The latest bi-monthly Newspoll survey of state voting intention in New South Wales is nothing short of a catastrophe for Nathan Rees’s government. In the wake of last month’s mini-budget, which cut against the federal government’s economic strategy with a range of tax hikes and spending cuts, Labor’s primary vote has slumped to 26 per cent from 29 per cent in the last survey – which was itself the worst Newspoll result ever recorded by either major party in New South Wales if the Liberals and Nationals are taken together. Rees’s relatively encouraging personal ratings from the previous survey have evaporated: his dissatisfaction rating has rocketed from 26 per cent to 47 per cent, while his satisfaction is down five points to 34 per cent. Barry O’Farrell now leads as preferred premier, though not by a sufficient margin (33 per cent to 30 per cent) to douse talk about Joe Hockey being drafted to replace him. Tellingly, Newspoll saw fit to ask if the government should be allowed to serve out its full term – 49 per cent said it should, which is less than the Whitlam government was getting in response to similar questions in late 1975. The Greens are up three points to 14 per cent, a further indication they stand poised to win seats in the lower house for the first time. The chart below shows the primary vote across all Newspoll and election results going back to Newspoll’s foundation in 1985.
UPDATE: Antony Green employs the good old-fashioned uniform two-party swing method to calculate which Labor seats would fall to the Coalition if the result of this poll was borne out. However, Antony concedes that “with a third of voters off with the Greens and ‘Others’, more than admitting they will vote Labor, I’m not sure that analysis based on uniform 2-party swing is very useful”. That being so, I’ve taken a different approach: changing the results in each electorate in proportion to the shift indicated in the poll and applying the same preference distributions as last time. No doubt this is statistically clumsy, but accepting the exercise as a bit of fun (unless you’re one of the dwindling band of Labor loyalists), here’s what I’ve come up with. Coalition gains from Labor: Camden, Cessnock, Drummoyne, Gosford, Granville, Heathcote, Londonderry, Macquarie Fields, Maitland, Menai, Miranda, Monaro, Mulgoa, Penrith, Riverstone, Rockdale, Ryde, Swansea, The Entrance, Wollondilly, Wyong. Greens gains from Labor: Balmain, Coogee, Heffron, Marrickville. Independent gains from Labor, should the relevant candidates choose to run again: Charlestown (Paul Scarfe) and Newcastle (John Tate). Result: Coalition 55, Labor 25, Independents 9, Greens 4.
119 Comments
William, there’s tables here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll16dec.jpg
43% is right, good guess.
Thanks Oz, post updated.
Golly who would want to live in NSW? Voting there looks like a choice between death and dishonour. How bad is it that Farrell can only score a 33% BP figure?
To get the 2PP, it looks like they have simply allocated 50% each to Labor and Liberal of the Green and Other vote?
Ah, if only an election could be held right now to finally end the hell-hole years of Carr/Iemma/Rees; years of gross incompetence, imbecility and corruption.
Won’t someone put this dying animal out of its misery?
I wonder if this thread will get to 20 posts…
It looks like the Rees gamble well and truly flopped. How will Labor turn this around?
GP @ 4
Not at all sure if electing the Liberals would end the incompetence and the imbecility side of things. They do not impress as the Credible Alternative Government of NSW, do they? The religious wing of the crazy right in the saddle, and in full war cry…retro-mediaeval thinking? Just watch them trying to assert control over what happens in the vicinity of folk’s reproductive zones.
But then again, even a temporary interruption of the snouting would be a relief.
Well, as I keep having to say these days, strap yourselves in folks because we are in for an interesting ride.
Slight correction William, the mini-budget was last month not last week.
Labor could suddenly discover how ‘unfair’ optional preferential voting is and make moves to reintroduce complulsory pref voting. Guaranteed Greens preferences under CPV could insulate some inner Sydney seats like Coogee, Rockdale, Strathfield, Kogarah. They’d probably lose the election but could save a few seats.
If NSW Labor can’t reform itself then I hope it does suffer a heavy defeat. It needs a cleanout. They can’t even fund rail lines that will increase their own export income without Federal assistance. For once I agree with GP.
MDMConnell, I can assure that compulsory preferential voting will not be returning in NSW. It was entrenched in the constitution in 1981 and can only be changed by referendum.
MDM@9
They would have to get it through the upper house and I doubt they would – the Shooters would lose their advantage (electing on less than a quota) so wont support it, and the Coalition and Greens would see it for what it is…
Seeing some of the local eastern suburbs MP’s they know they’re on a hiding to nowhere – Daley has all but admitted as such privately. Keneally and Garrett are pumping out material where I am, but Keneally now holds the poisoned ministerial chalice of Planning, so her supposedly safe seat could come unstuck.
GP@4
The years of mismanagement, especially of rail goes back to the 70’s, when both parties gave up on rail infrastructure. The ALP keeps alive the ‘promise’ of building something, but its worn well and truly thin now. And both sides have had their moments of imbecility (David Clark internal disruptions spring to mind). But yes, the best thing for Labor now is time on the Opposition benches to sort themselves out – perhaps even find some candidates with integrity.
Ah, Antony – thank you for that.
I’ve really still got no idea why the religious right is used as some kind of reason you shouldn’t vote, or at least preference, the Liberals in NSW. As if NSW Labor is in any way left-wing and as if it isn’t also run by its own religious cabal.
I’m printing shirts that will read “I preferenced NSW Liberals before it was cool”.
The NSW ALP is in desperate need of a cleanout, but all it will receive is a cleanout of its Parliamentary ranks. What it desperately needs is a thorough clean out of its HQ, the legendarily corrupt , venal and grubby Sussex Street office. Unfortunately, thats not going to happen.
#14
“The NSW ALP is in desperate need of a cleanout, but all it will receive is a cleanout of its Parliamentary ranks”
And the ones that are cleaned out will be the hard-working marginal seat holders who are more ‘normal’ people with some connection to the real world. The only ones left after a landslide will be the safe seat holders, who tend to be the most loyal party hacks, mates and hangers-on. If anything, a landslide will entrench the influence of the party heavies, since they’ll be the only ones left in parliament.
Totally agree with MDMConnell.
Labor are going to get hammered which should force a rethink. But old smoking Joe Tripodi will still be in Parliament, trying to run Labor to suit his developer mates.
Labor’s woes are the result of the style of politics that Tripodi et. al. have exemplified for years. There are some signs that the party is moving away from this but it is all much much too late. On these figures I doubt Rees would hold his seat. Labor will lose those western suburban and central coast seats which they held in 1988 but which recorded Liberal majorities in Howard’s glory days. Will Bob Carr be seen as labor’s equivalent of John Howard an effective and disciplined true-believer whose left a poisonous legacy?
I’m wondering from that Newspoll chart… the enormous leads of LNP over ALP are in 1987 (I’m guessing somewhere between the Bass Hill by-election and Unsworth being thrown out), 1991 (before the next election), and now – actually since about 2004, with the helpful exception of a few months either side on the 2007 election. The other huge lead’s in 1995, when Carr won. Why is that so? Seems odd for the Coalition to have a 20 pt lead in an election they lost.
Labor won with a minority of the vote in 1995 and then made itself deeply unpopular in its first year with a vast round of cutbacks and also a reversal on lifting the tolls on the M4 and M5. This was one of the reasons Labor did so badly in NSW at the 1996 Federal election. In its first term the Carr government was determined not to go into defecit to pay for the Olympics, which was very tough to do once the Labor Party conference knocked-back Cabinet’s proposal to privatise the electricity industry in 1997. There was six years there where capital works budgets were squeezed to pay for the Olympics capital works, and money had to be squirrelled away to pay for the one-off non-capital costs required to run the Games. That’s the period when the capital works backlog built up, made worse by not picking the right projects to fund since the financial screws were taken off.
59/41. Well that’s about right.
I do feel a little sorry for Rees because he seems to be doing his best but NSW Labor deserves to get slaughtered. We had Iemma, a guy who was nowhere near capable of fixing the catastrophic mess left by Bob Carr. Carr was a useless Premiere who stood for and did favours for his top-end-of-town mates and relied on a well crafted media image to keep winning elections.
The people of NSW appear angry enough not to forget ’till 2011. Still, if Joe Hockey switched to the NSW Liberals they would be certainties to win. Hockey should switch. Why stay in federal politics to cop hiding when he can become Premiere of NSW?
I keep hearing the Joe Hockey theory, but no one can explain to me how it can be achieved without de-stabilising the state Liberal Party as well as Malcolm Turnbull’s federal leadership for a period of several months.
Option one is that Joe Hockey has to be parachuted into a state seat in the next six months. That means getting a compliant state MP to resign their seat, with some un-named faction of the party having lined it up so that Hockey can just waltz in and get pre-selection for the seat. A big assumption if you ask me. So, said MP resigns, Hockey is suddenly named as possible candidate. Who issues writs for by-elections? The Speaker, admittedly an Independent, but one who would be out of a job the next day if he didn’t listen to the advice of the government. And that advice would be a long delay. I’d expect it would take 3-months to get the by-election, leaving the Liberal state leadership in a complete mess.
The alternative is that Hockey not contest the 2010 Federal election, leaving him free to nominate for a state seat for the 2011 state election. Again, problem of leadership is immediately evident because the minute it was known that Hockey wasn’t running, the state leadership is up for grabs. But worse, Hockey wouldn’t be in state Parliament. He’d have to campaign for Premier without being an MP.
Whichever route is used, the problem is the minute there is a whiff of Hockey switching Parliament, Liberal leadership becomes centre stage, but the Liberal Party have no mechanism of getting Hockey into state parliament where he could assume the leadership.
The obvious comparison is Neville Wran becoming leader after switching from the Legislative Council at the 1973 NSW election. But that required a snap poll where Labor head office grabbed control of pre-selection, the helpful resignation of a left-wing MP to create a lower house vacancy, the Whitlam government appointing a bored Liberal MLC to the bench to avoid Labor losing an LC seat with Wran’s resignation, and the full support of the head office machine. Even then, Wran’s victory came on a countback after a tied vote, and even that wouldn’t have occurred if Mike Clary hadn’t been defeated by 8 votes in Coogee. The Ducker Labor machine of 1973 was utterly ruthless and nearly failed to pull it off, and I don’t see anyone in the NSW Liberal Party even faintly of that calibre.
And then, when your 2PP is 59% and the government’s primary vote is 26%, why exactly do you need to change Leader?
“And then, when your 2PP is 59% and the government’s primary vote is 26%, why exactly do you need to change Leader?”
Yes, kind of wondering about that one myself.
This has been one thing I’ve thought could save Labor from disaster- that the Liberals start getting arrogant and assuming victory is in the bag, and try to use the leadership as a factional prize. Then again, the Victorian Libs blasted out Alan Brown for Kennett when they were miles ahead and it didn’t do them any harm in 1992.
Ugh! I’ve fallen for the old your instead of you’re.
Antony, if the Liberals were virtually guaranteed of winning the next state election, O’Farrell should have a much larger preferred premiere lead given the circumstances. I don’t know that there would be a problem for both parties if Hockey made the switch. I’m sure he would receive a lot of positive publicity which the party needs and if Hockey turns out to be more popular than O’Farrell, then Hockey could take over the leadership at some time before the election. There is obviously plenty of time before the next election.
That ‘your’ looks right to me.
I don’t understand why there is a push to replace O’Farrell with anyone either. People don’t have huge question marks about O’Farrell and that’s all that he needs to win at this point in time. The only way the Libs can lose is if there are huge question marks over them. The only question marks over O’Farrell are that he might be ineffective. To which, most people in NSW would say at the moment, couldn’t be any worse than what we’ve got now.
If they were proposing a factional enemy to come in and replace him, then I could understand it, but aren’t O’Farrell and Hockey part of the same wing of the party?
On another note the NSW government is lucky that the ICAC report into Railcorp is being overshadowed by other events at the moment. It is just more proof that the Government has utterly failed to change this organisation at all, mostly because they won’t take on the vested interest of the unions.
Its akin to attacking a straw man but further evicdence of how bad the underlying structural financial problems are for NSW State finances. unfunded PS super liabilities now exceed $45 billion:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/liabilities-for-state-public-servants-super-rise-65/2008/12/15/1229189534120.html
If they ever remade that movie “Brewsters Millions” they should just get the hero to walk into NSW treasury at the start of the movie. They could blow the cash in a few minutes.
Centre, find a state opposition leader in recent years who’s less than two years in the position and managing to win a preferred Premier poll. The most important poll is almost always which party are you going to vote for, not who do you want to be Premier. Hockey used to work for John Fahey as NSW Premier, and Fahey always beat Bob Carr as preferred Premier, and we all know who won the 1995 election. Rob Kerin was vastly more popular than Mike Rann and who’s Premier of South Australia today? And in the case of both Carr and Rann, neither of their party’s had the sort of poll lead that the current NSW Opposition does, yet both got into office.
I love our wonderful state.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/big-rises-in-train-fares/2008/12/16/1229189590010.html
And I do think there is a problem for the Liberal Party in Hockey switching. The NSW Executive is now dominated by the right who have slowly come to an accomodation with factionally unaligned O’Farrell as Leader. Joe Hockey is closely associated with the opposite wing of the Liberal Party and would have to do some very interesting wheeling and dealing to get state executive support for a switch.
Inner suburbs = gawn.
What does the Greens’ policy on public transport look like? I imagine they’ve got one.
http://nsw.greens.org.au/policies/transport
People would be the surprised with some of the policies listed under the “Detail” section. It isn’t just a broad sentence “We want more public transport”.
Or the summary:
http://nsw.greens.org.au/policies/policy-summary-pages/transport
They still want point to point fares! Twenty five years since they introduced a zonal system in Melbourne and the people in charge of Sydney public transport still don’t get it. In Sydney you can buy a bus travel ten at a newsagent, a bus weekly at a newsagent, a bus-rail weekly at a newsagent, but the minute you want a train only ticket you have to go to the train station. Let’s just say that doesn’t happen because its the most efficient way to sell tickets.
Already costs me $10 to get from Green Square in Alexandria to Central (one stop).
Public-private partnerships, yay.
A dozen of them are about to be charged with corruption, so no surprise.
The silly part about it is Sydney already has a zonal system of sorts with their long-term tickets (red, green, yellow, etc), with some tickets allowing you to change modes. It wouldn’t be that difficult to update the entire ticketing system to use those zones.
If you ask me, the only solution to all of this is to abolish states & local councils & replace them with regions.
While I agree with that idea, smarttdj, I don’t see how it will be magically fix public transport. You still the policies and the will to implement them.
True. I was referring more to the general state of state politics.
Nothing short of a revolution will save public transport.
I’ve got fond memories of paying $20 or something to get from the airport to the western suburbs last time I was in Sydney. Probably more these days. The train broke down on the way to Parramatta, too.
Why is it so hard for Sydney to have integrated ticketing? (ie: being able to transfer between bus / train / ferry within 2 hrs as long as the price on the ticket is sufficient.) They’re all govt run… Melbourne manages it with Metlink and their network is privatised with different operators. Zones would help, too (those colour things look alright), and a smartcard system would give such a simple system you don’t even have to think about how much your fare costs. (That’s no exaggeration: I’ve had one of the things for about 3-4 years, and I no longer remember how much individual tickets cost, just that I pay about $10-15 a week as a uni student.)
The most fascinating element of the latest poll is that the ALP is now closer to the Greens in numbers than to the Coalition. The Coalition is 17% ahead of the ALP, with the ALP 12% ahead of the Greens.
PS. William, maybe you should stop posting the 2PP figures as the title for NSW and Qld newspolls, and instead post the primaries, since we all seem to agree that the 59-41 number is pretty meaningless (eg. “Newspoll: 43-26-12 to Coalition in NSW”).
The first time William makes post with a title demonstrating figures in that way, I’ll happily shout everyone here a drink.
It is unlikely (to say the least) but would be interesting if the NSW government saw the writing on the wall and passed a general referral of powers to the Commonwealth.
My analysis would be:
- Labor can afford to lose 6 seats before it loses its current parliamentary majority.
- The coalition needs to win 11 to govern in its own right.
- If Labor sets itself the task of winning back just the two most marginal coalition seats (Port Stephens and Tweed) it will be in a position to survive if it doesn’t lose more than 8 seats in total.
- Not losing more than 8 seats is almost within the realms of possibility.
- Of the seats the coalition need to win, some of the marginal Labor seats cannot be considered winnable for the coalition (Newcastle, Balmain, Maitland, Charlestown, Marrickville, Cabramatta).
- Excluding those, the task for the coalition is that it will then have to reach **even higher up** the pendulum past these above seats to get their 11 seats and a working majority.
- Eg. in order for a majority coalition government, they would need to win *all* of: Miranda, Menai, Wollondilly, Camden, Gosford, The Entrance, Monaro, Wyong, Londonderry, Coogee and Drummoyne (which are the next ones up the pendulum at up to a 7.6% swing).
- If the coalition fails to win even 1 of those, it would need to keep searching yet higher again for something else (the likes of Heathcote, Penrith, Riverstone, Rockdale, Swansea).
- That is the difficulty I see for the coalition. Reaching 11 seats is not as easy as people think. It is such a wide area too, it is not a concentrated patch (eg. western Sydney) the task for the coalition will be to make up ground over a far wider area.
#44 You’re forgetting two things:
* With such a low primary vote Labor will probably lose seats to the Greens (in inner Sydney) and independents (in Hunter, Illawarra and/or outer Sydney). So they’d need to drop less than 8 seats to the Liberals.
* Labor got massive swings in traditional marginal seats in 1999 and 2003, blowing out the margin to ridiculous levels. Many seats in the 10-15% range the Liberals have a strong chance of winning in 2011 despite the paper margin. Ryde is a good example of this.
The swing in the current poll is also less than recorded in any of the by-elections in October. I could point #44 to a number of articles in 1987 quoting Premier Unsworth’s senior political adviser making exactly the same case, pointing out the size of the swing and the range of the seats. The best case scenario for the Coalition put by this adviser was that a hung parliament could be produced, which gave the Unsworth government the ability to argue only Labor could guarantee stable government.
The Rees government is currently suffering poll figures that made the Unsworth government’s position look positively rosy. Given the Ryde result, I don’t see why any of the seats mentioned in #44, or seats that are much safer, shouldn’t be viewed as strong chances for the Liberal Party to win.
I disagree Donna. It’s always possible that Labor could win, but only with a significant statewide swing back. We heard the same arguments about how hard it would be for the ALP last year federally to win 16 seats, but in the end when the swing is on, it is on.
Such a large swing could easily produce eleven gains for the Coalition. If it’s not that eleven, it would be a different eleven. Those votes have to go somewhere. The Coalition is SEVENTEEN percent ahead. There is no way Port Stephens and Tweed are within reach of the ALP.
Speaking of minority govt, there’s 6 independents at the moment:
Clover Moore – Sydney
Greg Piper – Lake Macquarie
Richard Torbay – Northern Tablelands
Peter Draper – Tamworth
Dawn Fardell – Dubbo
Peter Besseling – Port Macquarie
Labor will also probably lose some seats to the Greens (Balmain, Marrickville, maybe 2-3 others), and independents could join Greg Piper in the Hunter / Illawarra. Throwing yet another spanner in the works (and that 17% ‘other’ vote), the Nationals could lose a couple more seats to independents in rural NSW (Barwon? Myall Lakes?). There could be over a dozen Green / independent MP’s after the next election.
So, say the Coalition fall short of a majority. Which of that lot would support a Labor govt? Moore and the Greens are probably the best hopes, but then it looks dicey. The rural MP’s got elected either in opposition to Labor (Piper) or in usually conservative farming regions (the rest). Especially considering how popular the NSW govt is gonna be by 2011, I doubt any of those MP’s would save them.
Kevin Rudd needs to gain 16 seats for victory. If Labor loses Swan and Cowan, then that requirement becomes 18 seats. This is a very challenging task for the ALP and the 2007 election isn’t going to be the laydown misere everyone seems to think it will be…
Reality check for post #44 – on these figures Barry O’Farrell will romp it in.
Bird of Paradox, I’d say every one of those Independents will back whichever of Labor or the Coalition end up with more seats. To back the party with less seats would condemn them to voting with the government on every significant division, where backing the bigger party allows them to abstain occassionally. The closer the election the more the decision becomes harder. Moore backed the Greiner/Fahey government remember. And the higher the ‘Other’ vote, the more Labor seats that will be lost to Independents and Greens.
The only time in recent years that Independents backed the smaller party was in Victoria in 1999. But on that occasion, the Nationals had just pulled out of the Coalition agreement and the Labor Party was clearly ascendent. Labor gained two seats at by-elections over the next 6 months.
One other complicating factor for Labor may well be that the city voters are probably more enraged with them than is the case with the rural/regional voters. I havent seen any electorate specific or even region specific polling figures, but in my travels I get the feeling that the anger is stronger in the Newcastle/Sydney/ Wollongong area than elsewhere. This is probably a reaction to the fact that outside that area there are fewer services to stuff up. In any case if true it could help the Libs run further up the pendulum than polling figures currently indicate.
Now there’s a thought. People like Joe Tripodi probably won’t lose their seats, but they won’t be hanging around long if they’re out of govt for the next 10 years. There’ll be a few by-elections in the really, really safe Labor seats – they oughta be fun to watch.
Anybody looked much at the upper house? I had a look, but since I know precisely nothing about the CDP or Shooter’s Party, I can’t really comment. It works as one 22-member electorate rather than dividing up the state like WA, Vic etc – is that a good or a bad thing for Labor if they really cop a thrashing?
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here, at the risk of being branded an apparatchik of the detestable Sussex Street machine, and make the following proposition: The Labor government in New South Wales is not THAT bad. Let’s look at various state government services.
First up, education. My nephew in Year Four at an outer-western Sydney state primary school is a bright little critter, except he has dyslexia. He gets a few hours of specialist “Reading Recovery” individualised education every month. When I attended a state primary school in NSW some 20 years ago, there were certainly no programs for the kids in my class who had trouble with reading. There’s also the fact that TAFE students who are disadvantaged are exempted from paying tuition fees in NSW – allowing those at the bottom to climb up the skills ladder and make something of themselves, unlike in QLD where everyone must pay.
Then, the environment. Bob Carr created some 70 new national parks. As Frank Sartor suggested in an op-ed piece in the SMH a few weeks back, NSW now has the strictest sustainability regulations for residential developments in the country.
Now, law and order. Yes, there are certain districts of Sydney (mainly located in the south-west and South Sydney) where even well-armed angels fear to tread. But for the vast majority of the state’s residents, the law rules the streets, not gangs.
Health care. I invite anybody who wishes to complain about NSW hospitals to come up to Queensland and stay a few nights in a Brisbane hospital. I’ve had the medical misfortune to receive treatment at hospitals in both Sydney and Brisbane. NSW patients are treated like royalty when compared to the rudimentary standards of patient comfort in Queensland’s joke of a health system.
Public transport? Yes, there is one hell of a lot of work to be done on Greater Sydney’s system – integrated multi-modal time-based ticketing would be a good start. But the frequency of services, the 24/7 availability to much of the Sydney metropolitan area, and the fact that you can often get across town without going all the way into the city still make Sydney’s public transport system the best in Australia.
By the way, I am not a cheerleader for the venal Sussex Street machine that runs the First State. Nor am I a one-eyed Labor supporter. I just like being a contrarian sometimes – taking the alternative view can stimulate healthy discussion.
And I’m starting to think — is there the possibility that the MSM is exaggerating how bad things are in NSW? And if so, why are they exaggerating? And what effect is the MSM’s antipathy to Rees having on the poll numbers?
Catatonia @ 53
I have a slogan for the NSW Labour Party in the next state election:
‘Yes We Can’t’
If I can avoid driving a car in Sydney, I will. If I can avoid getting on a bus or a train in Sydney, I will. I really don’t like the look of those rail lines. They look worn out to me. I am glad I avoided buying a house in SW Sydney because I would probably be looking at the old negative equity thingo. I am glad that I am not on a waiting list for surgery in NSW. I am glad to be able to avoid going anywhere near some of the hospitals in NSW. I am not glad that kids are in schools which have bits falling off them. I am glad that I live where the electricity infrastructure is being re-newed.
I would give nine out of ten for the national parks. As for Mr Sartor’s rules, rules, schmules, their application can be bought and sold. I am glad that I do not have to receive state services from inefficient workplaces.
BTW, how venal is too much venal?
I didn’t need the MSM to tell me any of the above.
Not entirely dissimilar to their actual slogan at the last election.
Possibly the worst slogan in the history of slogans. Unfortunately, I think some will take that as a challenge..
Antony Green employs the good old-fashioned uniform two-party swing method to calculate which Labor seats would fall to the Coalition if the result of this poll was borne out. However, Antony concedes that “with a third of voters off with the Greens and ‘Others’, more than admitting they will vote Labor, I’m not sure that analysis based on uniform 2-party swing is very useful”. That being so, I’ve taken a different approach: changing the results in each electorate in proportion to the shift indicated in the poll and applying the same preference distributions as last time. No doubt this is statistically clumsy, but accepting the exercise as a bit of fun (unless you’re one of the dwindling band of Labor loyalists), here’s what I’ve come up with. Coalition gains from Labor: Camden, Cessnock, Drummoyne, Gosford, Granville, Heathcote, Londonderry, Macquarie fields, Maitland, Menai, Miranda, Monaro, Mulgoa, Penrith, Riverstone, Rockdale, Ryde, Swansea, The Entrance, Willoughby, Wyong. Greens gains from Labor: Balmain, Coogee, Heffron, Marrickville. Independent gains from Labor, should the relevant candidates choose to run again: Charlestown (Paul Scarfe) and Newcastle (John Tate). Result: Coalition 55, Labor 25, Independents 9, Greens 4.
Labor going from 51 to 25?
I don’t think so brother!
Check it out:
http://www.nswalp.com/content/upload/files/Pendulums/Pendulum_State_2008.pdf
Donnak,
With a uniform primary vote swing of 13% away from Labor (as this poll suggests) and a typical standard deviation on that swing of around 3 and a bit, the TPP based pendulum doesnt become particularly useful since seats that Labor would ordinarily consider safe (and are way up the pendulum) end up falling if the primary vote swing is on the upside for any of those seats (like 1.5 standard deviations on the upside).That would cause some safe seats to have a minor party coming in second behind Labor on the primary vote and falling over the line on Coalition preference flows.
So a fall from 51 to 25 is entirely possible, depending on the distribution of the primary vote swing.
If there are more independents, they’ll almost certainly come from Labor seats rather than Lib/Nat seats. If the polls keep going the way they are, the Nats should be able to prevent more independents getting up in their own seats, and could win back seats like Dubbo and Tamworth. Partly because any general rise in the conservative vote would put them in a strong position, and partly because they could run a monumental scare campaign on the prospect of Labor sneaking back in as minority government. The fact that some rural independents announced their support for Labor in 2007 might come back to bite them.
Donna K
Labor’s Primary vote is 26%, a guide to how many seats it would win would be the Liberal (not lib + Nat) performance in 2007. which is 22 seats. and the Liberal’s 27% are distributed over fewer seats (they do not contest National seats)
Lets look at a seat like the Blue Mountains, which had a 22% margin and 11% swing. If 10% of the vote went from ALP to the Liberals, and that is lower than what all the polls are saying. Liberal would be 39%, ALP 31% and Greens 16% in optional pref voting, the Green vote will probably not get the ALP over the line
And then I wonder if the preference flow would be even worst for the ALP in this election due to their popularity (not).
What about the informal vote?
Voters may not see the libs as a viable alternative and a higher informal vote could mean less seats loss?
That aside it would be good to see the libs get in, NSW is long overdue for a cleanout, should have had one last time.
A strong victory to libs means they would also clean out the public service.
As far as I am concerned, it is not over yet. Labor can still win. All is not lost.
My justifications:
1. Newspoll has a long history of slightly over exaggerating the Liberals’ support.
2. The 59 to 41% is not able to be relied upon. I’d put it currently at around 55% to 45% — a position that is still recoverable and a position where the L/NP+Ind has the potential to still be denied a majority over Labor.
3. The public sector unions will certainly run a pro-Labor campaign on the central coast and western Sydney marginals. This works and will provide a core of volunteers in places the Liberals’ have few resources.
4. Hawker Britton will be appointed to produce highly targeted focus-group tested advice and ads. The Liberals’ won’t be able to compete with these politically or financially. The Liberals’ strategy will rely on two badly understaffed head offices and a team of state MPs who have no resources.
5. The Liberals will field a pack of dud candidates: ex-cops, ex-lawyers, washed up small businesswomen. Whilst Labor will N40 into seats candidates that will run under slogans like “go local” using ultra targeted, focus group tested lines, airbrushing out state issues in lieu of local council issues. This works. This has traction. People in heavily migrant communities will swallow it.
6. Labor will leave the Liberals to rack up huge majorities in places like the Hills district, southern highlands and north shore. It doesn’t need these votes. Let them rot. These are the places where the 59 to 41% is actually being accrued. The doctors’ wives are the ones answering the landlines when Newspoll phones – it is not generally the Labor voters, who are, you know — actually at work rather than sitting at home!
7. Fundraising: the coalition cannot compete with donations. Labor is well in front by any measurment.
8. Country Labor – Monaro, Maitland and others are having huge resources thrown at them. New infrastructure announcements, pork barrelling, federal govt projects – the whole shebang. What can the Liberals’ promise or offer? Does anyone living in these seats even know the name of the state National party leader – no. The coalition has a fundamental brand problem in “Country Labor” held seats.
9. The Greens. It is impossible to envisage any “Lib-NP+Ind+Grns” majority actually working (assume 2 Grn LH seats which in itself is a stretch). Denying the Liberals’ winning these 2 or 3 seats will count in Labor’s favour in the long run.
10. The power of sitting Labor MPs. The printing allowances, direct mail, glossy brochures, a physical office, 1 or 2 staffers, years of having their faces in the local rags = it all counts.
11. Clover. There is 1 less vote for the coalition.
12. Rees. He is a blank slate. Marketing can do wonders to invent a simple straight-forward good guy message. Lock up the rest of the cabinet for the election. Put all the focus on Rees and run a Team Beattie style campaign. It works. O’Farrell lacks the media profile and charisma to do likewise.
Donnak, two things need to be corrected.
In 1995 Newspoll underestimated the ALP primary by 2.3 and underestimated the Coalition by 0.9.
In 1999 Newspoll underestimated the ALP primary by 2.2 and overestimated the Coalition by 4.3
In 2003 Newspoll overestimated the ALP primary by 3.3 and underestimated the Coalition by 1.5
In 2007 Newspoll overestimated the ALP primary by 3 and underestimated the Coalition by 2
So that’s not actually true.
No offence, but that’s just straight out piffle. Polling is much more sophisticated than that.
#63 While I admire your enthusiasm donnak it ain’t going to happen.
1: dealt with by possum above
2: I agree. The 59-41 is probably wrong- it flatters Labor!
3,4,5: this presumes anyone is still listening. If Labor keep polling sub-30% it shows nobody cares anymore.
6: Dealt with by possum. Funnily enough, whenever the Liberals are behind the conservative partisans all flood the blogs to claim the exact opposite- labor voters are unemployed at home while Lib voters are out working!
7: Might well be true. But spending squillions on ads and spin won’t do squat if the people’s minds are made up. We saw that with Howard in 2007.
8: Ironic to claim brand issues when Country Labor is nothing more than a brand. Its leader is the ALP leader, it votes with the ALP, its policies are the ALP’s. And again, see Howard 2007 to prove bribery doesn’t work on a cynical, fed-up electorate.
9: Irrelevant as if the polls continue the way they are the Coalition will win a clear majority in their own right.
10: “it all counts”; not if the people have made up their minds it won’t (see 7 and
11: Irrelevant as Sydney is closer to a Labor/Green seat than Lib seat on these boundaries.
12: I agree it’s not Rees’ fault the government is so unpopular, and he can’t be worse than Iemma, but people aren’t stupid. If they want change and new leader won’t fool them, and they’ll have no hesitation in booting him out to punish the government.
All your points assume this is a temporary blip for the government that can be turned around with a few ads and sweetners. Whereas it’s more likely the people’s minds are made up and nothing the government do will turn things around. Once again, look at Howard 2007 for a recent example of this.
Hmm..in point 10 the smiley face should be number “8″
The Liberals will field a pack of dud candidates: ex-cops, ex-lawyers, washed up small businesswomen. Whilst Labor will N40 into seats candidates that will run under slogans like “go local” using ultra targeted, focus group tested lines, airbrushing out state issues in lieu of local council issues. This works. This has traction. People in heavily migrant communities will swallow it.
Q: How many unionist does it take to change a lightbulb
A: The lightbulb have not been changed in NSW in 14 years
Note the Asian community is already turning against the Labor party, the biggest local swing in the local election held recently are in areas of high Asian population (maybe they are turned since Howard is not around) The ALP can no longer rely on the migrant vote to save it
Dudd candidates, try Reese, Costa, Dancing undies police minister, Sartor
Reese a blank slate ….. when was he elected, he has been part of this government the whole time, just becasue he is a faceless man does not mean he is better than people like Sartor and Costa who has more talent than him …. that is saying a lot
As for Clover Moore’s vote …. If Clover was the casting vote … a. she can vote with the ALP, a decaying government in NSW, or an up and coming coalition …. does she want to be associated with this incompetant govenment, and potentially have her career destroyed?…. See Maynard in SA
#63. That was Labor’s very successful strategy in 2003 and 2007. Reminds me of the Federal Coalition running its succesful 2004 strategy again in 2007. If I were the Coalition, I’d contact Pete Townsend and buy the rights to Track 9 of the 1971 “Who’s Next” album.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who’s_Next
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Next
donnak, you are kidding yourself.
While I have no doubt that Labor are a professional political machine and that they will do all the things that you mention, it won’t help them this time. They are so far on the nose as to be unsalvageable. I can’t tell you the number of traditional Labor voters I’ve spoken to whose only decision is whether to direct their Green preference to the Liberals or just let it exhaust. Diehard Labor voters who just can’t wait for them to lose so that they can clean up their act.
Labor are going to lose and they are going to lose big.
Caveat: As long as the Liberals don’t so anything stupid (always possible in NSW).
Interesting debate. Now for Catatonia & DonnaK;
Catatonia: your list of potential positives are now negatives – education has started going backwards again, with cuts to all those ’special’ programs, maintenance issues & teachers pay/retention all becoming big issues (watch teacher loss from the public system in the next 10 years) – Carr creating national parks? You can easily create 70 parks when they’re the size of postage stamps (the Escarpment National Park on the south coast promise always springs to mind : promised to put the whole escarpment in a park and it ended up as 70ha), and anyway, they keep allowing developments in them (not that NPWS is happy with that) – Public Transport is a shambles in Sydney, not just because of rail infrastructure underspending for 20 years : one of the biggest issues is Sydney’s main roads have all reached or surpassed capacity, and bus services tend to run as best they can, when they can : all the latest reports (either from RIC or IPART) say that trains will be over capacity again within 4 years, even after the latest round of ‘upgrades’.
DonnaK: Hawker Britton are just another lobbyist firm full of ALP’ers – and yes, the PSA, still run by ALP place-holders (but only just – they won 53%:47% at the election this time) will run some pro-ALP campaign – N40′ing in candidates can be very counter productive (just ask Sharon Bird about Cunningham in 2002) and pisses off the local branches – and yes, we are already seeing mountains of ALP MP’s resources pouring through our letterboxes…but as MDM says, someone has to be listening for it to work.
The question remains, though, whether the Liberals under O’Farrell can keep it together long enough to win, and also if Rees can pull a rabbit out of the hat (though I don’t know where he’s going to get the rabbit…or the hat…) and buy a few seats. We will see a huge scare campaign from the ALP about how ‘bad’ the Libs will be, but I suspect that alot of voters think we’re already there in policy outcome terms, so why not give them a go for a term or two.
Don’t think it matters as much this time Matt.
Last time labor had Howard and WorChoices to help them get back in, not so much as the drovers dog winning this election but more of a leg-humping, flea infested, drovers dog with rabies would win it.
Let me further unpack the case for Labor retaining government:
- Labor will do the sort of in-depth qualitative research in its marginal seats that will very closely examine voters’ attitudes and develop strategies and messaging to retain them. People can be turned around. The coalition does not typically do this level of research – it leaves its groundwork until late in the campaign and when it finally does do focus groups, typically ignores the findings anyway.
- The Liberals’ have no clear, consistent, message. The are not authoratative on anything. They are not convincing. Nobody knows their shadow treasurer or their spokespeople. Their brand recognition with young people, migrants and minorities is close to nil.
- By 2011, Labor’s campaign war chest will be somewhere north of $20+ million ($15 million was used in 2007 election). The coalition’s will be dramatically less – preventing them from matching the sort of media buy that Labor will take. The Liberals will be demonized by being propped up by the likes of tobacco companies.
- The Lib/NP have been hopeless with viral campaigning and running the sort of dirt unit / opposition research that Labor has perfected. They will pay for this.
- The Lib/NP’s shadows are usually scattergun, off message and poorly prepped. Labor’s messages will be centralized from the leader down. The few messages Labor sends, will use only very tested and highly refined concepts.
- Labor will have significant phone banks and wireless messaging capacity for push polling in marginals – backed up by a dozen unions doing the same. The coalition will stuggle to do any of this well.
- The state Nationals’ primary vote is through the floor at the moment. For them, lacking a credible identity will force them into running a defence strategy diverting their few resources away from Labor marginals and into contests against fighting independents.
Yes Labor will lose seats. But it will not be the train wreck people think. There is capacity to retain significant seats and more resources to draw upon than the coalition has.
Check what out? The link you provide confirms that a swing of the size indicated by the Newspoll result would indeed reduce Labor to about 25 seats.
“The Lib/NP have been hopeless with viral campaigning and running the sort of dirt unit / opposition research that Labor has perfected.”
“Labor will have significant phone banks and wireless messaging capacity for push polling in marginals – backed up by a dozen unions doing the same.”
Hmm…unless you’re a Liberal troll pretending to be a Labor insider, it’s probably not the smartest idea to telegraph your election strategy as being push polling, lies, dirt and viral smears……
Donna, your points one at a time:
- Too late, won’t work.
- They don’t need one.
- Labor is in bed with unethical people as well, the hotel lobby and developers.
- A smear campaign is not going to win Labor anything.
- Doesn’t matter, too late.
- Won’t have an effect.
- Even if they hold all their seats, possibly even lose a few, it won’t matter.
There has only ever been one government in NSW to have more than 16 years and that was right after WW2 when people didn’t want change. For any government to win a 5th term it has to be an outstanding government that is loved by the people. This is clearly not the case of NSW Labor. The only reason Labor one back power in 2007 was due to the Liberals terrible choice of leader. Now the Liberals have a stable leader who has reformed the party to stop faction wars (unlike NSW Labor). I am sure the polls will improve for Labor but it will simply not be enough for them to win back Government in 2011. People will simply just want change and be able to have trust in their Government.
Wow,
I thought the Liberal optimists on here last year were out of touch with reality, but donnak puts them to shame. Of course Labor may do better than 25 seats. Some people saying they will vote Liberal might get scared off closer to the day (although I’d think they’re more likely to vote informal or for an independent and exhaust than actually come back to Labor). Low 30s is conceivable.
On the other hand, if two more years of disasters, combined with the Liberals getting a real spring in their step could easily make things worse. Its just as likely Labor will go under 20 seats.
Interesting little tidbit here: Labor have been the single biggest party (treating the coalition as two separate entities) in the NSW Legislative Assembly since 1941. This could certainly change in 2011.
Talking about Carrs National Parks in rural NSW is a sure way to lose even more votes. Everyone knows he proclaimed several more, but farmers nearby know that he never staffed or otherwise resourced them. They are now a constant source of feral pests such as rabbits, goats, pigs and dogs and of noxious weeds.
They might have fooled a few voters in the inner city, but they are electoral poison in the bush!
Although I am no where near as optimistic as Donnak, the possibility that Labor candidates can come back over the next two and a half years is not out of the question.
1 There is an awful lot of money coming NSW’s direction in the very near future. Do not under estimate the power of the big spend. Reference John Howard. I expect that Labor will not die wondering whether splurging money on the electorate is a good idea.
2. Local members will have the privilege of photo opportunities and being on the spot to hand over sizable cheques to kindergartedns, schools etc. I can assure you people remember fondly that nice man who spent $100k on my local football pavillion. Road openings are bound to have their own television programme.
3. Given Labor brand is on the nose, then it likely that such a brand may not feature prominently in advertising. Will this confuse things?
4. No doubt the Libs will be preaching responsibility, prudence etc. It could be the money or the virtue.
5. The Libs are not that good and have been known to cock up before in NSW.
6. Regardless of who you support, Nathan Rees has only been there five minutes. He may yet come through his baptism of fire and emerge as one of those “hang tough” sort of pollies that people will support once they get to an election.
This might work for a few well-known, popular local members… at the recent WA election it worked OK for John Quigley, who got a swing towards him while all other Labor MP’s in Perth’s northern suburbs were getting squashed. Can’t see it working for the party as a whole, though. I see what you’re saying but Labor really does look too far gone.
It’s possible Labor could win. It will remain possible for a while longer. 27 months is a long time. But not without a massive change in NSW politics.
Also, re. Clover, the only government she has ever supported was a COALITION government! I analyse independents differently. I tend to think most of the independents are more likely to support the party which is weaker in their seat. Think of it this way: if you are Clover Moore, you’re main opposition is Labor (and Greens), not the Liberals. For tories in the inner-city she’s the only real option, despite her NIMBYism, she’s not that much of a lefty. She’s more like a conservative who’s adapted to their electorate on social and environmental issues.
In contrast, rural and north-shore independents have tended to be close to the ALP. The independents who challenged the ALP in Newcastle and Maitland were both conservative, while the independent in goulburn was considered to the left of the Liberal.
Most independents exist in areas without a real two-party contest, so they often become surrogates for the weak major party.
One other thing: people always wring their hands about the low Nationals vote, but I’m sure there are plenty of Nationals voters who would vote Liberal if a Liberal was standing. In the Newspoll, they do have the choice of voting Liberal, they’re bound to go back to the Nationals come election day. It’s irrelevant. In states (and federally) where the Liberals and Nationals do not run many 3-cornered contests and effectively run as a single party, the separate votes is irrelevant. Just look at the Coalition number.
You’ve forgotten Tony O’Gorman.
1. A big problem for Labor in 2011 will be fund raising. Many businesses, associations and especially developers won’t risk giving money to Labor when it is more than likely they are going to lose because that would get them off side with a coalition government. As seen in the 2007 Federal Election Labor saw a huge boost in fund raising because everyone believed they were going to win so even traditional Liberal Funders decided to either not give money to the Liberal Party or even give money to Labor. This will probably happen in 2011 but in the coalition’s favor. We may even see the Nursing Federation back the Liberals since clearly Labor hasn’t delivered to the nurses since 2007.
2. Never underestimate the people of New South Wales they will not buy into photo ops and handouts. The people of NSW now have a good opposition who they are not scared of.
Macca,
1. Wishful thinking.
2. Emotional hyperbole.
Next!
Is that you, Mr. O’Farrell?
There’s not all that much Rees (or Rudd for that matter) can do to save NSW Labor. Remember that Iemma won in 2007 on a slogan something like “We’ve been crap but we’ll try harder from now on, we promise”. I don’t think that can work twice in a row, unless …
… the Liberals do something very stupid (most likely pick a scary leader instead of the plodding but reliable Barry).
As a long-suffering NSW Liberal voter, I am therefore not even close to breaking out the champagne …
Can I ask, William, how can you predict four Greens seats? (i know, it’s not technically a prediction)
I can’t imagine what the third and fourth seats are after Balmain and Marrickville fall.
The Greens did really well in one of the northern Wollongong seats that overlaps Cunningham. Keira I think it was?
As Heffron and Maroubra gentrify there would be a strong chance of the Greens doing well. Not sure if that will be the case in 2011.
Even if there’s a ~7% swing in Heffron against Labor with most of it going to The Greens seeing them outpoll the Liberals, Liberal preferences would have to go 90% The Greens way and with OPV that doesn’t seem likely?
Coogee is even harder. The Greens need 14% to get over the Libs and 18% to get over Labor.
I can see a decent chunk off the Labor vote coming off for The Greens but I don’t think very much of the Liberal vote will swing over.
The latest poll shows Labor at 26%, a swing of 13% against their 2007 result. I’m sceptical the swing will be that high in the inner-city and the Eastern Suburbs and even more sceptical it will all to The Greens, which is what they need for Coogee.
Does anyone want to have a punt at what Liberal preferences would be like? If this was compulsory preferencing I wouldn’t doubt the vast majority going to The Greens but I have no idea how many Liberals would just exhaust.
Surely Coogee is much more at risk of being lost to the Liberals, not the Greens? I guess the Greens’ best bets are those seats where the Liberals are non-existent, and the Lib vote is too high in Coogee.
I’m surprised the Liberals would outpoll the Greens in Heffron. Where on earth would the support for the Libs come from in that seat?
I don’t think Coogee has a chance of going Green, I only mentioned it because William thinks so.
Heffron isn’t quite as urban-lefty-latte sipping-any other stereotype you might like as the surrounding inner-city seats.
Too right about Heffron. Sure, the Green Square and Alexandria area is growing. But visit Mascot or Eastlakes or Roseberry or Tempe and try and convince yourself they are gentrifying.
Maybe they’re just into nouveau grunge – you know, where people spend 800 dollars an outfit to look like a hobo
Coogee or Heffron? I’d go Heffron. As people have said, Coogee is much more likely to go Liberal than Green with a lot of voters needing to switch ALP-Green. This is possible (Green-voting demographically Coogee is moving to something similar to Marrickville), but not at this election I would have thought. And then there will be the high green-vote exhaust. Heffron remains more interesting as it slowly gentrifies north-south. But Antony is right, the southern end is still pretty hard-core ALP (alot of state housing, migrant families and Port Botany workers, none of which would normally be Green voters). But I also know (from talking to a former Lib campaign manager) that they think it’s not one for them to win, so resources might be thin on the ground and the candidate may not be well profiled. That said, last time they ran Randwick Councillor Scott Nash, who was re-elected comfortably at the Council elections with 33% in a ward covering the Randwick section of Heffron. On the other side of the electorate, The Greens polled 40% in South Ward of Marrickville, half of which lies in Heffron. And Keneally has the poisoned ministerial chalice of Planning which will always be a sore point, particularly with the Redfern-Waterloo Authority and the expansion of Port Botany (b-doubles rumbling through the neighbourhood anyone?). Still, Keneally would need to drop at least 10% for it to even think about coming into play, and that would still require a strong flow of prefs from Lib to Green.
Coogee might yet be an interesting one if Pearce’s vote collapses, but it doesn’t all flow to the Libs. Making up that 14% as quoted above would be pretty difficult, but what if that 14% was coming off the ALP and distributed evenly between the Greens and Libs? The Libs still wouldn’t have won (they’d be 42%) and it’d be the ALP who would then be excluded (as their 25% would be less than the Greens 28%) – sure it’s not likely, but if some of the swings being mentioned and speculated about (and noting the byelection results) are seen then it might be possible.
Sad to say, my own sense of what is likely to occur is that Pearce loses in Coogee and Kenneally retains Heffron – its just nice to speculate sometimes!!
Marrickville – I think that would be one of the first to fall to the green, if Labor loses 7% vote Marrickville is history, and they might lose 13 … so Tebbett better be looking at her husband for another job
Stewart J, I live in Enmore and it’s in South Ward of Marrickville Council. From my quick check of the numbers, it is max one-third of South Ward in Heffron, and that is the weaker end of the Ward for the Greens. Even the parts of Erskineville in Heffron is the Housing Commission estate end, not the gentrified bit. I just checked the 2007 Federal figures and Redfern is still solid Labor, and as you move south the booths get stronger. And unlike areas like Newtown, the Liberals still outpoll the Greens. The b-doubles for the port has been an issue round Marrickville where the truck go cross country, but it becomes much less of an issue down towards the port. If the Greens thought Heffron was really vulnerable, they would have run in Botany Council at the local government elections and created problems for the local Labor branches. The Sydney City Council LG results aren’t a good guide because of Clover Moore running, but again, the minute you’re south of Redfern the Green vote just drops away. Even the new areas around Green Square don’t look that good for Green vote. All those odd bits of suburbia in between the factories and ports have shown no sign of gentrification, and probably won’t until more of the industry moves away.
I suppose my point is, Antony, that the Greens are running to outpoll the Libs not the ALP. Will the Libs pick up much fin this area? I don’t know myself. As for Greens being serious and therefore running in Botany – I can tell you there was a concerted attempt to find someone who would run, but there very few Greens down in that neck of the woods (and even less prepared to stand). There was some money for a basic campaign, but just no candidate. The way I’ve been looking at it is that any increases in the Green vote in Heffron will come from the north, east and west ends of the electorate, but not the south – Roseberry is still not much good for the Greens either, let alone Mascot – but as the area does change (parts of Pagewood and Eastlakes, as well as Mascot, are slowly becoming quite pleasant). With public housing not on the governments agenda (oddly enough, its the Greens who are stronger supports of it) we’ll see no increase in that form of housing, but an increase in medium density flat developments such as around Kingsford & Green Square – and now across the railway line in east Erskineville as well. Still as you say, working off a low base makes it pretty hard to see anything happening. Oz is right too – the Libs would have to preference to the Greens for votes to flow in the kinds of numbers needed to get past Kenneally. I don’t see that happening without a reciprocation…
As I said – nice to speculate sometimes.
State Labor being what it is, I don’t think you’ll find any Libs willing to preference Labor above The Greens.
But will they preference at all, that’s the question.
Definitely the southern areas of Heffron are the weakest for The Greens. Nice mix of people that don’t quite fit The Greens demographic.
One point I disagree with Antony – I think the new developments in Alexandria and Waterloo etc. will be more Green then what is there currently. But the change from industrial to residential/commercial is going to take at least a decade, so kind of moot at this stage.
The issue of candidates pops up. Greens candidates haven’t really been high profile in the area and are virtual nobodies next to Kristina Kenneally so all the vote comes from Green policies and the brand name. Having someone who locals know and has some kind profile will bring up the vote by some percentage.
In summary, my pick 2 years early: I think The Greens will outpoll the Liberals in 2011 and I think they’ll get a decent amount of Liberal preferences but I don’t know if enough Libs will preference.
Should add that that pick was in regards to Heffron, not the whole of NSW.
The disintegration of the ALP in NSW continues. It will take 10 years to replenish its ranks and clean out the large amount of junks. It would be better for the NSW ALP in the next election, if the electorate cleans out as much of the junk as possible, so that the party machine cannot keep the likes of Hays, Sartor, Tripoli etc.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-broadcaster-mp-and-the-off-switch/2008/12/22/1229794326896.html
From what I remember from the Wollongong council stuff Hay didn’t seem the sharpest tool in the box, and this proves it. If she was involved in getting this guy sacked it’s not only improper but DUMB. Why not just ignore him- let him blow his top and do his worst? It’s not like he was prime time on Austereo or something…
I think it a bit strange that no-one has noticed that Willoughby is a supposed gain for the Liberal Party. If there is a liberal MP that gets on TV more than Barry it is Gladys B.
> Greens candidates haven’t really been high profile in [Heffron] and are virtual nobodies next to Kristina Kenneally so all the vote comes from Green policies and the brand name. Having someone who locals know and has some kind profile will bring up the vote by some percentage.
Like who?
#105
What do you mean “supposed gain for the Liberals”? Willoughby has been a safe Lib seat, although that Elvis impersonator mayor came close a couple of times. Isn’t Gladys B-J shadow transport? Probably explains why she’s seen and heard so often.
MDMC @ 107 Yes Gladys Berejeklian is shadow transport spokesperson. She is heard ‘often’ because the other mob are doing such a lamentable job with public transport and she has plenty of material to work with. The local mayor Reilly (aka Elvis impersonator) ‘came close’ once only in the 2003 election.
MDM: Probably because William’s got it listed above as one of the 20-odd ‘Coalition gains from Labor’. Might’ve been mixed up with Wollondilly?
By the way, while I’m quibblin’, William: Maitland’s in the wrong set. It’s mighty marginal, but not against the Liberals – that was one of those Newcastle-area safe Labor seats with local mayors running as independents. Independents don’t seem to usually do so well in second elections compared to first ones where they come close (not the ones I’ve been looking up, anyway… eg, Pat Reilly in Willoughby), but Greg Piper being an MP at the moment could change that – it’ll be interesting to watch. Is anyone on here from Lake Macquarie? If so, how’s he doing?
Bird, I do believe you’re correct about Willoughby/Wollondilly – have changed this. I may also have erred in Maitland, but I don’t have the calculations I used handy so I can’t say for sure – it’s possible I had Labor vote plunging so far as to give the seat to the Liberals.
#109, 110
Maitland was held by the Liberals during the 90’s- the independent in 2007 was the former Liberal MP- although maybe the boundaries have changed to make it safer for Labor. If we keep seeing these sorts of numbers then Maitland would be a good chance of falling to the Libs, depending on the strength of any independent candidate.
Ben, I have no idea. I wasn’t suggesting a particular person, just hypothesising that one way to get The Greens across the line would be someone with a high profile in the community.
Wow it has been 4 week since the last Labor embarassment, I guess time is ripe for another
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/its-nonsense-its-not-true/2009/01/15/1231608803472.html
Where there is smoke there is fire
Maybe they want to make every member of parliament the premier for 1 day, I heard they get better super that way. It will make up for all the MP joining the unemployment queue in 2 years – which is 2 years too long
Surely not even NSW Labor could be that stupid? Oh wait… never mind.
NSW Labor replaced Morrie Iemma (a likeable guy and incompetent manager) with Nathan Rees (an unlikeable guy and incompetent manager). Now there is talk of replacing Rees with Frank Sartor (an unlikeable guy and competent manager). The miserable reality for NSW citizens is that they have no say in who is the premier until the end of March 2011.
David Charles, I take argument with you calling Iemma “likeable” and Sartor “competent”.
Oz @ 116 I can live with your disagreement; afterall diversity of opinion is to be encouraged and particularly here.
“Mr Della Bosca said he was 100 per cent behind Mr Rees”
Uh oh.
Actually all gags aside it would be pretty unfair for Rees to get dumped. It’s not his fault the government is where it is. He wasn’t even in parliament for most of the time Labor’s been in office!
I thought he was the best pick they had since he was a relative cleanskin and a clear break from Carr and Iemma. If they dump him, who will they turn to? Going back to a Carr/Iemma person like Sartor or Della Bosca wouldn’t be clever, and they can’t dump a newbie for another newbie. They should back Rees to do his best in impossible circumstances.