The first New South Wales state poll in a surprisingly long time (considering the imminence of the election in March) is a uComms/ReachTEL poll for the Sydney Morning Herald, which credits Labor with a lead of 51-49. After excluding the 3.1% undecided (there may have been orced-response follow-up results for these, but the Herald report doesn’t relate them), the primary votes are Coalition 37.7%, Labor 35.2%, Greens 9.9% and One Nation 7.7%.
The poll also has new Labor leader Michael Daley leading Gladys Berejiklian 54.2-45.8 on preferred premier, which is not bad for a newcomer non-incumbent, even allowing for the peculiarities that ReachTEL’s forced response preferred leader questions tend to produce. After a week of election-decided-on-state-issues malarkey from politicians with an interest in such matters, the poll finds 50.2% of respondents saying federal politics would indeed play a role in their decision, with only 36.4% saying it wouldn’t.
The poll was conducted Thursday night from a sample of 1557. Come back later today and you might find an updated state poll trend chart attached to this post.
UPDATE: And now a YouGov Galaxy poll from the Daily Telegraph, this one of 903 voters conducted Thursday and Friday, showing Labor leading 52-48. The primary votes are Coalition 37%, Labor 39%, Greens 9% and One Nation 8%, with Gladys Berejiklian holding an unconvincing 33-31 lead over Michael Daley as preferred premier. As per ReachTEL, they asked about the influence of federal factors, but specified “the Coalition’s federal performance”. This had 33% saying they had become less likely to vote for the Coalition, against 35% for no influence and 20% for more likely.
And now for that poll trend, the current reading of which is 51.3-48.7 to Labor, from primary votes of Coalition 37.2%, Labor 35.9% and Greens 10.0%.
Oh, I would be remiss not to mention as well: the hill you talk about is all downhill on the way back from Moore Park, when the public transport use is most concentrated and people are forced to walk. (Check it out on the desktop version of google maps.) It doesn’t really matter if it’s uphill on the way there as people arrive over the hours preceding the game so the public transport can cope. Even for those who do choose to walk, the back alleys after Devonshire aren’t so bad when it’s 6pm rather than say 10pm.
1. My apologies. Yes its only from Hunter Street. So a mere 1Km.
2. Yes you’re correct. It is a mixture of seats. Light rail is more comfortable than bus.
Why do you think the current line will be a “dud” when it opens. I’m pretty sure its going to be popular. If anything too popular.
Buses may have been cheaper, but if you concede that light rail is the end game then there’s no point but to build it. I’ll hasten to add that in future we will almost certainly see new technology and if not trackless trams then certainly battery powered (a much cheaper trackform). The question is whether TfNSW can grow up.
There’s lot of things I hate the Liberals for. In the case of light rail however, most of it can be slated to TfNSW. They have a secretive, backwards looking, innovation resistant culture. If Labor had been in power and had tried to build light rail (a very likely scenario given that it was originally pushed by the Council) then its just as likely that it would have gone pear shaped under Labor. What I do blame the Libs for is putting it upon TfNSW to hurry for political reasons and not taking the time to do proper utilities investigations. Would Labor have done any different?
It takes me about 4 hours to get to Sydney. If I go there and I don’t leave by 6pm I’m stuck for the night. Sometimes I end up crashing on a couch and my friends tend to be party animals so I’ve seen my share of “night life”. It used to be that corner of George and Liverpool you’d find a fight or the aftermath of one. This is where I’d not only be watching my back but also telling my friends to watch. These days its a lot less threatening. I’ll concede that it hasn’t been good for some venues, but frankly, like greyhound racing, some business models don’t deserve to survive.
Unfortunately I’ve run the course I’m prepared to debate this, but as I said before the current project is a mishmash that imo doesn’t satisfy either use case. You seemed to like the alternative light rail route I suggested before for the CBD component; unfortunately the current works probably prevent that from ever happening. Do I acknowledge the extra time and cost of doing the south east component properly? Yes I do, but we both agree it’s the end game so there’s no point but to build it. Labor probably would’ve had similar implementation difficulties but I’d like to think (perhaps naively) they’d have chosen more sensible routes, so what we got at the end of the chaos wasn’t a missed opportunity and a stopgap band-aid respectively. For what it’s worth, I’m hoping for a hung parliament specifically because of their infrastructure policy, not a landslide against them.
The SE will need a tram and a metro. Therefore, the tram was needed regardless of whether it was built now or not and building it now means there is additional transport now, not in 5 or so years at minimum, however likely 20 years due to the staging of other metros.
Metro West may even terminate at Zetland however this is a maybe.
I would argue Labor absolutely would have had implementation difficulties as many of the difficulties were due to culture issues in the department and not due to the government. In addition, the Liberals have shown they have tried to drag TfNSW’s culture forward with projects such as Sydney Metro that I almost guarantee would have become a substandard CityRail line under Labor. Their comments on Metro South West show this.
One question I have relating to the polls: How will the electorate take the announcement around High and higher speed rail in and out of the Sydney Basin? Labor have been negative on the announcement initially so it may become a decision point. If you want public transport investment, vote Liberal, if you don’t vote Labor.
The talk so far (yes, just talk) has started to be along far more economically sustainable solutions than previous studies. Leverage connecting closer cities to stage a larger network.
Wrt the Bankstown line trains, if the problem is that they take up spacein the city circle, couldn’t one of the solutions be to instead have them terminate at Central instead? What’s the reason this was rejected as an option?
It seems to me that the problem with Sydney transport is that it’s far too CBD-centric. Indeed, our east-west connections are fabulous, three rail lines and three motorways all converging on the CBD. What we’re missing is a north-south line (two of them probably). If you draw a straight line between Hurstville and Burwood, you’d be able to take in four lines. Four connections would be created from nothing and all of a sudden people have a way of getting around the city without having to drive or go through the CBD and clogging it up there. It could also be extended, in a straight line no less, south towards Sylvania and Miranda.
I’m also totally against driverless trains, if it’s not too late I’d convert the metro project to be not-driverless. If they can do driver+guard operations with 2-5 minute frequencies on multiple lines in Tokyo, we can do it here.