Odds and ends

A review of the movements in New South Wales election betting odds over the past week, in which the Coalition have emerged clear favourites overall, despite a mixed picture in the individual seat markets.

UPDATE: Please note that this a dedicated New South Wales election thread – a general discussion thread is here.

With one day to go, I’ve done a bit of work updating my state election guide with a few new candidate details and campaign updates – and also with updated betting odds from Ladbrokes. There has been a bit of a divergence in the overall odds, where the Coalition are now clear favourites on $1.45 to $2.70 for Labor, and the seat odds, which seem to paint a more favourable collective picture for Labor. UPDATE: The Sydney Morning Herald has a chart showing the fluctuations in Sportsbet’s odds over the campaign, making clear the late surge to the Coalition.

The Asian immigration kerfuffle has been reflected in Labor lengthening in Kogarah (from $1.17 to $1.30, with the Liberals cut from $3.75 to $2.50) and Oatley (from $2.75 to $3.75, with the Liberals in from $1.36 to $1.22). However, there is no movement in Strathfield, despite reports of favourable polling for the Liberals, and Labor is now unbackable in Coogee, where they are in from $1.22 a week ago to $1.10. Labor are also in from $5 to $3.75 in South Coast – but, contrary to media chatter, the Liberals have shortened in Heathcote from $1.44 to $1.33, with Labor out from $2.88 to $3.10.

The Nationals’ odds have deteriorated in a number of seats over the past week, with Labor slashed from $17 to $4 in Coffs Harbour, and even given a sniff in Barwon, where they are in from $7 to $5, the market presumably considering it possible that they might skate home as votes split between the Nationals and Shooters. Shooters have shortened from $1.33 to $1.25 in Orange, and from $3.25 to $2.90 in Murray; independent Mathew Dickerson seems to be attracting attention in Dubbo, where he is now on $2.75, with the Nationals on $1.40; and independent by-election winner Joe McGirr is in from $1.50 to $1.27 in Wagga Wagga. Conversely, the Nationals’ odds have improved in Tweed (from $3 to $2.50, with Labor out from $1.36 to $1.50) and Upper Hunter ($2.88 to $2.10, with Labor out from $1.40 to $1.70).

The Greens’ odds have improved on the north coast (from $4.50 to $3.50 in Lismore, where Labor are clear favourites, and from $5.50 to $3.75 in Ballina, where the Nationals are given the edge), but deteriorated slightly in the inner city (from $1.36 to $1.44 in Balmain and $1.11 to $1.14 in Newtown).

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

180 comments on “Odds and ends”

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  1. mikehilliard @ #148 Friday, March 22nd, 2019 – 7:24 pm

    C@t

    Thanks for all your hard work.

    Thanks, MH. I just have to do it, even if it kills me. I couldn’t live with myself if I had just sat on my hands. Even though I am in a seat chokkas with proud capitalists I am hoping some of them, enough of them, still have a shred of conscience left, enough to realise that the State and our seat needs to be saved from the spivs.

  2. Cud Chewer @ #146 Friday, March 22nd, 2019 – 7:22 pm

    C@t, what is going on in your seat?

    It’s quite confusing really. Many people seem to have made up their mind already and nothing we can say at the Pre Poll can alter that. Then there are the Liberals 4 Eva who wear their ‘Greed is Great!’ (as a couple of young lads said to me) badge with pride.

    I just hope there are enough people with a grasp of the issues here, like the proposed coal mine in the Yarramalong Valley where our water catchment and aquifer are, to vote against the party that wants to push these things hard. It’s not all about the bloody economy you know!

  3. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nsw-ivote-registration-goes-down-on-election-eve-522842

    NSW iVote registration goes down on election eve
    By Ry Crozier Mar 22 2019 7:14PM

    Call volumes then overwhelm telephone service.

    The NSW Electoral Commission is urging online voters to “try again later” after the iVote registration system went down on Friday afternoon.

    Voters are able to cast votes for the NSW election using iVote, which is available online or by telephone.

    However, both services struggled Friday afternoon and into the evening, with the iVote registration page returning a 502 bad gateway error or 503 service unavailable error.

    The problems sent would-be online voters to the phone service instead, which was also quickly overwhelmed.

  4. Libs our in force tonight in Bowral. No space for election material for any other candidate at Bowral High which is a stones throw from the hospital they tried to privatise. Panic or just a sign of a well oiled machine?

  5. Im tipping Liberal minority, Labor gaining the low hanging fruit (<3.2%), and LNP losing a couple of 'safe' regional seats to, someone…
    Progressives might do better than expected in upper house, and be strong enough to hold the Libs in check.
    Perhaps PHON/LDP will both struggle to get their quota, maybe one will get up on preferences from the other (voters more sensitive to right wing extremism and gun rights), in theory SFF should drop as well, but they are probably balanced against gains from Nat defectors due to the river.
    EDIT: Animal Justice where pretty organised in Vic, i expect they will get a spot.

  6. You have to laugh at the Libs still rolling out Howard.

    Didn’t he, as a sitting PM, loose his own seat.

    I don’t think there could be a greater condemnation than that.

  7. Question: If the betting odds are so good for the Coalition in NSW, why is that there hasn’t been any recent poll close to the election, given that such polls tend to be closer to the mark (also because they normally have an increased sample size) than polls taken farther away from the day of the election?
    Latest opinion poll: Galaxy 50%/50%, 19 March. Newspoll is usually keen to be the last pollster to make a prediction… but this time around they have left everything to the betting agencies, which are even less reliable than the opinion polls…. Interesting, isn’t it?

  8. “Im tipping Liberal minority”… This election will be strongly decided by the flow of second and perhaps even lower preferences… Making credible predictions under such conditions is pretty much impossible.
    But we can wish, and I wish for an ALP narrow win…. 🙂

  9. Alpo

    Who owns the betting agencies and what party would better support their continued existence?

    Seems like you could bet on the cat crossing the road in NSW.

  10. I can’t see Gladys getting more than one or two independents on side…..otherwise she’ll need to deal with the SFF….. and that will poison the well for the feds…. so I can’t see it happening easily.
    If Nats really are toxic in the bush then she could be screw by the bush…..
    I get the sense of more Victoria 1999 where the Country swung and the city didn’t.

  11. Pegasus @ #124 Friday, March 22nd, 2019 – 4:20 pm

    EB

    That is a Labor anti-Greens attack ad which you only find out by right clicking on the source of the quote revealing this info in the opened tab.

    The full Labor anti-Greens attack ad is shown in the following article.

    How ironic one of the ads has “If the Greens are fighting each other, who’s fighting the Liberals?”

    Good to see Labor is concentrating on fighting dirty against real progressives rather than the Coalition.

    https://honisoit.com/2019/03/balmain-labor-candidate-and-former-src-president-elly-howse-attracts-criticism-for-campaign-material/

    NSW Labor candidate for the state seat of Balmain, Elly Howse, has attracted online criticism for using a quote from alleged sexual assault perpetrator, MLC Jeremy Buckingham, on her campaign materials. The quote used states, “the fact is, that as an organisation, the NSW Greens are corrupt and rotten.”

    This quote comes from Buckingham addressing the media following the NSW Greens State Delegate Council’s decision to remove him from the 2019 state election ticket, as a result of allegations of sexual assault against a former staffer. The removal followed Greens Member for Newtown Jenny Leong’s call in State Parliament for him to quit over the allegations. Buckingham is contesting the state election as an independent for a seat in the NSW Legislative Council.
    :::
    Numerous women have alleged that their comments asking Howse’s campaign to respond to their concerns regarding the use of Jeremy Buckingham’s quote on her campaign Facebook page have been deleted. Additionally, some allege to have been blocked from being allowed to comment altogether.

    Days after allegations of sexual misconduct were made by an ABC Journalist against former Labor Opposition Leader, Luke Foley, Howse penned an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald titled ‘Labor women have had enough and are speaking out for change.’

    In the article, Howse wrote, “we don’t want platitudes and pretences. We want men and women who are prepared to stand behind us and back us, who believe us and support us when we call out poor behaviour. We also want institutions and organisations that are swift to act and put women’s experiences at the centre of their response.”

    We all know that Daley and the Labor right aligns more with Coalition than the Greens.

  12. This from the SMH. Looks like both Libs and Lab have no idea what to expect. Internal polling too close to call and moving daily which means there could be a possibility nothing has changes from a week a go. Who knows

    The Coalition’s odds started shortening and by Friday, Labor had blown out to $3, longer odds than the final days of former leader Luke Foley’s reign last year.
    The ups and downs for both sides have been reflected in fluctuating polling, which have been changing as quickly as party officials receive it.
    “We were up one day, and down the next. I just really don’t know,” a Labor figure says.
    And the Liberals do not disagree. A senior party source says “it’s simply too close to call”.
    “It’s line ball. But even as I tell you this, it’s probably changing. I just have no idea which way.”

  13. I’m tipping about a 50/50 result – 4.5%-5.0% swing to Labor. In the Assembly, 7 Coalition seats falling (6 to Labor, one to SFF – I doubt the Greens will improve on their 2015 performance much), and a minority Berejiklian Coalition Government returned for a third term of slash-and-burn economics. In the Council, the Coalition to lose a net 3 – one to PHON, one to SFF and two to Labor, offset by recovering Gallacher’s seat.

    If correct, my prediction will result in the following for the Assembly:

    Coalition 45 (-7)
    ALP 40 (+6)
    Crossbench: 8 (+1)

    And for the Council:

    Coalition 17 (-3)
    ALP 14 (+2)
    GRN 4 (+0)
    SFF 3 (+1)
    CDP 2 (+0)
    PHON 1 (+1)
    AFP 1 (+0)

    Let’s see how wrong I am, tomorrow… 🙂

  14. I posted this on the previous thread, but I’d like to put it out here again.

    With OPV, a big vote for non majors will be bad news for both LNP and ALP, because of exhaust. It will hurt the LNP more bc of where the viable and credible independent/minor campaigns are located. Apart from incumbents in Sydney, Wagga and Lake Macquarie, plus the SFF in in Orange, Barwon (SFF), Wollondilly and North Shore are seriously in contention. Maybe Coffs and Tamworth if there’s a mood on.

    There is a third tier of seats, such as Penrith, Lismore, Terrigal, Vaucluse, Myall Lakes, Clarence, Parramatta, Murray, Granville, Hawkesbury, Seven Hills, where independents are unlikely to win, but where largish centre-right independent votes that exhaust or leak preferences leave LNP candidates stranded, or at least pushed to preferences. This could even happen with small votes in tight races, Seven Hills, where the ex-Liberal redneck Sexton is running f’rinstance.

    This is very general, the candidacy of Mick Gallagher in Hornsby, or Andrew Thaler in Monaro, for example, are likely to help the incumbent, by leaking support from their challenger (such as a challenge exists in Hornsby!)

    Generally though, think this will be behind more than one surprise on election night and beyond.

  15. Predictions:

    Assembly seats changing hands:

    ALP win:

    Coogee
    East Hills
    Penrith
    Seven Hills
    Tweed
    Lismore
    Balmain
    Riverstone

    Independent wins:

    North Shore
    Wollondilly

    Shooters win

    Barwon

    Which gives a LA

    Liberal 29 (-8)
    Nationals 13 (-4)
    Independent 5 (+2)
    Green 2 (-1)
    SFF 2 (+1)
    ALP 42 (+8)

    In addition there will be seats like Tamworth, Murray, Coffs, Hawkesbury and South Coast where preference flows (or lack of them) will determine the outcome, but with a chunky primary the coalition should survive.

  16. There have been 10 NSW State by-elections since the 2015 election.
    The best primary vote result for the coalition was a 12% swing again them in Gosford.
    The best 2pp result for the coalition was a 10% swing against them in Cootamundra.

    Nothing has changed since Wagga Wagga to change the trend.

    My guess is Labor will finish with at least 48 seats but more likely around 54.

  17. Well I’m no wiser than I was at the start. I would like to be able to say “The polls have been underestimating Labor”, but there haven’t been enough of them for that to mean anything anyway.

    Internal polls are meaningless. Both parties want to be seen to be simultaneously in with a chance and underdogs.

  18. Ladbrokes says Coalition $1.36 Labor $3.00 over there >> according to our lord and master William. That gives me pause (for about 10 seconds).

    I am sticking with my Labor (44) Greens (2) Indy (1) minority government because I still think Labor can win 10 seats – The Coalition will lose more seats than those odds suggest outside of Sydney (to Independent/SFF candidates) and there will be some surprises on both sides of the battleground in Sydney itself.

    I don’t expect a result tomorrow night in any case which will lead to further speculation on Sunday.

  19. Berejiklian: Satisfied 43, Dissatisfied 42
    Daley: Satisfied 32, Dissatisfied 47

    Better Premier: Berejikilian 43, Daley 35

    Sydney 2PP 52/48 to Coalition (Coalition 43, Labor 36, Greens 10)
    Rest of NSW 2PP 50/50 (Coalition 39, Labor 34, Greens 9, Others 18)

    March 19-21, 2518 sample

  20. I should add that I would not be surprised if the ALP also got up in Goulburn and Upper Hunter, but if they do we won’t know until late next week or early April. And if they do it will be from preference leakage and exhaustion from minors and independents.

  21. deborah knight
    ‏Verified account @deborah_knight
    33m33 minutes ago

    Very interesting early read on the likely outcome of the NSW election from our exclusive Nine Galaxy exit poll. Full details coming up in our election coverage kicking off at 5pm. #NSWVotes

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