Australian Polling Denial And Disinformation Register

Introduction (Sep 2023)

Following a Newspoll finding the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Yes side trailing by a horrendous if not all that surprising 38-53 this week, the website arguably still known as Twitter has been even more awash with polling denialism than at other stages in the Yes side's slide down the slippery slope.  The number of people recycling and reciting the same unchecked viral false claims has become so large that it is almost impossible to manage a response to them.  Inspired by the AEC's electoral disinformation register, I have decided to start a register of commonly encountered false claims about polling that are spread on social media, mostly from people claiming to be on the left.  A few right-wing claims are included too, but I don't see those so often at the moment.  (I do see a lot of right-wing electoral disinfo, especially the "3 out of 10 voted Labor" preferential-voting denial.)

New South Wales 2023: Final Results, Poll Accuracy And 2PP Pendulum

It's been a long time coming because of other work but here finally is my wrapup piece for the 2023 New South Wales lower house election.  The twelve-year old Coalition led by its fourth Premier Dominic Perrottet was sent packing by the Labor opposition under its fifth leader Chris Minns, but optional preferencing and some luck in the close seats cushioned the blow and the Coalition managed to retain 36 seats.  Labor after looking almost sure to get a majority on counting night (more of that later) ended up with just 45 but no trouble at all forming government given that the crossbench held three Greens and nine independents.  The result snapped a 15-election streak at state and federal level since the last case of a non-majority outcome.

Vote Share, 2PP and Preference Change

The election saw a further slight fall in the major party primary votes.  The primary votes were 36.97% Labor, 35.37% Coalition, 9.70% Greens, 8.76% independents, with the rest led by 2.23% Sustainable Australia, 1.8% One Nation, 1.56% Shooters Fishers and Farmers and 1.28% Legalise Cannabis.  The 2PP was 54.27% to Labor, a swing of 6.29%.  

There was a slight increase in preferencing at this election with 35.2% of non-major party (or minor Coalition partner in three-cornered seats) preferences reaching Labor on a 2PP basis (+2.2%), 16.1% reaching Coalition (+2.1%) and 48.7% (-4.3%) exhausting.  However these figures include many Independent and Green preferences that were not actually distributed in many seats.  The Greens' share of all non-major votes dropped slightly from 38% to 35%.  

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.

2023 New South Wales Postcount: Legislative Council

This thread is finished now - go to button press day thread

Current live count leaders

ALP 8 Coalition 7 Greens 2 One Nation 1 Legalise Cannabis 1 Liberal Democrats 1 Shooters 1 (Animal Justice 22nd and needing to overtake another party on preferences to win)

Projection

ALP 8 Coalition 6 Greens 2 One Nation 1 Legalise Cannabis 1 Liberal Democrats 1 Shooters 1.  1 in doubt: Coalition vs Animal Justice for final seat 

Summary of contest:

Live count suggests a contest between Animal Justice and Coalition-7 for final seat with Coalition well ahead on primary votes. However, Coalition lead fell rapidly in very late counting.  While the Coalition's lead in the initial count appeared sufficient, the initial count slightly overestimated it and it is not clear the Coalition's lead will survive the preference flow.  

2023 New South Wales Postcount: Coalition vs Independent Seats

( Link to classic seats and Kiama thread and seat tally)

Covered on this page: Pittwater, Willoughby, Wollondilly

Pittwater (Now assumed Liberal win vs IND)

Willoughby (Now assumed Liberal win vs IND)

Wollondilly (IND expected to defeat Liberal)

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2023 New South Wales Postcount: Classic Seats And Kiama

Labor has won the election but has fallen short of a majority because the swing on prepolls was weaker than for booth votes.

Note: Ryde recount has a separate section below

SEATS APPARENTLY WON ALP 45 L-NP 36 GREEN 3 IND 9 

APPARENTLY CHANGING SEATS:

Coalition to Labor: Camden, East Hills, Heathcote,  Monaro, South Coast, Penrith, Parramatta, Riverstone

Liberal to IND: Wakehurst, Wollondilly

(Link to Coalition vs IND seats thread)

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Donations welcome!

If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  Donations can be made by the Paypal button in the sidebar or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.

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As at midnight Saturday I have ceased the live thread and switched to this first postcount thread which will deal with the Labor vs Coalition contests (plus Kiama) that will determine whether Labor has a majority and if so the size of it.  A separate thread will follow on the Coalition vs Independent contests in Pittwater, Willoughby and Wollondilly, another on the Legislative Council, and hopefully by the time I've done those the contest in Balmain will have quietly gone away.

2023 NSW Election Day Live

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)

Insane In The Balmain: Does Labor Really Need To Win This Seat?

 

A Labor flier from Balmain (source)

The district of Balmain (Green 10.0% vs ALP) would normally be of little interest at this NSW election given that it is on a large margin and the Greens have so far never lost a single seat electorate that they won at a previous general election.  What makes Labor think Balmain is worth taking a tilt at is the retirement of 12-year incumbent Jamie Parker, the first Green at state or federal level to retire from a single-seat electorate.  

One of the reasons the Greens have 14 wins from 14 attempts at defending state or federal single-member seats won at a general election (by-elections and multi-member seats are different stories) is that there tend to be oversize swings to them in subsequent elections.  For a first defence at state and federal levels the average swing is 2.9% on primary vote and 4.0% on two candidate preferred.  For a second and later defences it is 3.0% and 4.8% per election.  (The 2CP figures are affected in varying directions by Liberal preference recommendation changes, and a 2CP swing is not always available).  The obvious explanation for this is demographics, but another possible explanation is that sitting Greens may receive unusually high personal votes.  And if they receive them when they defend their seats, maybe they also lose them when they retire?  

NSW 2023: New Polls Say Labor Majority More Difficult

NSW Aggregate: 53.0 (+5.0 since 2019, -0.9 since January) to Labor
Most likely result if election "held now" is Labor minority government (approx 44-45 seats)
All four results are still plausible, though Coalition majority appears the least likely

With the overnight release of new polling by Newspoll and Freshwater Strategy, it's time for another NSW polling roundup; I originally set the scene for NSW in my 2022 Christmas Day offering to the masses.  

What we have had this year so far of significance is five major polls, that can be divided into a January wave and a February wave.  The January wave consisted of YouGov, Resolve and Roy Morgan and the February wave is the two released overnight.  However, the Morgan was not released until 21 February.  Because the YouGov and Resolve polls were very strong for Labor, the release of the Morgan was wrongly seen as evidence of narrowing in actual voting intention.  In fact its average data age was similar to YouGov and Resolve and what it really showed was that once the three were taken together there had not been a blowout (my aggregated estimate as at Christmas was about 54-46 to Labor, and following the January polls I get 53.9).

NSW 2023 Lower House Preview: Is Dom Doomed?

It's an almost annual tradition on this site to release something every Christmas Day. Click the Xmas tag for previous examples. As there is considerable interest in the NSW election I've decided, as in 2019, to go with the NSW leadup.  It helps that there has been a larger volume of lead-up polling in the last few months of 2022 than in 2018. Hopefully this continues during February and the early to mid campaign.

State and territory conservative governments haven't had a great run of it in elections in the last several years.  Of those that were either in power when Tony Abbott's Coalition won the 2013 federal election or came to power not long after, four (Queensland, Victoria, NT and South Australia) were kicked out after a single term and one (Western Australia) lasted two terms before being drubbed (with the remains of it obliterated four years later).  We are left with the almost twelve year old Perrottet-led Coalition in NSW, on to its fourth Premier, and the almost nine year old Rockliff Liberal Government in Tasmania, on to its third.  Both benefited at their most recent re-elections from weak Labor opposition, but the current NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns seems to be a sharper customer so far than his predecessors.