November 24, 2003

LOSER PARTY LOSING

The Green cult has shed a few adherents of late, as Andrew Bolt writes:

Last week's Newspoll showed the Greens stuck on 7 per cent support, down from last month's 8 per cent high.

At the last election, the combined vote for the Greens and Australian Democrats, which compete for the tofu vote, was 10.4 per cent. Now, says Newspoll, it's 9 per cent.

Read on to discover why. Maybe it’s the plan for “non-violent civilian resistance training" in case of military threat. Or possibly it’s something to do with providing an income "without the prior necessity to seek work" ...

Posted by Tim Blair at November 24, 2003 09:35 AM
Comments

Hey Blair did you fail math or something. Or was statistics only for egg heads. Did you even bother to check the assigned standard deviation for this poll. You should know better than to rely on stats at these low percentages. But hey who gives a fuck about accuracy when you can just cut and paste the shit.

Posted by: crock of tim at November 24, 2003 at 09:47 AM

Exactly!

Posted by: tim at November 24, 2003 at 09:55 AM

Gosh. I had forgotten how careful the typical Greenie is with statistics. They never, ever seize on some stats or data and twist it. Not like some we could name.

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at November 24, 2003 at 10:17 AM

Of course, if I wanted to be nasty, I could ask crock if he had ever heard of regression to the mean.

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at November 24, 2003 at 10:18 AM

Welcome back to Oz Tim! Since you have been away the trolls have been obviously missing you and spawning away.

I want to know is how many more posts before old crock here once again brings out the dreaded nazi/fascist slur? Will he/she be able to resist? Cmon crock - you know you want to. Whilst you are at it you can call me a nazi as well - I mean I am halfway there since my grandmother was a member of the original...

Posted by: Rob at November 24, 2003 at 10:41 AM

the coalititon got 43% of the primary vote in the last election; the most recent newspoll puts its vote at around 40%. the same poll put labour 2 points below what it scored in the last election [down to 36%], while the green vote has risen to 7%, from their 4.4% showing in the last election.

keep on slumpin', i guess. presumably at some stage bolt will notice.

Posted by: roop at November 24, 2003 at 11:14 AM

Whatever the final figure is, it's scary when you consider the policies. Assuming Bolt's research is correct, the fact that even 1% of the population would vote for these policies is beyond belief.

Posted by: PK at November 24, 2003 at 11:27 AM

I agree with almost everything Bolt said. The one thing I CAN understand about the Greens is their opposition to any education reforms which will make university more accessible. After all, if Bob Brown wasn't able to get educated, why should anyone else?

Posted by: GeoffM at November 24, 2003 at 01:32 PM

Bob Brown has a medical degree from Sydney Uni.

Posted by: Bill at November 24, 2003 at 03:14 PM

Andrew 'I'm not saying the Greens are Nazi's but..." Bolt's use of polls was pretty poor. The sampling error for the poll is between 2 to 3 % so a 6%, a 7% and an 8% result could of come from the same population sampled at different times without anyone changing their vote. And saying the total green vote is down by adding the Democrat and Green vote from the last election and comparing it to the combined poll result is pretty silly too (and yes their within the sampling error of each other). The Green poll result was 4.4% and the rise to 7% is an indication of a rise in the popularity of the Green Party. The drop in the Democrat poll result is, surprise, surprise, is an indication of the drop in support of the Democrats. I think of much more interest is the rise in the 'Others' vote.

Posted by: Simon at November 24, 2003 at 04:04 PM

"I can see it now, Bob Brown leading the Fourth Regiment of Big Hugs into battle on their bicycles, while stoned citizens lazily cheer him from the rusted roofs of long-dead power stations.

And some people still vote for this man."

haha

Posted by: Nelson at November 24, 2003 at 04:15 PM

Oh and I think his point was that the Greens support has remained relatively static even though their PR stunts should have at least given them an artifical short term boost.

As I said... ...haha.

Posted by: Nelson at November 24, 2003 at 04:21 PM

As Bob Brown, sorry, Dr Bob Brown, is the ABC's default Opposition leader the poll result is either
(a) disappointing for the Greens, or
(b) the only people who take any notice of the ABC are already Green voters.

Posted by: ilibcc at November 24, 2003 at 04:35 PM

The Greens had 6716 paid-up members in June 2003. Here's the state-by-state breakdown, with financial members as at June 2000 shown in square brackets.

TAS:577 [266]
NSW: 1808 (down 592 from 2002)[462]
VIC: 1765 [350]
ACT: 361 [100]
QLD: 895 161]
SA: 421 [53]
NT: 25 [10]
WA: 864 [?]
----------------------------

That's a growth rate of 350%, which should give cause for concern to any thinking Australian.

Posted by: Byron the Aussie at November 24, 2003 at 08:58 PM

This trend was to be expected with Pauline in jail.

Posted by: Observa at November 24, 2003 at 09:20 PM

PK, the sad fact is that most people who vote for the Greens don't know what they are really voting for. That is the real point of Bolt's article. It is not an attempt to argue the statistical validity of decreasing or increasing Green support - it is an attempt to strike a blow by exposing the rank silliness and other-worldliness of "green" thinking.

Those lefty critics and others side-tracked into arguing about the stats are simply missing the point.

One very interesting question is how the Greens and groups like Greenpeace manage to avoid careful scrutiny by the media as much as they do. Their public image is warm and fuzzy. People who vote Green as a protest, or as an "alternative", or, indeed, because they feel strongly about certain environmental issues, are left feeling sure that they have "done the right thing" and supported basically harmless, well-meaning folk who stand for everything that is right.

In reality, "green" thinking is pure poison. It is anti-enterprise, anti-progress, anti-technology and science, anti-freedom, anti-Western and anti-us. It is sloppy, drug-addled, "magical" thinking, dedicated to tearing down centuries of civilised development and intellectual advancement. Good on Bolt for trying to increase public exposure of this poisonous crap. We should all join him in this effort as much as we can.

TFK

Posted by: Bob Bunnett at November 25, 2003 at 08:41 AM

Once, at the height of the Tassie forest brawl about 10 or 12 years ago, the 6am ABC Radio National news had a spokesman for the Wilderness Society on to comment on the deal that had been struck with the Tas and Fed Govts and various greens. When asked if he was happy an agreement had been reached, this left loon said something like: " I don't want agreements or compromises. I want to bring down the whole of capitalist consumerist western democracy." This quote was not replayed at 7am or 8am and disappeared. That's truth on the ABC. Not all green supporters understand this, but the leadership does and it is their goal. They must be opposed vigorously.

Posted by: uburoi at November 25, 2003 at 08:52 AM

Bill, I don't care if Bob Brown has a medical degree from Sydney Uni: So do I! And I can assure you that it's not a particularly educational thing to have. (the practice of medicine is another matter of course...).

Posted by: GeoffM at November 25, 2003 at 10:57 AM