OPINION8 September 2010
Veteran pollster Rod Cameron has attacked the Australian Labor party over the way it used focus groups in the run up to the country’s recent general election.
Veteran pollster Rod Cameron has attacked the Australian Labor party over the way it used focus groups in the run up to the country’s recent general election.
Cameron, who has spent 40 years in the political polling business and previously served as Labor’s pollster, accused the party of “grievously misusing focus groups” in an interview with ABC.
The pollster said that Labor had shied away from addressing issues that had been flagged as problems in focus groups, such as energy.
He said that the party’s leadership had “accepted the verdict of inexperienced and naive focus group moderators” when putting together its policies. Market research, he said, “shouldn’t be used as an excuse for making policy or ignoring problems”.
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1 Comment
Ray Poynter
14 years ago
Tony Benn (a British politician) divides politicians into sign posts and weather vanes. Sign posts are politicians who stand for something and succeed or fail on whether they can persuade the voters to go their way. Weather vanes are politicians who always bend with popular opinion in an attempt to stay permanently in power. At its best market research can enable the sign posts to help explain and tailor their message. At its worst market research leads to a rush to the centre (or worse still the right), the bland or the reactionary, and inhibits growth in the social capital of a country.
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