Experts Slam Council Survey

THE phone survey for the popularly elected mayor began today and 400 residents of the Upper Hunter Shire area will be phoned to participate, however two industry experts are critical of the Council’s survey describing it as confusing, misleading and concerning.

According to expert market researchers, ensuring the questions are unbiased is critical to a credible survey result and is written by independent researchers.

However Council has refused to identify who wrote the questions with evidence that the Councillors themselves constructed the questions and provided the survey to Micromex to conduct.

Barry Elliott is a consultant psychologist, who has worked in the field of market research for more 30 years, is a Fellow of the Australian Market and Social Research Society and chief examiner of their accreditation program said he would give the Council survey a fail.

“I’ve got less concern about the questions and more about being confused by the preamble,” said Mr Elliott.

“I assume that whoever put all this together is hoping that the Mayor will be elected by the Councillors,” he said.

“I would not let that go out.

“One of the major issues in surveys apart from bias is will people understand what we intend them to understand and I think this does not meet that requirement,” he said.

“I had to read it a couple of times and if it is a phone interview people will switch off,” he said.

“I would have concerns that maybe even people voted one way or another on this they weren’t really sure what in the hell it was about,” said Barry Elliott.

Mr Elliott was surprised the Council was spending $9,000 on the phone survey, confused as to why they would spend that money to decide if they spend $12,000 to hold a referendum, but agreed a survey of 400 was statistically significant.

Julian McCrann Morgan poll manager for Morgan Roy, Australia’s best known market research company, also expressed concerns about the Council’s survey.

“Either the survey is a genuine attempt to gauge the surveyed population’s views on an issue – and act according to the wishes of that population, or it is designed to produce a desired result which will support a pre-determined course of policy action,” said Mr McCrann.

“In looking at the survey conducted by the Upper Hunter Council, the introductory statements to the main question are slightly confusing given the first paragraph states the Mayor is determined by an annual vote of the elected councillors but that the proposed change is to make that vote a biennial occurrence,” he said.

“This is slightly misleading as the question is not concerned with the length of term once elected by councillors, but rather whether the Mayor is elected by councillors or by the electorate.

“In terms of the second question, it is more straightforward and more concisely presented.

“By mentioning the costs involved the question lays out the possible downsides of posing a referendum question,” he said.

“Some would argue that is unnecessary, however as it states, it is only a ‘one-off’ cost that represents an additional cost to the normal council elections of approximately 10%,” he said.

“This seems a reasonable trade-off for the community to change the way the system of Local Government operates in the years and decades ahead,” said Julian McCrann.

While Council have engaged Micromex a market research company to conduct the phone survey, Micromex has not claimed responsibility for writing the survey.

Brian Brown who prefers the Councillors continue to elect the Mayor and was on Council for 13 years himself said he thought the survey was simple and effective.

“I thought it was very simple,” said Mr Brown.

“She did go on for a bit explaining it, but she needed to and she was clear,” he said.

“It was one of the longest survey questions, but it did explain what it was about, I believe it was the right thing,” Brian Brown said.

Local resident Russell Sakey who is in favour of a popularly elected Mayor said he was surprised by the survey.

“If you thought it was going to be a straight old vote, it’s not, it’s a little bit complicated and I know it would throw some of the ‘less-able-thinking-people’ off,” said Mr Sakey.

“It has become very much more complicated once the executive at Council got hold of it and wanted to slow down the process a bit,” he said.

“Perhaps they are not so keen to allow the people to vote on it,” Russell Sakey said.

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