Yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald had a ReachTEL poll of state voting intention in New South Wales, showing the Coalition with a 52-48 lead on two-party preferred. After exclusion of the 8.1% undecided, primary votes are Coalition 40.9%, Labor 33.7%, Greens 9.9%, One Nation 8.9% and Shooters Fishers and Farmers 2.4%. Gladys Berejiklin recorded only a modest 52.1-47.9 lead over Labor’s Luke Foley in the forced response preferred premier question. The poll was conducted last Thursday from a sample of 1647.
This comes days before Sunday’s hat trick of by-elections, which are summarised below together with links to my election guide pages:
Blacktown: Former Labor leader John Robertson’s resignation has brought about a by-election in a seat where Labor looks set to go untroubled. The Liberals are not contesting, the Greens have little support in the seat, and the only other challengers to Labor’s Stephen Bali are the Christian Democratic Party candidate and a low-profile independent.
Cootamundra: Vacated by the resignation of Nationals member Katrina Hodgkinson. Labor is making the rare effort to contest this seat and Murray, but the main threat to Nationals candidate Steph Cooke may be Matthew Stadtmiller of Shooters Fishers and Farmers.
Murray: Vacated by the resignation of Adrian Piccoli, former deputy leader of the Nationals. Nationals candidate Austin Evans faces Helen Dalton, Shooters Fishers and Farmers candidate who ran second as an independent at the 2015 election with 18.2% of the vote.
Berejiklin looks to be increasingly leading the Sydney Region government and forgetting about the rest of NSW. That attitude is reflected by her cheer squad at the DT which proclaims of itself “We’re for Sydney”.
The nationals seem to have given up on securing a fair deal for regional NSW.
It’s little wonder that the Shooters/fishers/farmers stand a chance of ousting the Nationals in Cootamundra and Murray.
@ Citizen – I doubt it. The worst mass murder in America’s history fresh in people’s minds, and you think a party designed to import that over here stands a chance?
That argument is being used by the Nationals – the image of the front page of the DT today has this story but too small to read clearly. http://dailytelegraph.digitaleditions.com.au/edition.php?code=NCTELE
It would certainly play are part in choosing who to vote for. However there are other important factors in the election:
– the apparent failure of the Nationals to redress the huge imbalance in government sponsored development between Sydney and regional NSW
– the Shooters/fishers/farmers won Orange seemingly due to the furore over greyhound racing but also the failure of the Nationals to stand up to the Sydney centric forces in the NSW government.
As someone who lives and works in Sydney, I actually don’t mind that a NSW government is ‘Sydney-centric’. After all, greater Sydney is home to two-thirds of the population of NSW. But I can see why people in the regions would object to a govt that is perceived to prioritise Sydney. The moment they arrive at Macquarie St, the Nats don’t lift a finger to help their constituencies.
The Berejiklian government is pretty awful, but I can’t complain about it having a Sydney-centric focus.
@Kakuru
But NSW Liberals don’t do anything about housing
The NSW Opposition and the Opposition are pretty invisible. The NSW Liberal – National Government is more centrist in character than it’s Federal counterpart. It does include some hard right ideologues, but unlike the Federal Government, they don’t dominate.
The Liberals have wheeled out Howard to tell the voters in the by-elections not to choose the Shooters/fishers/farmers.
http://dailytelegraph.digitaleditions.com.au/edition.php?code=NCTELE
They must be very worried about the Nationas losing both seats.
zoidlord
“But NSW Liberals don’t do anything about housing”
Of course not. Stamp duty is a huge windfall. What do they care if Sydney houses are unaffordable? Higher prices mean higher stamp duty.
Despite its Sydney-centricity, the LNP government is still a lousy government. The two are not mutually exclusive. 🙂
citizen
“The Liberals have wheeled out Howard to tell the voters in the by-elections not to choose the Shooters/fishers/farmers.”
The Rooters and Shooters versus the Unflushable Turd. What a contest.
Essential Poll NSW July-Sept 2017
TPP: L/NP 51 (0) ALP 49 (0)
Primary: L/NP 43 (+1) ALP 38 (+1) GRN 9 (-1) OTH 10 (0)
See the full polling details for five states here (they don’t release for NT or TAS, samples too small)
http://www.essentialvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Essential-Report_statevoting_Sep2017.pdf