[Burgey]

The debate today between deputy dawg and the apparatchik was one of the more boring spectacles i've watched/ listened to.

Costello was on message, as was Swan. Swan didn't make a goose of himself, which is what was required. No KOs by either, imo.

Watch the media go - Fairfax online poll scores it to Swan at 60%, News to Costello by a similar margin. The two campaign offices are obviously busy at this time. Shanahan at it again after Newspoll - he has so little credibility as a "commentator" that it's laughable.

On the polls, the problem is in taking a snapshot from any one poll, or indeed across polls taken at similar times by different organisations. Morgan has a bias to ALP (compared with other polls), Galaxy against (cf the owner after the 1st Galaxy of the campaign showing 53/47 saying "this is a great result").

Rather, it's important to look at trends. Each poll has a MOE of about 2.5% (depending on sample size) to an accuracy of 95%. That being so, if one looks to the Newspoll last week, it was plainly an out-lier on the Labor side, but still within the MOE from what's been the trend all year - namely 56-44 or 55-45. Likewise with last night's at 54-46.

As it was summed up on another site:

Put 13 million balls into a barrel. 55% of them are red, the rest blue. Pull out 1200 at a time. Sometimes you'll get 58-42%, sometimes 54-46%, sometimes 56-44, all within a MOE. Very occasionally you'll get a rogue sample outsie this margin, like a 60-40, or a 52-48, but not often.

That's why they have MOEs.

On a slightly differnet bent, how counter-intuitive have the polls been so far this campaign? Week 1 momentum with Coalition and Labor barely starting their campaign, a couple of good polls post-libs tax announcement. Then a bad Newspoll follows for the govt and it (momentum) swings.

Last week we have Turnbull ratting on cabinet (supposedly), a couple of slip ups by JH and the govt looking wobbly and bieng called desperate, and then another poll goes the opposite way to the general consensus of how most saw the week going.

It's all a bit odd, but if we keep the MOE in the backs of our minds, it becomes easier to see the polls as less volatile compared with the overall trends over several months.

As an ALP supporter, the thing for me is the primary vote has been pretty solid at 48% or above for many months now. If they get anywhere near that on 24/11, they will win and win easily.