Posts by Conal Tuohy
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People on the minimum wage are "relatively expensive"? How can this be?
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I needed that
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God no! Don't waste your money betting on Labour at ipredict when Centrebet are paying $3.40 for a Labour PM.
http://centrebet.com/cust?action=GoSports&ev_sub_type_id=8617
I got in a couple of weeks ago when they were still paying $5 - yes FIVE BUCKS!!! WTF is all that about? A bunch of Aussie punters who don't understand that NZ has an MMP system? Or just a bunch of over-enthusiastic Kiwi Nats?
Aunty Helen FTW!
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Russell, it's worth remembering that the polls are only samples, and biased samples at that - you have to have a phone, you have to answer the phone when the pollster calls, you have to have made up your mind, you have to be inclined to tell the pollster what you think. If one of those doesn't apply, you are excluded from the result (but not, of course, excluded from voting in the actual election).
If you call on different days of the week, or at different times of the week, you'll get results which are different - systematically and consistently different.
That's also why these polls generally can't be just "translated into parliamentary seats" as the media can't seem to help itself doing.
The Colmar Brunton poll, for instance, includes this disclaimer (blithely ignored by Guyon Espiner on One News!):NOTE: The data does (sic) not take into account the effects of non-voting and therefore cannot be used to predict the outcome of an election.
Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer are excluded from the data on party support. The results are therefore only indicative of trends in party support, and it would be misleading to report otherwise