Fox & Hedgehog Joins the Australian Polling Council

Fox & Hedgehog is pleased to announce that we have been accepted as a member of the Australian Polling Council (APC).

The Australian Polling Council is the peak professional body for public opinion polling in Australia. Its role is to uphold shared standards of methodological rigour, transparency, and ethical conduct across the industry, particularly in the publication of political and social research.

Fox & Hedgehog was founded as a polling and research firm with a deliberate emphasis on methodological clarity and public accountability. From our earliest public releases, we have treated detailed methodology statements as a core feature of our work, including disclosure of our sample design, fieldwork methods, weighting variables, and effective sample size. Membership represents a formal alignment with principles that have guided our work since the beginning.

This approach reflects a simple belief: trust in polling is earned not through authority alone, but through openness. We believe public-facing polling should be open to examination by journalists, clients, peers, and the public alike.

As part of APC membership, we commit to meeting the Council’s full disclosure requirements, including expanded long-form methodology statements that incorporate question design. We view this not as a constraint, but as a natural extension of best practice.

Since its establishment following the 2019 federal election, the Australian Polling Council has played an important role in protecting the credibility of Australian polling at a time of heightened scrutiny, politicisation, and misunderstanding of survey research.

Public polling is increasingly used to inform debate, commercial decisions, and political strategy. That makes shared standards and peer accountability more important than ever.

Membership of the APC signals that Fox & Hedgehog operates within an agreed professional framework, and that our work is subject not only to client expectations, but to industry-wide norms.

Fox & Hedgehog’s work spans media-published polling, public interest research, and bespoke surveys for institutional and corporate clients. Across these contexts, we aim to balance innovation with rigour. In politically unprecedented times, we have developed new ways to interpret and present data without compromising methodological discipline.

APC membership helps reinforce that balance. We believe strong standards do not hinder innovation, they make it credible.

We look forward to our ongoing participation as a transparent member of Australia’s professional polling community.

A note for clients:

For clients, APC membership provides an additional layer of assurance.

Private, commissioned research conducted by Fox & Hedgehog remains confidential and client-owned, in line with standard commercial research practice.

Where a client publishes research relating to politics or public policy, whether through media release or public commentary, Fox & Hedgehog ensures that the methodology is available in accordance with the Australian Polling Council’s transparency and disclosure requirements, allowing readers to be confident in the accuracy of research findings.

In practical terms, APC membership does not change how we conduct bespoke client work. It formalises our commitment to rigorous standards where research enters the public domain, while preserving confidentiality where research is commissioned for private decision-making.