Seven days before the axe falls, to the extent that the commencement of pre-polling at the start of this week hasn’t lowered it already. Local level intelligence from around the place:
• The Illawarra Mercury has published two more IRIS Research polls of local electorates, which I presume had samples of 400 and margins of error approaching 5 per cent. In Wollongong, Labor’s Noreen Hay is found to be headed for defeat at the hands of independent Gordon Bradbery, who leads her 54-46. In Keira however it’s 50-50, which compares with a 52-48 Liberal lead in the previous poll conducted early last month.
• Informed local observer Oakeshott Country relates in comments that a new publication by the name of The Port Paper has published a poll of 373 respondents in Port Macquarie conducted by Strategic Marketing. This found independent incumbent Peter Besseling on 34 per cent, Nationals candidate Leslie Williams on 40 per cent and Labor on 14 per cent, which panned out to 50-50 after preferences (although skepticism has been expressed about the methodology used here). Oakeshott Country notes the Nationals are putting a lot of effort into the seat with an emphasis on negative advertising, which is presumably not a sign of over-confidence.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian on the Nationals’ hopes:
The rural and regional-based party is looking to add six seats to its kitty next Saturday. Three presently belong to Labor: Bathurst, in the state’s central west, held by popular retiring MP Gerard Martin; Monaro, on the far south coast, held by Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan; and Cessnock, held by another popular retiring MP, Kerry Hickey. Those would be sweet victories, but not nearly as sweet as defeating three popular rural independents whom the Nationals regard as interlopers: Dawn Fardell in the western seat of Dubbo; Peter Draper in the northern seat of Tamworth; and Peter Besseling in the north coast seat of Port Macquarie. Independent MPs will not feel the full force of the anti-Labor swing. What they might feel instead is their conservative constituents’ wrath at the actions of federal independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, whose seats of Lyne and New England overlap the state seats of Tamworth and Port Macquarie. Stoner plans to leverage Oakeshott’s and Windsor’s support for the minority Gillard government for every vote it’s worth.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian further reports that Labor strategists are “cautiously confident” that Monaro MP Steve Whan can defend his 6.3 per cent margin, which would be an enormous achievement under the circumstances.
• Sean Nicholls of the Sydney Morning Herald reports a heavy duty campaigning effort has Labor increasingly confident that John Robertson can defend the 22.4 per cent margin in Blacktown.
• Stephen Bromhead, the Nationals candidate to replace the retiring John Turner in their safe seat of Myall Lakes, is in a stable condition in John Hunter Hospital after a car accident.
• Centrebet has issued a breathless press release saying its betting points to a result of Coalition 69, Labor 17, independents five and Greens two.
• Latest additions to the election guide have focused in inner and southern Sydney: Vaucluse, Cronulla, Coogee, Maroubra, Heffron, Drummoyne, Strathfield, Canterbury, Rockdale, Kogarah, Oatley, Parramatta, Sydney and Marrickville.
eddie@49…. yes this would be very interesting…….. I await with fascination
guesses for starters…… Ind blue mts, ind wagga wagga,
ind Upper hunter, labor loss 20 seats……
greens…. maybe none in lower house…… 2 in upper
Taken a long time but i am looking forward to Labour getting trounced this time. Not that O’Farrell is a solution to anything. In fact if we had a viable third party both of them could be in opposition instead of playing this ridiculous “your turn, my turn” game whenever the establishment wants to change faces.
Can’t believe around 22-24% won’t let go of Labour, no matter what, though. People treat politics like supporting a football team.
cannot believe approx 50 % of people may be silly enough to vote liberal….. don’t
they know what will happen
Thanks for sharing that Fran.
“a lot of ALP voters will probably figure there’s no point changing. ”
You’re right. Which is why they’re making a purse out of sow’s ear as I pointed out last night. I’ll explain why briefly during the call of the card.
State governments have a big say over transport, land use and certainly electricity which, given what the near future holds for those areas of society, you’d think would be at the forefront of a the minds of a lot of people, but it isn’t. Easts are playing Manly tomorrow and the Shield Final in Hobart is a cracker of game. So they’re going to cop it, which is a shame, because in the main most people are reasonably decent and try to do the right thing.
But even turning the whole election into a referendum on public ownership would have worked better than…a bill of rights?
With no ability to penetrate into working stiffs, welfare bludgers or the self employed semi skilled contractors and tradespeople, hundreds and thousands of votes will be delivered to the the Liberal party across Suburban Sydney and in big regional centres. John Dorahy will win Kiera after a fair bit of mud that will stick was fired at Park in the last 24 hours. This will be an ugly win.
But O’Farrell won’t deliver for these people any more than George Pell would – and waiting around the corner with baseball bats for these people is definitely a significant energy price shock, and probably another international economic slump. Retail, which employs a lot of people, is crook already. People aren’t spending money, because they haven’t got any. A lot of it is off servicing debt; credit cards, mortgages, lease plans and my bookie. Working Families have to work hard in a lot of cases.
You know why Ken Henry threw a gazillion at tradies and other no-hopers to stem the GFC? It was to keep the banks liquid, not these poor hogan cretins, of which I must declare my interest and say that I am one. They couldn’t give the stimulus package to the banks, that’s communism, so they gave it to bogans to give to the banks. It’s why corporate Australia mumbled a bit, but generally kept a muted response when workchoices was taken around the back of the shed given a talking to by Gillard, because they knew such a policy would, unfettered, compromise that ability to keep servicing the debt.
I think the electoral cycle is ripe for a bogan mortgagees movement. That would make the future social life of the two main parties interesting. It’s a big voting chunk and its completely up for grabs, and next Saturday the coalition will pick up a big chunk of that vote, but I doubt they will keep them for longer than a term. Electoral results will fluctuate wildly, like in the 30’s, as desperate people look for a way out of the never ending grind – for solutions that governments simply don’t have.
To the bogan voter, and there are a lot of them, The Greens come not as an alternative to the ALP, but just another bunch of privileged yuppies – like the Liberals and the ALP.
I doubt the Greens understand the working class, and that’s a shame I guess, for both groups.
The Greens don’t very much engage with people outside their own base. I’ve seen the Greens in Western Sydney. Not the worst bunch of people you will ever meet. Their candidate in Mulgoa is a pretty impressive character. Same as down here in Monaro. The Green Candidate is doing a reasonable job on a council that faces some pretty tough governance issues (they’re broke and have a backlog of work to do). But in all honesty he would have to be an independent to have even the faintest chance of knocking off Steve Whan or the Nationals.
A military friend of mine who was very sympathetic to the Greens called them ‘The Army Reserve of Australian Politics’.
Re the M5, the story is that usage of the road is at 140% of design capacity. No surprise there to anyone who uses it at peak-hour. It was ALWAYS going to be a two lane road, but was intended to be a TOLLED ROAD. I wonder who decided that it wouldn’t have a toll… Might have been around the ’99 state election…
Tolls are unpopular. Tolls may even be unjust, albeit if you can’t afford a $3 toll, you definitely can’t afford to burn more than that in petrol every morning sitting in Bexley car park. And we know that the assumptions and models used for modelling road usage for tolled roads are totally inadequate and defective. But the impact of not tolling a road that has been designed for traffic on the basis models that include assumptions around tolling, are obvious. In terms of congestion, the M5 East is the worst road in Australia.
How all that plays out with the toll-free voters of East Hills and Macquarie Fields will be seen shortly…
Many of the Liberal flyers in East Hills, Oatley and Kogarah have focused on the M5.
Right, I had to fix the generator, but I’m back. Here we go
Albury (Lib retain)
Auburn (ALP retain)
Ballina (NAT retain)
Balmain (Lib gain)
Bankstown (ALP retain) In some respects this seat is wide open and could be won by the Libs if independents pull primaries off the ALP that don’t come back as preferences (but I think enough will).
Barwon (Nat retain)
Bathurst (Nat gain)
Baulkham Hills (Lib retain)
Bega (Lib retain)
Blacktown (ALP retain)
Blue Mountains TOO CLOSE TO CALL
Burrinjuck (Nat retain)
Cabramatta (ALP retain)
Camden (Lib gain)
Campbelltown (Lib gain)
Canterbury (ALP retain)
Castle Hill (Lib retain)
Cessnock (Nat gain)
Charlestown (Lib gain)
Clarence (Nat retain)
Coffs Harbour (Nat retain) for a very funny analysis of this area go here.
Coogee (ALP retain) On green preferences, Pearcey will have to grow his ponytail back.
Cronulla (Lib retain)
Davidson (Lib retain)
Drummoyne (Lib gain)
East Hills (Lib gain)
Dubbo (Nat gain)
Epping (Lib retain)
Fairfield (ALP retain)
Gosford (Lib gain)
Goulburn (Lib retain)
Granville (ALP retain)
Hawkesbury (Lib retain)
Heathcote (Lib gain)
Heffron (ALP retain) The Greens should come second here
Hornsby (Lib retain)
Keira (Lib gain)
Kiama (Lib gain)
Kogarah (Lib gain)
Ku-ring-gai (Lib retain)
Lake Macquarie (Ind retain)
Lakemba (ALP retain) Furolo mightn’t be able to drive a Lamboghini without running off the road, but he will keep his sinecure here.
Lane Cove (Lib retain)
Lismore (Nat retain)
Liverpool (ALP retain)
Londonderry (Lib gain)
Macquarie Fields (ALP retain)
Maitland (Lib gain)
Manly (Lib retain)
Maroubra (ALP retain)
Marrickville (ALP retain)
Menai (Lib gain)
Miranda (Lib gain)
Monaro TOO CLOSE TO CALL
Mount Druitt (ALP retain)
Mulgoa (Lib gain)
Murray-Darling (Nat retain)
Murrumbidgee (Nat retain)
Myall Lakes (Nat retain)
Newcastle (Ind gain)
North Shore (Lib retain)
Northern Tablelands (Ind retain)
Oatley (Lib gain)
Orange (Nat retain)
Oxley (Nat retain)
Parramatta (ALP retain) but without any confidence, Libs could easy win this.
Penrith (Lib retain)
Pittwater (Lib retain)
Port Macquarie (Ind retain)
Port Stephens (Lib retain)
Riverstone (Lib gain)
Rockdale (ALP retain)
Ryde (Lib retain)
Shellharbour (ALP retain) but without any confidence
South Coast (Lib retain)
Smithfield (Lib gain) A sad day for democracy.
Strathfield (Teeth retain)
Swansea (ALP retain) But Robert Coombes would probably wish he was back running the MUA
Sydney (Ind retain)
Tamworth (Nat gain)
Terrigal (Lib retain)
The Entrance (Lib gain)
Toongabbie (ALP retain)
Tweed (Nat retain)
Upper Hunter (Nat retain) just
Vaucluse (Lib retain)
Wakehurst (Lib retain)
Wagga Wagga (Lib retain)
Wallsend (ALP retain) but will be closer than two dogs rooting
Willoughby (Lib retain)
Wollondilly (Lib gain)
Wollongong (Ind gain)
Wyong (Lib gain)
eddie
dont go breaking my heart
🙁
eddie@ 57….. some brave calls there……did you add up the seats each party?
your guesses are all possible however.
Balmain…..lib? Coogee….Alp?
So your guess is:
ALP 22
Lib 45
Nat 17
Ind 7
Close 2
I think your pretty close but I would give 2 green seats (1 Alp 1 lib from your list)
Christ Mick? Do you want me to do your BAS while I’m at it!
Let’s see…
Thanks Oakeshott
Alp will have to regain 25 seats in 2015 – possible but 2019 more likely provided Robertson is not made leader
It is interesting to reflect on 1988 when Carr was made leader – everyone thought he was hopeless and he was thought to be filling in until Peter Anderson found a seat after being beaten by “Who is this Guy?” Matheson in Penrith. Carr was premier within 7 years and is the longest serving occupant after Sir Henry Parkes. When last heard of Anderson was answering questions at ICAC about his role as Chairman of the Tow Truck Authority.
Fair enough Oakeshott, but phone call this afternoon was painting a grim picture for Byrne. She needs to shift three thousand votes and that’s a big ask given not everything has, ahem, gone to plan.
I also think the Libs in Balmain will be the last ones standing as the progressive vote fractures and exhausts and win the seat on something less than 40 percent of the vote. But hey, that’s optional preferential voting. If I lived in Balmain I’d vote for that Shapiro dude – he and Stuart Baanstra in the upper house are the only two candidates in the state I’ve come across that are talking about dragging politics into the real world.
Sorry, this link didn’t work:
Coffs Harbour (Nat retain) for a very funny analysis of this area go here.
Eddie…….. I thought you would have had the totals anyway!
@63…… a normal election would make about 17 seats reasonably easy to win back
also some country seats such as Lismore, Ballina etc would be possible in an open
contest…… remember the cut backs will not be well received in the bush.
OHHHH……. I forgot there will be a redistribution caused by a variation in the number
of seats in parliament
Anderson was supposed to stop Paul Lynch getting Liverpool.
Then again, so was Mark Latham!
In the end Liverpool got Paul Lynch.
The three stooges.
Sorry Mick, I got stuck fixing the generator and just did it off the top of my head.
By variation you mean reduction, right?
I think he initially got Liverpool when Pacullio spat the dummy but was then rolled by Lynch before the 1991 election ( you could hear Carr chuckling). A 2 time loser, even with kath as his mother, no one was going to give him a seat in the Council.
a reduction or an increase….. which ever favours the coalition the most.
re Balmain……. The area is becoming more and more wealthy…. but……for the
libs to win with maybe 35% primary vote……… if that is so then the greens
win no lower house seats
Latest from Sports Bet:
Labor now favourites to retain Cessnock & Charlestown & Kogarah.
Liberals favourties to win Strathfield & Keira.
Otherwise, not much change in their odds.
I remember Anderson well! Mummy ended up secretary of Penrith Branch after Tony Aquilina’s unfortunate little matter with the poker machines at the Henry Lawson club. Took him on over skateboarding in Penrith in the eighties and got told to p*ss off in no uncertain terms. He was parachuted into Liverpool when Latham (backed by Tripodi) and Lynch (backed by Franky Walker) where having a pissing contest and Della didn’t want to have to tell Joe he’d lost.
You only have to look at the bustling prosperous clean and inviting CBD of Liverpool to see what a success that has been for the community.
Did they ever find out who burnt down Liverpool council chambers last year?
Sherie Burton has no chance. Make some money.
Police have narrowed it down to 250,000 suspects.
You don’t play cricket by any chance?
Yeah I do. You’re getting warmer.
Eddie
No great disputes on your list except that I would put Coogee in the Libs camp, Balmain in undecided (could go one of three ways), I think that the Greens may be a better chance in Marrickville than Balmain. Blue Mountains seems that it could go three ways (Lib,Green or Ind). your comments on Smithfield have been very .. IN.. i.e need explaining. Libs seem they could win Parramatta. From what I can also pick up is that Charlestown could be too close to call (Lib or Ind).
I haven’t seen your mum and dad for 10 years and your dad wasn’t too well then – how are they going?
Oakeshott
A few weeks back you seemed to think that the Libs might win Wallsend. Have you had any further thoughts on that?
No – it was just sentiment – I grew up there and when it was Kurri Kurri and there was an indirectly elected LC it was rarely contested. It has never been non Labor but at 15% and a strong Independent who was doorknocking in Shortland when I was visiting my mother who knows.
Mick Q @ 73
The 93 seats seem to have been a magic number that favoured the ALP.
One question for the Bludgertariat – is there a community of interest provision in NSW redistributions? Looking at the various maps, I am continually amazed at what areas get lumped in with others when there are much stronger links with the ‘obvious’ seat.
On seat numbers Mick, the new government should do something about upper house reform so that the micro parties (cdp, Shooters, etc) can get returned to the primeval slime from whence they came.
Eddie
Interesting that you have gone for Rees in Toongabbie I cannot see him getting up there. Do you think he has got the Indian vote in the area somehow?
Also hard to see Besseling getting up in Port do you think people really believe in the bus crash sabotage story as that is about as likely in truth as the Myall Lakes candidate being done over as well.
Monaro is interesting because if Whan wins it will mean he is the most popular ALP member in the state in which case he not Robertson should be the next leader. Robertson should purchase the grey cardy now because he will be about as popular as
Unsworth
Oakeshott
Nothing the matter with gut feel … I have a gut feel that the Libs can come up the middle in Balmain and win.
Stanny
At the depths to which Labor will sink in NSW, the next ALP leader is likely to be invisible for quite a while.If Whan does get up, he might be best to wait. Though this is getting ahead of oneself – should Whan win, his could be the seat that the ALP lose in 2015 , but they will win a lot of the ‘natural’ Labor seats back.
@82 I doubt 93 really favoured labor
the community of interest has largely been ignored but electoral authorities
both state & federal. eg Greenacre & Chullora are in different state seats.
The quota for the upper house is i think a little over 4% the best reform is to abolish it
@85…… Mr Whan if he wins Monaro will be entrenched for a long time
@84……. a majority of people in Balmain do not want a lib mp. think i’ll bet on Verity Firth in this contest
Talking to people in Port – it isn’t so much about Oakeshott, Labor/ conservative, climate changes, bus crashes etc, although there are elements who are upset with Oakeshott (ubt most of them would never have voted for him anyway). Its just that Beeseling is presentable and has been fairly effective. In contrast the Nat candidate just dosen’t look like a parliamentarian ( even after the makeover) and has trouble putting two words together. The push poll I mentioned 2 threads ago showed an enormous change between a generic party question and a question using candidate names. I think if the Nats had nominated a credible candidate Beeseling would be gone but unfortunately for them their entire leadership was wiped out by the Glasshouse scandal.
blackburnpseph,
I agree Coogee is a big call, but, I think the Greens will get a chunky vote and if that goes over to Paul Pearce then the old hippy will get the gold mine and The Libs will get the shaft. If Green supporters don’t follow the HTV it could go the other way.
The Greens are no chance in the Blue Mountains. They really are in trouble there with pretty much all their support going across to Mays. I wouldn’t be shocked if they didn’t get their deposit back. That is a two horse race.
re Smithfield, it’s just a joke, like Ninos Khoshaba, who would probably serve his community better by working night-shift at Coles stacking shelves.
stanny
The so called Indian vote in Toongabbie is the biggest steaming pile of organic matter that I have even seen circulated in the media by anyone with a straight face. Check the ABS stats for the suburbs that make up Toongabbie. It’s, like, two percent of the population. A lot of the speculation about Rees is just so much projected schaedenfrude by Press Gallery hacks stirred up by Tripodi’s people. There’s probably more Indians in the local ALP branches than are on the electoral roll. Whan won’t lead the ALP. The fix is in. These people (the ALP) are like the Bourbons, they learn nothing and they forget nothing. Now who said that…
oakeshott,
Dad died in 2004 and mum moved up Kempsey way to be nearer my sisters, and so they could vote for Bezzo of course.
Blackburnseph 82
I couldn’t agree more especially about the LC however my preference would be to go the QLD route and abolish this house for party hacks and pond life.
oakeshott at 84, like Blocker Roach coming on to a ball from “Backdoor” Benny Elias!
Mick
I simply cannot believe that the hard heads in Sussex Street would not have run lots of scenarios to get the most advantageous number – 93 is a very strange number – 95 I could have understood. It does seem one of the truisms of NSW politics is that every government fiddles with the seat number to get electoral advantage – Askin had a few goes before settling on 99, Labor in 88 to get 109 (which was meant to give them an advantage), the Libs back to 99 when Greiner came in, and then 93 a few years ago.
If you think that I am being unfair to the ALP on the 93 seats, I do recall Antony Green mentioning that the 93 gave the ALP a perceived advantage.
On community of interest, in the federal act, it is a requirement to consider it, and the commissioners seem to make a pretty good fist of taking it into account – it of course can never be perfect.
Does anybody know in how many seats the Greens are directing to the ALP?
Eddie
Really sorry to hear about your dad I had a lot of time for him – he was one of the few people actually committed to the cause rather than self-advancement in Penrith.
re seat numbers. They will not go up. Any government that sought to increase the number of politicians would get howled down by the people who really run the state, the Daily Telegraph. I can even give you the headline and Joe Hildebrand’s opening par:
MORE POLLIE$: YOU PAY
Plans to increase the size of the NSW Parliament will cost taxpayers millions, according to analysis by the Daily Telegraph.
No, no. This will be done sensibly. Keep the tabloids happy. Barry will want to see this:
POLLIES FACE AXE
Premier Barry O’Farrell announced plans today to slash the number of pooliticians in NSW.
The latter story will be greeted with cheers in lunch rooms across NSW. Is it a goiod thing? Probably not, but people will love it like a royal tour.
Mick @ 88
If there was no OPV in NSW, the Lib in Balmain would not be in consideration. However, having been in the area over the last few days, it also has to be said that the Libs are at least putting in a decent campaign there. When I lived in the area 15-20 years ago, the Libs were nowhere to be seen (except on the ballot paper). Gawd – I even voted for Frank Sartor when he ran as an independent against Sandra Nori.
oakeshott at 65, thanks. He wasn’t a bad old coot, but boy did we row about politics. He taught me a lot about these b*stards though!
Eddie 90 thanks for that.
I had lunch Friday with a few mates in Coogee which is a very wealthy electorate. Normally Labor and very much like and respect Pearce just said they wont be voting ALP as a matter of principal and will vote elsewhere with no preferences. They were Irish from Dublin and gave me a great run down on Irish politics with it’s crazy voting system that allows whole dynasties to be elected regardless of merit on all sides. They are expecting a lot of economic refugees from the emerald isle to arrive by plane over the next few years particularly, nurses, building industry, teachers etc which in my view should be great.
I used to work in the law courts with Peter Anderson way back when he was a police prosecutor a very interesting experience and he kept most interesting company shall we say that made me sit up and take notice as a young part time Uni student
@93….. i just doubted 93 really gave an advantage.
Re community of interest for federal elections….. it has been ignored ….. look at the
boundaries of Banks & Hughes covering the Revesby suburbs ….. it is a joke
most of East Hills should be in Banks….. less than half is