NSW Legislative Council 2023: Button Press Day

 Button press from 11 am Wednesday

Won off raw quotas: ALP 8 Coalition 6 Green 2* PHON 1 

* fractionally short but certain to cross on preferences

Strongly expected to win seats 18-20: Legalise Cannabis, Liberal Democrats, Shooters Fishers and Farmers

21st seat Rachel Merton (Liberal) vs Alison Waters (Animal Justice)

Merton leads narrowly on primaries but could be caught on preferences

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UPDATES WEDNESDAY (scrolls to top)

2:35 It wasn't close at all in the end with Animal Justice closing the gap slightly but not enough; it finished at just over 10,000 votes (.051 quotas) down from the primary gap of .069.  Animal Justice made the largest gain of the competing parties (.124 quotas compared to .106 for Coalition, .094 for Legalise Cannabis, .077 for Liberal Democrats and .068 for Shooters) but the great majority of preferences exhausted rather than reaching any of these parties.  

11:59 MERTON WINS.  Animal Justice couldn't make it three in a row, awaiting news on the margin.

11:55 Pointy end approaching!

11:05 The distribution has commenced; it takes about one hour.

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All is in readiness for the race that stops the nation, well the race that stops a handful of psephologists, journalists and party hacks at any rate!  Yes it's time for the 2023 NSW Legislative Council button press and on the line here is ... notional control of the chamber! If Animal Justice win the final seat then the combined left forces (Labor, Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice) will have a two-seat majority and will carry the day even after providing the President whenever both Jeremy Buckingham and the AJP behave themselves, which will probably often not happen.  If the Liberals prevail then the Council will be deadlocked between right and left and Labor will have to work across the aisle with at least one of the Shooters, Liberal Democrats, One Nation or Coalition to pass anything ... unless, say, a Shooter or another defecting Liberal takes the chair instead.  So not all that clear how much this actually matters, but Labor would dearly like the Liberals to lose this one anyway.

I will post the result here when known followed by some brief comments on the preference distribution when available.

I followed this count in great detail on my main Legislative Council count page.  At stages the Coalition appeared to have a prohibitive lead of more than 0.2 quotas (especially if following the ABC estimates) but three things have made it closer than it seemed:

1. The Coalition's low share of below the line votes meant that models based mainly off the above the line vote (like the ABC's) overstated the Coalition's lead until very late in the piece.  (My model corrected for below the line votes and hence had more realistic estimates.)

2. Very late in the initial count there was a shrinking in the Coalition's lead on above the line votes.  This has also been seen in previous years and is probably a result of left-leaning votes (absents, provisionals and very late postals) tending to be done late in the initial count.

3. There were some slight differences between the above the line results in the initial rough count and the final above the line numbers.  These could be attributed to (i) mis-sorts in the initial count (ii) unusual vote types such as votes that were numbered both above and below the line with the below the line part being informal.  

The impact of point 3 can be seen in the chart below, which compares my projection off the initial count (adjusted for BTLs) with the final primary figures

Mostly it is the small parties that have outperformed the model, but especially Liberal Democrats and One Nation, while the Coalition is the only party to have gone significantly backwards on above-the-lines.  I believe these numbers are consistent with both 3 (a) and 3 (b) above - and in the case of 3 (a) specifically with some Liberal Democrat votes having been mis-sorted as the adjacent Liberal/National column.

This means the Coalition starts the preference count with an unsafe lead of 0.069 quotas (about 0.3%).  There are slightly more left preferences (EFI, Sus Aus, PEP, SA, Labor surplus) than right preferences (One Nation, Shelton group, Bosi group).  There are two left parties for preferences to end up with (Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice) and three right tickets (Liberal/National, Liberal Democrat and Shooters).  Left-wing voters are more likely to give preferences.  The preference flow from Elizabeth Farrelly Independents is a big unknown but this party performed most strongly in teal seats and in general in seats of any kind where Independents or the Greens were strong.  It is highly reminiscent of 2015 and 2019 - Animal Justice are close enough if they are good enough.  In both those cases they were good enough but will they be this time?

All will be revealed from 11 am, hopefully via live stream on the NSWEC website.  Eight Labor, six Coalition, one Green and One Nation will be elected off the top (Labor's eighth winner will be Sarah Kaine) and the second Green Amanda Cohen may follow during the throwing of surpluses or else at some point during exclusions.  After that it will be a long process of cutting from the bottom.  Eventually the candidates with serious votes will be excluded, in something like this order: O'Brien (SA), O'Neill (IMOP), Khay (PEP). Bosi, Bourke (SAP), Shelton, Farrelly, Mihailuk.   It's possible Jeremy Buckingham (Legalise Cannabis) will cross quota somewhere in this process (this could actually be bad for Animal Justice if it occurs), but eventually either Merton or Waters will be left in 22nd place with the other winning.  

Remember, if it's extremely close it's possible for the winner to be determined by random sampling!