How influential are opinion polls?

As federal Labor MPs return to Canberra, the issue of the party's leadership has been reignited by the West Australian election results.

The Liberals and the Nationals in WA will form a coalition with a predicted 40 seats out of 59, while Labor appears to have won just 19.

Questions over federal Labor's leadership abated during Prime Minister Julia Gillard's western Sydney tour last week.

As parliament resumes for a two-week sitting, the latest Newspoll has Labor narrowing the gap with the coalition but Tony Abbott's team still ahead.

So just what impact do the polls have on how parties shape their policies and change their elected leaders?

Canberra Correspondent Amanda Cavill has the details.

DOES THE MEDIA SHAPE POLLS?

Many analysts complain that modern Australian politics are unduly shaped by opinion polls.

There are concerns raised about who is questioned by pollsters, about how the questions are framed and whether those questions might predetermine the answers.

Further questions arise over whether it's the polls run by the media or polling done by the political parties themselves that have the biggest impact?

And the media is often accused of being obsessed with the results of opinion polls and for shaping the political agenda.

Montage of media audio: "Julia Gillard says she doesn't have a deadline to turn the opinion polls around amid the continued leadership speculation ..In the Neilson poll out today Labor's primary support has slumped to 30 per cent ... there's a big boost for the opposition leader Tony Abbott today with the latest Neilson poll showing him now leading Julia Gillard as preferred Prime Minister ...For the fifth time this month an opinion poll has shown support for Labor going backwards."

Martin O'Shaunnasy is the Chief Executive of Newspoll.

He says polls do count in terms of parties making decisions about dealing with elected leaders and policy direction.

Mr O'Shaunnasy says the media-run polls can shape perceptions of how the government is travelling, but he thinks it's the parties' own polling that really counts.

"Political parties do many times the amount of polling that newspapers do and therefore their own polling underneath is really what's driving them. At the moment I imagine both political parties are polling every night and I think it's their polling that's driving them rather than me. But I am the one you can see, our Newspoll in the Australian is what you can see, so of course we therefore get the attentions."

Martin O'Shaunnasy says political parties often create problems for themselves by not sharing their internal polling with all their own elected members.

He says those members not privy to the internal polling could then be swayed by the media polls.

He says this feeds into a perception that the media polls are driving decision-making within the parties.

"One of the problems for political parties is that they need to control the access to polling within parties. so what you may find is that the facts of the matter - our poll may agree with the party's poll - and of course somebody further down the food chain who doesn't get to see the party's internal polling will then refer to Newspoll or Nielson poll or one of the others informing their opinion. And of course unless the poll is completely different to what the internal poll is saying, you get that situation where it looks like the published polling is tipping people over."

Mr O'Shaunnasy says it must also be remembered that the polls measure voters' reactions to the way politicians behave and parties govern.

He says if political figures and parties behave in a foolish way, that will be reflected in the published polls.

His comments are backed up by long-time poll watcher and political expert Professor Ian McAllister, from the Australian National University.

CLOSE RACE 'LEADS TO MORE POLL-WATCHING'

Professor McAllister says poll-watching - and reactions to them - become more intense during times of political instability.

"It's certainly the case that when you have a party trailing in the polls and you've got instability in the political leadership, people are really looking to the next opinion poll to see if there's any change and how that might affect the stability of the leadership and parliamentarians' support for their party leaders. So all of that creates greater focus on opinion polls. But parties have always been driven by opinion polls. They use them quite extensively and they match them through with qualitative work in focus groups and so on."

He says there's no doubt the current instability within the Labor party is creating a greater than usual interest in the opinion polls.

"I think the circumstances of the Labor leadership over the last two or, three years that's created another circumstance in which people are focusing on the fortunes of the Labor party. And then you have this constant drip of opinion polls, particularly Newspoll coming out every fortnight and people following it to see the fortunes of the parties."

OPINION POLLS 'DISTRACTING'

Julia Gillard says the media focus on opinion polling distracts from the real issues.

She says there's so much attention being paid to the opinion polls because the face of the media has changed over recent years.

"Right across the western world we've seen a big change in the way the media does its job because of new technology. So journos who in the old days just used to write for the next day's newspapers now file several stories online during the course of the day, they tweet, they might also go on a 24/7 channel like Sky or ABC 24.

So the demands on their time are greater than they've ever been and this is I think promoting a media cycle where they need more and more and more and more content and consequently more and more drama is injected into each bit of content."

While the two major political parties may say the polls are not influencing their decisions one thing's not in doubt.

The opinion polls played an important role in ending former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's leadership in 2010 and, if Julia Gillard loses her job before the next election, the polls will have played a major part.