AMSRO to Review Australian Election Polling Failures

Australia's Association of Market and Social Research Organisations (AMSRO) is conducting a review of political polling methods, probing why all polls incorrectly called the outcome of Saturday's Federal election.

Since the results were announced, some Australian politicians and commentators have called for opinion polls to be scrapped, following Prime Minister Scott Morrison's (pictured) conservative Coalition win. Of the sixteen polls held since the election was called last month, all were in favour of the Labor party when respondents were asked to pick from the main two parties. The result was Coalition 41% and Labor 34%, and according to AMSRO President Craig Young, Australians are now asking the question 'How could all of the polling companies call the Federal Election result incorrectly?'

In an attempt to answer this question, AMSRO will be approaching the media organisations and other clients who commission political polling to participate in the review, and will also seek the involvement of companies which undertake their own polling. The review will commence this week with the establishment of terms of reference and the formation of a review panel, and is expected to release its report in July. Ipsos CEO Simon Wake says the review is likely to include looking at the sample source and sampling, interviewing methods and analysis techniques used; noting that there is currently no access to a single national sample source for telephone interviewing, such as the Integrated Public Number Database.

Young adds: 'In Australia, we have a long history of the major polls usually getting it right. That makes it critical that we look at what might have changed recently in terms of methods employed, sample sources used, and the environment within which polls are conducted, to get to the bottom of what went wrong and how we can do better as an industry'.

'Similar reviews have been undertaken in recent years in the US and UK, also in response to the polling results not matching election outcomes, so there are international precedents for what may have happened to polling accuracy, as well as industry responses. AMSRO looks forward to working with the polling companies, and those who commission the polls, so we can share knowledge and try to improve our approaches'.

Web site: www.amsro.com.au .