Mike's Minute: Why do we still listen to polls?

The polling industry, whose only answer to fairly obvious questions seems to be “this is just a snapshot in time”, may have trouble explaining the past week of polling in this country. 

There was one on Tuesday night and one on Wednesday morning. They have completely different results. 

One has Luxon as the most popular leader. 

One has Hipkins as the most popular leader. 

One has National leading Labour. 

One has Labour leading National. 

One has the current Government as the current Government. 

One has a new Government, with the current Government out. 

It doesn’t get a lot more contrasting than that. 

Even if you accept a lot of the numbers are tightish, some of the numbers aren't even within the margin of error. 

It's almost as though the polls aren't accurate. 

It's almost as though you could ring up 1000 people and get one answer, then ring up another set of 1000 people and get a completely different answer. 

If you can do that, why would you pay money to people who will tell you these things mean anything? 

At least TVNZ use commercial money to pay for this stuff. 

Radio New Zealand, who seem to have taken over from TV3, use our money. And given they have just had a budget cut and given they are losing their audience at a rate of knots, I'm not sure this can be classed as quality expenditure. 

I went to their website yesterday. The headline was "What the polls are telling us in 7 charts". 

And there they were. There was lots of colour, lots of lines up and down, and squiggles. 

But I already knew, given I had seen the charts from the night before, that either their charts meant nothing, or if they did mean something, then the other guy's charts weren't up to much. 

Or quite possibly if we did this charade for a third time, they would both be exposed as having shonky numbers. 

But remember: "they are only a snapshot in time". Except given they were done at the same time, they aren't, are they? 

So what are they, other than a very large waste of time and money? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This polling industry, whose only answer to fairly obvious question
seems to be, oh, this is just a snapshot in time,
may have trouble explaining the past twenty four hours of
polling in this country. One Tuesday night, one Wednesday morning,
right have completely different results. One has Luxton the most
popular leader, One has Hopkins as the most popular leader.
One has National leading Labor, one has Labour leading National.
One has the current government as the current government. One

(00:21):
has a new government with current government out. It doesn't
get a lot more contrasting than that. Even if you
accept a lot of the numbers are titish. Some of
the numbers aren't even within the margin of era. It's
almost as though the poles aren't accurate. It's almost as
though you could ring up a thousand people and get
one answer, then ring up another thousand people and get
a completely different answer. And if you can do that,
why would you pay money to people who will tell

(00:42):
you these things mean anything. TV and zaid I guess
at least use commercial money to pay for the stuff.
Radio in New Zealand, who seem to have taken over
from TV three, use our money, taxpayers money, and given
they've just had a budget cut, and given they're losing
their audience at a rate of knots, I'm not sure
this can be classed as quality expenditure. I went to
their website yesterday. The headline was what the polls are
telling us in seven charts, and there they were lots

(01:05):
of color, lots of lines and ups and downs and squiggles.
But I already knew, given I had seen the charts
from the night before, that either their charts meant nothing,
or if they did mean something, then the other guy's
charts weren't up to much, or quite possibly, if we
did the charade for a third time, they would both
be exposed as having shonky numbers. Ah, but they're only
a snapshot in time, except given they were done at

(01:25):
the same time, they aren't are they? So what are
they other than a very large waste of time and money.
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