven and thirteen percent.
So can you put that in perspective for me, because it's almost never any not even lip service paid to it.
That's not quite right, of course, So that when they talk about the the margin of era, what they mean is sorry to put a stats head on, but go for it. It's an era, it's a confidence interval, and so you you know, statistically it's it's either ninety or ninety five percent confidence it's within that bound. So there'll always be rogue poles, you know, I talk about with a taxais union pole, you know, one and twenty in theory is rogue, which is why I say you never
put a particular emphasis on one pole. It is the trend. And that's really why the tax Boers Union started polling with our monthly polls is because there's the media have pulled right back. What you get is, I mean ran zet I think are polling every three or six months, and you sort of that the media like to dial it up to eleven, that there's some huge significance in
this pole. The good thing about monthly polling is that if you've got sort of three consistent poles that start to show a trend, then that's when you would put put meaning into it. But just to pull you up. The confidence interval or the margin of vera is done at the fiftieth percentile, and if you go back to your fifth form stats, you'll know that as the number goes down, the confidence into or the margin of era
goes down. It really infuriates me when I read in a court judgment some years ago this stupid High court judges not understanding basic stats. They talk about you know, that's parties in the margin of era, meaning it could it could have it could have none, or it could be double that's nonsense on Steltz because of course the margin of ERA is about half once you get to blow about ten percent.
Okay, So I guess the margin of ERAa is more relevant to the parties who are polling thirty forty percent. So if somebody's polling forty percent, it could be you know, there's a ninety five percent confidence. Basically it could be within close to three points other side.
Yeah, And of course the secret source for the different polsters is that there are various different ratings. I mean I can, of course I'm not a polster. I simply contract of polling companies to do the texpos. You can poll each month, but our supplier, we go back through the elections, has tended to get that right than say the closest the least wrong out of all the poles. And in some of that secret source or the difference between perhaps Radium New Zealand Television New Zealand, is each
polster waits on slightly different things. So for example, some polls I think that the are in ZED won the Australian company that did the worst of the Australian election are variant. You know, I think they are online only and you get some that have a particular waiting for phone calls, some which include cell phones now some just online panels which can be which you know, attract a
different demographic. And then of course you've got I think television New Zealand weight for all of age, ethnicity and education status, where I don't think are in z weight for the education status. So there's lots of sort of that modeling behind the scenes is kind of what you're paying your expert pole stuff for their expertise than were Sorry they won't let me say this, but from a third party suspective, it looks a little bit of an art rather than a strict science. Yeah.
Actually, by the way, I think I'm pretty sure read research is online only and I think very into a mixture for my memory around. Yeah, but I guess the question is, I mean, how how much does methodology matter?
Because I just asked chat GPT and it gave me some interesting answers around the propensity of online polling to maybe favor people who are a little bit more technologically literate and also anyway, but I mean, what do you think about the method of online versus phone versus I don't know, in the middle.
Of the studio you get every three years, you get a sort of you know that they have to pony up and you get the actual results in the leeching, and of course you can compare against all the different polling companies. The other reason we use polling and we've found it so useful though, is the polling of issues. So do you think back years ago to when we
were doing our three Waters campaign. As part of the polling, we were not necessarily releasing it every month, but that for us was quite a useful benchmark to know how we were going in terms of that campaign. And it was quite quite incredible the dramatic change within a month, and it was the moment we won. It was actually when the mayors of Auckland and christ Church came out together against three Waters. Now, of course it required twelve months of campaigning beforehand to get to it, but we
could tell just immediately a dramatic jump. And so from a lobbying campaign perspective, and I'm sure the parties would they might not be quite as open, but that's the sort of thing they're looking for. Similarly, around issues, you will know that we often release favorable unfavorable results on politicians I can tell you that I get politicians calling me saying, why don't you put my name in the
preferred PM. Well, it's actually unprompted, I won't name, and shame that those particular politicians come on the other one that we don't release it all. We certainly do release it every month to our members and supporters, but that is country right and wrong direction? Do you think the country is going in the right or wrong direction? And that tends to be a precursor to the party vote.
I've sort of noticed that if that dramatically shifts, it's usually three or four months later you start to see a shift in the party vote between the government and the opposition.
I guess i'd probably answer the question do you think the government's going in the right or wrong direction? Because the country could be going in the wrong direction for a whole bunch of reasons, I guess. But that's the art of the poll, isn't it. Are you happy with the way the media report polls?
Well? I find it interesting that and I think it's it's sort of pasted the parcel of having particularly television US out and not doing as many poles as they used to. That they dial the results of every pole up to eleven. I mean, you think about it. You know, we're a humble taxpayers union. We're a pressure group. You know,
we have we wear our mission on our sleeves. And yet I'm pretty confident that a lot of our poles we just play down the middle for what they are, as opposed to dial up to eleven as some sort of disaster melt down the beehive because of one single pole. As I say, poles will bounce around. It is the
trend over time that matters. And that's why I think from our perspective, monthly polling is so good because once you're starting to see sort of three poles in a row showing a significant difference from say six months ago, that NAT is telling you something much more than a single pole or a single snapshot.
What about internal what about parties political parties internal polling? What sort of caution notes of caution should we have if any on those ones, Well, they'll.
Only lead them of cocause because we can see what's going on. I find it delightful the way that the parties only lead their internal poles when it's helpful to them or to trip up the other side. They're probably more interested in the reaction to political scandal or events of the day than a group like the Texpaths Union.
But the reports that we send to our we called our Texpower Caucus, our most generous supporters, is in effect the reports that the leader of the opposition and the Prime Minister is getting also every few weeks or every month, depending on the party, with that real granular data. So an example would be how was the center right or how is a particular party doing in rural communities or
with a particular gender for example. Now, of course, as you get more and more specific, your sample size gets lower and lower, and your margin of error gets larger. But again, you put a number of polls together, you start to get really meaningful data. We did that with the mayors last year. We asked over a series of about eight poles to rank your performance or rate the
performance of your local mayor. And then for those for those cities where we had enough I think it was sort of over three hundred responses, we ranked the performance of every mayor. Now we got some angry emails, but why didn't you do our mair? Well? The short point is, and for some small councils, we just didn't have enough responses even over a long time frame.
Statistically meaningful data should have a fun inbox to look at just a couple of quick questions. What's the red flag tip for you that makes you go no, I'm not buying that result. Is it just a statistical anomaly where it stands out from all the others? I mean, would there be a time when you look at your own pole and go, oh, hell.
Well, of course, I'm One of the great things about doing polling is that any political leader will take your phone call every month to give them the heads up, as it really is a courtesy all the leaders officers or the leaders of each of the political parties and give them a heads up three or four hours before public release. And the line I have found I use when it is quite a shift in the polls, as I say to them, you know, well, you know one in twenties a rogue and this could be a rogue.
This hasn't setted recent polls, but then again there's been a few of our polls where subsequent Television New Zealand staff Roy Morgan have actually confirmed our results. So you don't really know at the time, but if it's if you can't explain a dramatic shift. The one I find really interesting is that January. We usually first in the field in sort of mid January, and there's been a few summers where there's been quite a shift in the polls that sort of we haven't been able to unable
to explain subsequently confirmed by subsequent polls. But I will admit that those poles I have thought this be a roague because as I say, one in twenty has those two large parties outside the confidence in the marketing of error.
Hey, I really appreciate your time this Aftener and Jordan, Hey, just one quick question. Actually, have you ever done a poll on how we feel about our nuclear free status? Because I reckon that there's a lot of assumptions made about that. This is just one a completely different issue. But can I nominate that for a question? Do you think we should cling on to our nuclear free status? And I reckon you do that you'll be in for an interesting result.
I actally think we should. We have quite a long list of things that we'd love to poll on, but we tend to stick to things that are in the mission, in the in our wheelhouse of taxes, government waste government accountability. But I should add that the only thing is is that if we didn't release it and it leaked, I would worry that people would say there was some sort of conspiracy. I love polling on sort of interesting issues, but I am duty bound to keep, you know, keep it within the mission.
Okay, Well, stick around because we're going to ask callers what they want, what question they'd like you to to poll on next and I'm going to throw that one over the great Okay, geers, Jordan, thanks very much for your time. All rights Jordan Williams, TAXPAS Union executive director.
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