Patterson’s Assessements Across WA and for Eden-Monaro in NSW

The survey program that Patterson Market Research undertook for its media clients (The West Australian Newspaper and The Canberra Times) showed Patterson’s polling to be very credible and accurate. In fact, data collected by Patterson strongly suggested the resounding trouncing of federal Labour in WA, though some of the individual WA marginal seat surveys indicated a more subdued swing in the last week of the campaign.

• Sample Errors
• Brief History of Patterson Polling
• Federal Election 2004

Sample Errors

In an ideal world, researchers always opt for large samples to minimise the statistical error inherent in all sample based survey programs. Patterson’s regular state wide surveys use a sample of N=400 interviews. This produces a sample error of about ±5% at the 95% level of confidence, or ±2.5% at the 70% level of confidence.

For the marginal seat analysis Patterson had to limit the surveys to a sample size of N=200 per seat, which provided a survey error of ±6.5% at the 95% level of confidence, or about ±3.8% at the 70% level of confidence. In spite of these survey error risks, the Patterson surveys have been shown to be remarkably accurate, not just in this Federal election, but historically across the last 17 years of polling (primarily) for The West Australian Newspaper.

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Brief History of Patterson Polling

Over the last 17 years Patterson has undertaken a monthly opinion poll for The West Australian Newspaper, published as WESTPOLL. That survey is statewide, and covers alternately the state and Federal voting intent, and voter assessment of a range of “current” issues over time. For a full explanation of Patterson’s polling principles, see “How Westpoll is done”.

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Federal Election 2004

For the Federal election 2004, The West’s newspaper editorial management and Patterson decided to focus on three survey components. The first was to be a sweep of the 5 marginal seats in WA, namely Canning, Hasluck, Kalgoorlie, Stirling & Swan. The second was to be a statewide survey (following the pattern of our regular twice monthly telephone Omnibus polling program), and in the final week we planned to survey the five key marginals again to detect any final movement in voter intent.

On the east coast Patterson was commissioned by the Canberra Times (a long time client of Patterson) to survey the litmus seat of Eden-Monaro mid way through the campaign. In fact, that survey was conducted in the few days prior to the Latham launch of the ALP policy directed at the health care of people aged 75 plus.

This document summarises the results to this research program over both sides of the continent. Some commentary material has been inserted with the benefit of hindsight. The “fresh” commentary is in italics.

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