Either a poll is seen as a thin, ‘follow the leader’ set of numbers guiding cynical politicians to destinations they had already identified, or as a sneaky way help advertisers make you consume more cheese Doritos, rainbow Paddle Pops or sports betting. Or, as has increasingly been the case, pollsters have been so bad at predicting anything - especially election results - that they are pretty much useless: you may as well ask the cat.

In a former career, I used sentiment testing (one of many fancy terms for polling) to get to grips with what people really thought about international students. Around the COVID-19 period, when many students were either trapped in Australia or shut out, some parliamentarians were slinging around nasty pseudo-facts about Chinese students in particular. Either they were spying for the Chinese Government, taking our kids’ jobs, or just........

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