Red Rag

Gareth Parker’s keen to defend his West Australian from criticism, pointing to a list of articles critical of Colin Barnett. He’s right — occasionally they do gently prod the Opposition, and I’ve given Steve Pennells the credit he deserves for pointing out their reluctance to commit to firm and costed policies. But the articles he pointed out all ran mid-week and off the front page.

When the paper wants to make its feelings known, it runs headlines blaring “Gallop in strife” and predicting “Crushing defeat” on the front page of the Saturday edition. I scoured today’s paper for anything even remotely critical of the Opposition, and the only thing I could find was a light tickle from Paul Murray. The editorial yet again slammed the Government.

So what of the “Gallop in strife” headline? Well, it’s based on a Westpoll, which immediately suggests it’s a beat-up. A survey of 200 people in each of four marginal electorates — Joondalup, Bunbury, Riverton and Albany — found that the Liberal candidate would receive between 53% and 56% of the primary vote. Thinking about Joondalup (closest to home, and whose MP I know), that struck me as quite fanciful, for a number of reasons.

First, Labor is still predicted to get 38% of the primary vote in Joondalup. This is disappointing, but not catastrophic — Labor won with a primary vote of 37.6% in 2001. So the figure for Labor is not by itself devastating news. No swing.

Second, the 53% Liberal vote just doesn’t sound accurate. Dean Solly’s got a decent profile and a massive budget, but is that enough? In 1996 Chris Baker was equally well known, ran an effective campaign, and won resoundingly, but he only managed 47%. A 14% swing just doesn’t seem plausible.

Third, the poll was conducted from 10 to 14 January, at the height of the controversy surrounding Mark Latham’s leadership, while the media were conducting a vigil on his doorstep. There’s no doubt in my mind that this would have influenced people’s decisions — see Labor in strife on the news, say you’ll vote Liberal when Patterson rings to ask. This will change when the focus is back on State issues over the next month or so. And 14 January is over a week ago! Why not run the poll midweek? For the same reason all criticism of the Liberals is confined to the midweek editions: smaller circulation. Scoring political points is apparently more important than timely news reporting.

Last, and crucially, the West never publishes the full results of its poll, because that would allow people to question the validity of the conclusions drawn. Today, we’re told, “Voting intention after the allocation of undecided votes.” What? I thought the convention was to exclude undecideds and refuseds, at least until the campaign is actually under way. At the very least, we should be given the raw figures, including the proportion of undecideds, so that we can evaluate how their votes were distributed. Frankly, I don’t trust the West to use an unbiased model, and the fact that they’re hiding the raw data and methodology does nothing to reassure me.

It’s going to be a tough campaign, especially in the marginal seats, and especially with the only daily newspaper supporting the Opposition, but I’m not overly concerned by this Westpoll beat-up.

Update: I forgot to mention one other thing that suggests the poll’s not as bad as the West would like us to believe:

Only 28 per cent of voters in the key marginals said they understood what Opposition Leader Colin Barnett stood for, compared with 42 per cent who believed they knew where Dr Gallop stood.

This suggests that support for Labor is firmer than support for the Libs. The alleged 50%+ support will be more easily eaten away during the campaign when people realise that they don’t know what Colin Barnett stands for because he doesn’t stand for anything.