NSW By-Elections 2024 Live

Pittwater (Lib vs IND 0.7%), Epping (Lib 4.8%), Hornsby (Lib 8.0%) - ALP not contesting any seats

Pittwater expected IND gain, Epping and Hornsby LIB retain.  

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Updates will appear here from 6 pm, scrolling to the top.

8:08 Very distracted by ACT but a very large prepoll has come in and there is nothing dangerous there for Scruby.  Scruby's lead is too large.  

7:37 The pattern in the booth voting is quite set in Pittwater and something very radical has to happen in prepolls or it's all over and Scruby has won.  

7:11 Several more booths as well as postals in in Pittwater and things are not getting any better now for the Liberals after that aberrant third booth.  

6:57 Uneven swing between booths in Pittwater, the third one in actually swung to Ryburn on projected 2CP.   

6:51 Whopping swings to Scruby in Pittwater in the early booths, coming out at around 10% 2CP!  If this continues it will be over pretty fast.  Nothing scary for Liberals to see in the other seats, the Greens a distant second in both of them.  

6 pm: This thing is on, there's even a results page.  No action expected for at least half an hour.  

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%.  

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).

New South Wales Feb 12 By-Elections Live And Postcount

Bega (Lib 6.9%) - CALLED 8:48 pm Holland (ALP) gain.

Monaro (Nat 11.6%) - CALLED 8:02 pm Overall (Nat) retain.

Strathfield (ALP 5.0%) - CALLED 10:50 pm Li (ALP) retain.

Willoughby (Lib 21.0%). CALLED following Saturday as James (Lib) pulled ahead on postal votes. 

Upper Hunter By-Election Live And Post-Count

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UPPER HUNTER (National, 2.6%)

By-election caused by resignation of Michael Johnsen

2019 primary votes Nat 34.0 Labor 28.6 SFF 22.0 Greens 4.8 LDP 4.4 SA 2.2 AJP 2 CDP 1.9  

Seat called win to Nationals at 8:24 pm Saturday (final swing to Nats 3.26%)

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Saturday: Final 2PP 55.82 to Nationals (+3.26)

Monday: 2PP now at 55.7 after a strong performance for the Nats on initial postals more than cancelled out a comparatively weak performance on iVotes.  

Sunday 8:00 Good performances in the other prepolls have the Nats up to 55.4 now.  Still no sign of the iVotes.  

Sunday 2:20 Muswellbrook prepoll has come in dropping the live 2PP to 54.5.

Sunday 1:10 The 2PP in the live count is now sitting at 56.8.  Labor has stopped the rot in a couple of prepolls today and the 2PP will come down when Muswellbrook prepoll is added.  My projection has dropped to 54.6 but I believe that's on the low side.   Still no sign of the iVotes but I believe they're coming today.  

JSCEM's Recommendation For Optional Preferential Voting

Advance Summary

1. Coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters have recently recommended Optional Preferential Voting (OPV), but have provided very little discussion of that recommendation.

2. It is likely the government would have the numbers to pass OPV if both Coalition parties wanted to do so, but unclear as yet if they actually want to proceed.

3. Evidence from NSW state elections under OPV strongly suggests that it would significantly to severely disadvantage Labor if adopted federally. Evidence from Queensland is more confused.

4. The level of likely disadvantage to Labor under OPV could often result in a few federal seats having different results, but could be more severe when Labor holds majority government.   

5.Compulsory preferential voting leads to votes being disallowed because of irrelevant errors.  Reform to reduce or remove this problem is necessary.

6. Optional Preferential Voting has been defended on the grounds of allowing greater voter freedom, but it can also result in misleading campaigns to discourage preferencing and in cases where parties are disadvantaged because voters make incorrect assumptions.

7. Having OPV as a savings provision rather than a direct instruction to voters would solve most of the problems that OPV addresses with less disadvantages.

8. Labor's arguments against OPV in the report are weak.  

New South Wales 2019: Final Lower House Results And Poll Accuracy

Amid the gearing up for the federal election, the finalisation of the NSW election figures has been largely ignored.  For whatever reason it took a few weeks longer than last time to get to the final 2PP, which is necessary for assessing which polls performed the best among other things.  Though in this case, comparing polls is hardly worth the bother.

Vote Share, 2PP and Preference Change

The primary votes were 41.58% Coalition, 33.31% Labor, 9.57% Green and 15.54% Others (including 3.46% Shooters, Fishers and Farmers with the rest led by 1.53% Sustainable Australia, 1.52% Keep Sydney Open and 1.51% Animal Justice.) The 2PP was 52.02% to the Coalition, a 2.3% swing away from their 2015 result.

The overall two-party preference flow barely changed at all, with 33.0% of preferences flowing to Labor (-0.6%), 14.0% to Coalition (-0.8%) and 53.0% exhausting (+1.4%).  But overall what happened here was that the flow of Greens preferences strengthened, but this was cancelled out by the Greens' share of all non-major voting falling from just over 50% to just 38%.  In those seats in which Greens candidates were excluded, the preferences distributed at that stage flowed 51% to Labor with just 9% to Coalition and the rest exhausting.  The stronger flow in Lismore, 72%, was among the highest and was crucial to winning the seat, while East Hills would have been extremely close had Labor managed to match the state swing there.

Wagga Wagga By-Election

Ham (Lib) vs Hayes (Labor) vs McGirr (IND)
GAIN by McGirr (IND) from Liberal

A very interesting three-cornered state by-election tonight in Wagga Wagga (NSW) where the Liberals are trying to defend a 12.9% margin over Labor, but also to hold off an independent.  Obviously, federal carnage is a factor.  Seat polling has suggested the Liberal primary vote has collapsed to the point that the independent Joe McGirr or perhaps Labor could win.  This hastily erected thread will follow counting and post-count developments.  Refresh for updates.  Latest at the top (I've flipped that to make it easier.)
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Nats Under The Gun In The Orange Postcount

ORANGE, NSW (Nat 21.7 vs ALP)
GAINED by Donato (Shooters Fishers and Farmers) by 50 votes after recount

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Key questions:

1. Will Labor overtake Shooters Fishers and Farmers for second place?  (If yes, Nationals win)
Assessment: No

2. If no to 1, will the Shooters Fishers and Farmers catch the Nationals on preferences?
Assessment: Very close, currently Shooters appear to be ahead

Three state by-elections were held in New South Wales today.  Labor very easily retained Canterbury against token opposition, and held Wollongong now that their regular Independent opposition there no longer has the Noreen Hay factor to capitalise upon.  But the third by-election, the one that was always likely to be the most interesting, has lived up to its billing, and then some.

In the by-election for Orange, held by the National Party (and its precursor the Country Party) since 1947, the Nationals have suffered a primary vote swing that is currently running at 35.4%.  Their candidate Scott Barrett leads on primaries on 30.27% with 73.6% of enrolment counted, but is closely followed by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers' Philip Donato on 24.73%, with Labor's Bernard Fitzsimon on 18.85%.  The rest of the field includes one Green, one Christian Democrat and three independents.

Even if the Nationals retain the seat, the result is still dismal.  This is best seen in the stunning booth swings.  The Nationals were down well over 20 points in all but two booths.  This is partly down to the greater number of candidates running (the SF+F and three indies have replaced only No Land Tax at the last election).  However in three booths they are down by 60 (!) points or more and in two more by over 50.   If these were tiny rural booths with small samples this might be less surprising but one has over 1200 voters!  SF+F are the main beneficiaries of the swing.

At some booths over 80% of voters who voted National last time didn't do so at the by-election.  These are staggering numbers, even by by-election standards, and will come as a very rude wake-up call to the party after a strong performance at the federal election.  The swing is thought to be driven primarily by proposed forced council amalgamations, with the now-retracted ban on greyhound racing also prominently in the mix.  Some are even seeing a Donald Trump factor at work, which seems a pretty long bow to draw, though there is little doubt the US result emboldened the Nats' opposition in the final days.

Recent NSW State Polling

The purposes of this post are: firstly, to add some context to the dramatic findings of a recent NSW state Newspoll, and secondly, to link to the full results of some late August NSW state union polling that may be of some interest to somebody out there.  I have actually had the latter for a few weeks but because I have been overseas and then very busy it has taken this long to do anything with it.

Newspoll record?  Well, not really ...

The recent Newspoll has found that Mike Baird's status as Australia's most popular Premier by far has come to a sudden halt after nearly two years of stellar ratings.  This finding was also foreshadowed by a slightly earlier Fairfax ReachTEL which showed Luke Foley ahead of Baird as Preferred Premier.   The latter result, while still striking, was not quite the sensation it appeared to be: the forced-choice method used by ReachTEL does not advantage incumbents in the way that the method used by Newspoll, Galaxy, Ipsos and Essential does.  So an Opposition Leader being preferred Premier in a ReachTEL poll usually just means the two-party race is close and the Premier is a little bit under the weather.                                    

The Newspoll found Mike Baird's net satisfaction rating has crashed from +39 (61-22) in January to -7 (39-46) now.   The Australian listed this at the top of a list of the greatest netsat falls by a Premier in Newspoll history.  In a poll-to-poll sense this is true, but it is a misleading statistic as the intervals between two consecutive Newspolls in a given state historically have been anything from a few days in some cases to four years in others.  In this case, eight and a half months is an unusually long interval, especially when the old Newspoll often routinely polled at intervals of two months.