Mumble poll-mix takes the most recent opinion poll and aggregates back in weekly segments from there. (Before the campaign started, the segments were fortnightly.) This makes it rather volatile: a poll-mix one day might show modest movement to the government, but the next, a few days later, will be flat again.

The most recent data contains today’s Galaxy poll and the ACNielsen published on Friday. The two party preferred aggregate is 54.5 to 45.5 in Labor’s favour.

The graph has the government making modest ground since the election was called, from 44.5 to 45.5, closing the two party preferred gap from eleven points to nine.

On Friday night’s Lateline, Michael Kroger claimed that “the polls have closed by five percent” since the campaign began. He was referring to the size of the gap, but as the graph shows, this only works if you measure from the recent Labor peak two weeks before the election was called.

With the gap today at 9%, even if the trend is on it’ll take until Christmas for the government to be competitive.

That’s a month too late.