The treatment of these polls to me really does illustrate the utter lameness of political reporting in NZ. The focus on the preferred Prime Minister result is quite baffling. We do not have a system in which we vote directly for the PM, so to attribute any direct significance to the result just seems quite bizarre. It may have some indirect significance, in terms of the impact on party votes, but that is really uncertain.
In general the poll is probably reasonably good news for Labour. Although the Nats have a seven point lead, the trend is for the gap to close, and Colmar Brunton polls always overstate the Nats and understate Labour. At the last election they gave the Nats a six point lead. It seems likely that the two main parties are roughly equal now. The difference of course, is that Labour have a sizeable coalition partner, and are coming off the edn of a very bad year.
Why is it that different polls seem to consistently show certain biases? I don't know much about statistics, but I would be very interested to know why it is that tv3's polls always overstates Labour's support, and vice-versa in tv one polls.
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Key has quickly established himself though, in terms of the PPM. I agree it's a funny question to ask, but the result is still interesting to me.
Tony has said over on his post about this that he tends to add 5% to Labour and subtract 5% from National for this particular poll:
http://tonymilne.blogs.com/i_see_red/2007/02/one_news_poll_f.html
Well for once, the papers have fairer reporting than TVNZ. In fact, TVNZ's political coverage has been very odd the past few years. It's a mix of trivia and pro-National comment and "analysis" that is quite disturbing.
Lame/sloppy political reporting isn't only in NZ. It's a virus across the Tasman as well. It's a general problem with journalism these days.
I'd say a focus on dissatisfaction ratings is more important than preferred PMs. There is a general tendency (at least in Australia) for Opposition leaders to always be behind.
Firstly, it was what brought down the previous Labor Opposition leader here (though mind you it wasn't a surprise). The current PM rode a wave of dissatisfaction with the former Labor PM.
There's a natural benefit of incumbency so if there's a high dissatisfaction rating, it'll play a bigger role than any preference for PM.
However I don't know the historical trend but a particular probably PM could bring out people to vote for them. I really don't know the situation when there isn't compulsory voting.
Anyway the only poll that matters is election day.
"Anyway the only poll that matters is election day". Yes, in the most important way this is true, but actually it isn't the only poll that matters. Media and public comment is flavoured by how political parties are polling. "They're doing well at the moment" or "Things aren't looking good for you at the moment" are usually not statements about policy, but statements in reference to how the party is polling at the current time. It is an indication of public mood ( a snapshot yes, but still an indication).
You only have to look at what the worm did for United Future in 2002 to see evidence of the clear impact of polls.
Winston used to promote banning them for the six weeks prior to an election and some days I think he had a good point with the inaccurate reporting that goes on. For example a party being "within the margin of error" - ARGH!
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