Twenty-three per cent of people changed their voting intention in the past two weeks, according to polling in the set of Namadgi.
Canberra Times-Datacol polled the same sample twice, once two weeks ago and again this week. The second poll returned to the same people who were polled in the first poll, rather than taking a sample. Datacol says this is a more accurate way of gauging trends in voting intention.
The overall undecided vote fell 10 percentage points with Labor gaining 7 percentage points, and the Liberals 3. But those raw figures disguise a far more volatile electorate.
It was not a case of just 10 per cent going from undecided to decided. Rather 23 per cent changed their intention. The most significant changes were:
Labor gained 9.3 (5.9 from the undecided, 1.3 from the greens, 1.1 each from the independents and the Liberals). Labor lost 1.7 to the Liberals and a tiny amount to the others.
The Liberals gained 7.6 (5.0 from undecided, 1.7 from Labor and tiny amounts from the rest). The Liberals lost 2.2 per cent to the undecided and 1.1 to Labor.
Datacol is the only pollster to go back to the original sample. It is instructive because it shows a far greater volatility than raw figures … a churn factor. With 23 per cent of the electorate moving in two weeks, it shows that the race in Namadgi is wide open. It may mean less nationally because in the two weeks between the sample, the Coalition announced policies with direct effect on Namadgi. None the less it shows the difficulty of the pollsters’ task and how volatile the modern electorate is.
The full details of questions were published yesterday.