Graham Reid's campaign: A certain margin for error

By GRAHAM REID

With just three weeks to go to the election, pollsters have been stunned by a new survey which shows a whopping 99.8 per cent of all eligible voters have yet to be polled for their opinion.

"Quite how such a large section of voters has been overlooked sent us back to analyse our survey methods," said Gary Colgate of Colgate-Benson yesterday. "All we can assume from the early data is large numbers of people are wilfully hiding from our researchers."

An informal street poll conducted by Herald journalists yesterday confirmed almost no one had ever been asked to take part in a poll of any kind.

Among those questioned was Bob Richards, a retired horticulturist from the Bay of Plenty who said he had never been asked his opinion about anything.

"I'm 72 and the wife Doreen and I like to think we're reasonably intelligent, but we've not once been asked to take part in a poll about politics or what we watch on television. A couple of years ago we were asked some questions over the phone but ended up buying a timeshare in Queensland, so maybe we'd be a bit reluctant to answer now, even if we were asked."

The Herald street survey showed that 72 per cent of people who'd never been asked would like to take part in a political poll before an election, a further 27 per cent said they would not, and 12 per cent were either "don't know" or "don't care". The margin for error was 3.2 per cent, which didn't take account of people who answered one way but then changed their minds, or said they would but were too busy.

The shock result of the Colgate-Benson poll has drawn praise from most political parties.

A spokesman for Act said the fewer people who were asked their opinion about anything to do with the political process the better, and someone from the Progressive Coalition, who refused to be named, said "there's far too much talk of issues and our preference is to concentrate on the personalities involved".

A spokeswoman for the National Party, wearing an orange two-piece suit with beige trim, refused to comment, but added: "Not everyone can be expected to participate in a democracy."

Labour's faxed response to the media said was time to put it behind us and move on; Winston Peters, at an outdoor rally in Foxton, said "this was typical of big-city polling agencies", and the Alliance reckoned polling was just a sideshow from the real issues such as education, social welfare and some other stuff too.

The Greens said they were always suspicious of professional surveys and preferred a straw poll. That guy from United couldn't be contacted.

The latest Colgate-Benson poll surveyed 57 upright people at a stockcar race in Palmerston North and a spokesperson said there was "an eight, maybe even 10 or 12 per cent margin for error. Or something like that."

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