Labor has won the election - very probably in majority
NSW Legislative Assembly 93 seats (Majority 47)
2019 RESULT L-NP 48 ALP 36 Green 3 SFF 3 IND 3
GOING INTO ELECTION (Occupied/Notional) L-NP 46 ALP 37 Green 3 IND 7
SEATS APPARENTLY WON ALP 45 L-NP 26 GREEN 2 IND 7 In Doubt 13
INCLUDING LIKELY SEATS ALP 48 L-NP 30 GREEN 2 IND 7 In Doubt 6
APPARENTLY CHANGING SEATS (some not absolutely confirmed):
Coalition to Labor: Camden, East Hills, Heathcote, Monaro, South Coast, Penrith, Parramatta, Riverstone
Liberal to IND: Wakehurst
INCUMBENT TRAILING ON PROJECTION:
Coalition trailing Labor: Ryde (ALP likely), Terrigal (ALP likely), Goulburn, Holsworthy (ALP likely), Oatley
IND trailing Labor: Kiama
SEATS IN DOUBT
Coalition vs Labor: Drummoyne (Liberal likely), Miranda (Liberal likely), Winston Hills (Liberal likely), Upper Hunter (Liberal likely)
Coalition vs IND: Pittwater, Willoughby, Wollondilly
Green vs Labor: Balmain (Greens ahead)
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Live Comments
Comments will appear here scrolling to the top. Press refresh for the latest comments. At the height of counting comments will appear about every 5-10 minutes.
11:35 End of night wrap: We end the night with Labor on the edge of a majority, and perhaps a more than tiny one, but there is a lot of counting to go to be sure they are over that line. That Labor are still fighting to nail down a majority off a 2PP of 55-45 confirms what a brutal pendulum they faced, but wins in Monaro and South Coast way up the pendulum appear to have cancelled out the expected failures in Upper Hunter (still in minor doubt) and Tweed. The Greens have had a scare in Balmain but look to have survived it while their two incumbents have picked up swings as Green incumbents do. The sitting Independents have all retained comfortably except for Gareth Ward who is trailing narrowly in Kiama. Michael Regan has won Wakehurst and independent challenges are yet to be firmly disposed of in three other seats. The much hyped swing to One Nation barely happened and the party is not yet in a winning position for its widely expected second Legislative Council seat.
We have seen this movie before. The media, independents and Greens bang on prior to the election about what they are going to do in a minority government and the major party voters run for the hills and vote for whichever major party they think is most likely to win. The pendulum for Labor is so hard that it is still not clear the voters have run far enough, but I've said it before and I'll say it again: the one rule of hung parliament club is that you must not talk about hung parliament club until the polls have closed.
The other movie we have seen too many times before is the media embarrassing themselves by hyping a result as close even when polling is strongly showing one side ahead. Even media that do not have commercial imperatives to do it seem to fall for this trap.
I will now start rolling out postcount coverage - probably some of the classic seats tonight and some other seats and the Legislative Council tomorrow. [Edit: nope, postcount threads all tomorrow]
11:05 Legislative Council: The count is very incomplete but if the current live count was it then Labor would get 8 seats, Coalition 6, Greens 2 with one each for One Nation (a poor result if it stays where it is), Shooters, Legalise Cannabis, Animal Justice and Liberal Democrats. In 2019 Liberal Democrats looked very good early and fell over as more votes were counted. The good news for them this time is that at this stage there are not obvious competitors, with nobody else appearing to be on more than about a quarter of a quota, so if they drop back as much as last time they should still be elected. I am yet to examine the question of BTLs and who they might assist. [Edit: A seventh Coalition seat at the expense of AJP or LDP if they fall back is also possible, though would not be likely on current numbers]
10:37 I currently have Labor on 45 firm, just about home but not quite in Ryde and Terrigal, well placed in Holsworthy and Kiama and ahead but shakier in Goulburn and Oatley. I don't think they're that likely to get anything beyond these.
10:16 Greens continuing to improve in Balmain, projecting to the mid-51s now.
9:50 Another lull there (whoops!) Seeing a few of the in-doubt seats eg Winston Hills shift back a bit towards the Coalition. I'm still not absolutely certain Labor has a majority but it does seem extremely likely.
9:10 Interestingly the preference flow in Willoughby to Larissa Penn is remarkably strong. It's too early to call that seat at this stage. In Wollondilly the flow to Judith Hannan is much weaker, otherwise she would be home.
9:05 The Greens are improving in Balmain, the swing is making it marginal and I think some of the early preference counts were unrepresentative. But it's not in the bag yet.
9:02 Yes this thing is still on! Suddenly found I hadn't posted any comments for 50 minutes while checking and editing the top of the page. I now have Labor 46 firm, 4 likely of which 2 very likely, 5 more possible of which 2 unlikely, while I wait for whatever other numbers are coming.
8:13 I now have Labor 44 firm, strong in Winston Hills and Ryde and ahead in four others.
8:06 Balmain is very close so far with the Greens projecting only very narrowly ahead. Labor's effort to try to win this seat is being vindicated whether they get it or not.
8:02 I'm struggling to believe the ABC projection for Lane Cove and I think it has an error. Pollbludger is projecting it as a hold.
7:59 Labor majority chances increasing - they are currently projecting ahead in about
7:47 ABC is calling of all things Lane Cove for Labor, I think this is premature but this seat is on 14.7% so the fact it is in play shows how bad it is for the Coalition.
7:44 Life in Wollondilly too where independent Judy Hannan who was competitive at the last election has a swing to her in early counting.
7:39 Helen Dalton has picked up in Murray and is now on track to retain. In the teal seats Jacqui Scruby is not too far behind in Pittwater and Larissa Penn not too far behind in Willoughby though really Regan is the only one looking strong so far.
7:36 Labor projected to win Monaro by PollBludger.
7:26 Brief dinner break there. Labor are clearly on track for victory but majority or not is tenuous as a number of these seats are surprise inclusions that may fall over. The 2PP projection is tracking up to what Newspoll had. One of the seats in trouble is ... Epping!
7:14 Huge swings to Janelle Saffin (ALP) in Lismore and retains.
7:09 In Kiama the Liberals have bombed. Pollbludger is projecting Gareth Ward narrowly ahead in very early counting. In Barwon Roy Butler (IND ex SFF) is off to a good start.
7:04 There are enormous swings in Miranda (14.4% and on nobody much's radar) in early booths. Maybe some geographic effect? Very odd.
7:02 Bad start for teals in North Shore and Vaucluse, not competitive so far. Wakehurst however is quite different with Michael Regan leading on primaries after two booths.
6:58 An overall picture at the moment is that Labor isn't yet tracking for a primary vote as high as some polls had (the majors seem to be both tracking to the mid-30s) but Labor is getting huge swings in early booths in a lot of places.
6:50 Helen Dalton (IND, Murray) is on a small margin and with projected swings against in the first two booths combined so the Nats are off to a competitive start there.
6:48 Looking at the early projections on Pollbludger there are now quite a lot of Coalition seats where in the early numbers Labor projects ahead. Many of these will fall over with more counting but the trend in small booths is not great for the Coalition.
6:43 Big swing to Labor on primary vote (+12.6%) in first booth in a key seat Goulburn.
6:38 Substantial primary vote swing (c. 8%) to Philip Donato (IND ex SFF) in two booths in Orange. Substantial sample; I can assume off that Donato will retain. Also big swing to Nats in first booth in Dubbo which had a big indie challenge in 2019 but doesn't this time.
6:30 First numbers in Balmain but a trivial number in an unmatched Sydney booth. Also first sample in Lismore with Labor 1 primary vote ahead is from an unmatched booth. A c. 9% swing on primary gap to Michael Holland (Labor) in Bega in the first booth (noting I am comparing to the 2019 election where Labor lost by 6.9%), so that is a decent start for Labor there. A good start for the Nationals in the first Monaro booth too.
6:23 And we're off with a swing to the Greens that I'd expect would flow through to Labor on the 2PP off a trivial sample in the Bondi Presbyterian booth in Coogee! (ABC doesn't agree.) Also something in Clarence. Again, worth noting that votes in booths are often way down on last time and on-the-day booths may be less representative.
6:12 No votes up yet, last time first votes appeared around 6:25
6:00 Pollbludger is currently showing what appears to be test data.
5:45 A note that I have seen no new polls and no exit polls today. The final 2PP offerings from the major pollsters were therefore, in order of appearance, Morgan 53.5, Resolve 52.5, Freshwater 53 and Newspoll 54.5. It will take a long time for the 2PP to settle down at this election. For results tracking note that the Poll Bludger service is superb provided it works; also here's the NSWEC VTR.
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Intro (3 pm)
Welcome to my live comments on the NSW state election. As usual my comments will aim to complement, and perhaps now and then correct, the ABC's coverage which many readers will be watching, and especially to keep an eye on a number of seats of interest (mostly of the non-classic variety). Comments will start from 6 pm, or earlier if there is anything to report. (The 2019 election was so long ago that it actually had exit polling!)
Election night in NSW is shorter than federal because of a 10:30 pm stop time for OHS reasons. The NSWEC will include postals in tonight's count in 38 key districts, a nicely chosen selection. Prepolls will be counted on the night for some centres and not others and there will be no fresh counting on Sunday. Prepoll/postal voting has again increased at this election despite the demise of iVote and despite prepoll lasting for only one week.
I will select various seats to follow in the post-counting threads which will be unrolled either very late tonight or tomorrow. Clearly classic-2PP seats (Coalition vs Labor) will probably be covered on a single thread, which may also include counts where the top two are obvious with other threads for interesting seats.
I'll be especially keeping an early eye on the many non-classic suspects, especially Barwon and Murray which tend to get results very early and also the numerous teal challenge seats and Kiama.
There are bound to be seats where the NSWEC will select the wrong two candidates for its 2CP estimates on the night and the seat will need to be realigned later. Fortunately the ABC has improved its performance in noting when its projections in these cases are estimates and not real votes, but this is always something to be cautious of.
Regarding the Legislative Council the NSWEC will produce a more satisfactory early count than last time when only selected parties were broken out; there will still be some distortion from the initial quarantining of below the line votes, but the major distortion will be where the votes are coming from. I probably won't look at it until late at night; my focus tonight will be mainly on the lower house.
My summaries of late polling can be seen in my Final Days Rolling Roundup. A late-breaking Newspoll with Labor just in expected majority territory has scattered the pigeons on betting markets though they still have a Labor minority as favourite. My own seat model's estimate if the polls are accurate has Labor with a very real chance of majority but on average just a little bit short. Despite the usual hype about a razor-wire contest the polling has never been all that close, nor does the little seat polling that has been seen suggest anything unusual, and if the polls are accurate then the question is whether Labor can manage a majority despite a sizeable crossbench and a very difficult pendulum.
The Coalition's best (but very slim) hope is a significant error in the polling average plus some luck or good management with the swing distribution. This election has been quite well polled at state level but the less said about the transparency practices of most of the pollsters involved the better. The exception of course has been YouGov/Newspoll.
