10.28pm. The Nationals look to have gone off the boil in Lismore, in another turn in fortunes for that seat. By this I mean they are trailing Labor in the two-candidate preferred count. But Labor are still coming third behind the Greens on the primary vote, and I think you can give it to the Greens if they stay there.
10.25pm. I’ve been casting around for information on the below-the-line upper house voting rate at past elections. I’ve come up with a figure of 2.1% at the 2011 election, which is lower than I would have thought. If we bump that up to 3%, which is two-thirds of a quota. That leaves well over two quotas for parties whose vote totals we have no idea about. If any one of them — David Leyonhjelm, say, can get about a quarter of that, they should be in business.
10.21pm. Gladys Berejiklian victory speech concluded.
10.16pm. The Legislative Council count is 18.45% through, and while this is completely unmatched and might swing around, we’ve got seven quotas for the Coalition, six for Labor, two for the Greens, one apiece for One Nation and Shooters, and four to be accounted for. The Coalition has enough of a surplus to be in the hunt for one of those; Labor doesn’t, at least on the current numbers. One Nation is in the hunt on the current numbers, but I guess they will fade as more big booths in Sydney report. Ditto Shooters. The Christian Democrats and Animal Justice look possibilities, but I wouldn’t go any further than that. The big wild card is that 2.93 quotas are identified by the Electoral Commission as “others”, that includes not only the outstanding parties, but all below-the-line votes. There is plenty of room in that for David Leyonhjelm, but since it also includes all below-the-lines, we really need more information.
9.46pm. The Nationals now have a handy looking lead in the two-party count against Labor, but the Greens are ahead on the primary vote, and will probably win if they stay there. One way or another, this one’s staying on the watch list.
9.41pm. Michael Daley has conceded to Gladys Berejiklian and will shortly give his concession speech.
9.32pm. The view around the room is that East Hills is falling out of Labor’s reach.
9.18pm. Upper Hunter is very close – I’ve been leaving it off my potential list of Coalition losses. That list has fairly consistently been four or five seats, with its composition changing over time.
9.16pm. Labor have fallen behind in East Hills according to the Nine count, but not the ABC’s (yet). I think you would rather be the Nationals than the Shooters in Barwon at this stage, but nor would you call lit.
9.04pm. Another seat you can’t give away if only because of the slow count is Penrith, where the Liberals are ahead but not by ahead to be definitive about it, with only 22.6% counted on the primary and 12.8% on two-party. Pre-polls could transform the situation here, one way or another, and we may have to wait beyond this evening for a meaningful picture there.
8.58pm. Finally, an update in Auburn, and it’s looking better for Labor now, but will still require monitoring.
8.52pm. Other than that, there have been a number of dogs that haven’t barked. The count in Kogarah is painfully slow, but Labor is in front, and that’s the only evidence of a Chinese backlash effect – Labor has a fairly solid swing in the other supposedly endangered seat, Strathfield. The Nationals have done okay on the northern coast, contrary to expectations. And the Liberals have held up in their south-eastern seats of Goulburn and Bega.
8.50pm. Antony is calling Dubbo as lineball, whereas my sense was that the Nationals were doing okay. So there’s a fifth seat the Coalition might potentially lose.
8.40pm. Hard to identify the six seats that would cost the Coalition its majority. All I’m seeing is East Hills and Coogee to Labor, both only maybes (particularly East Hills). Barwon, under threat from Shooters, is looking better for the Nationals now, but the Shooters continue to look strong in Murray. I would also note that in Auburn, where the count is particularly slow, the very early numbers have the Liberals in the lead.
8.31pm. Labor look like they might win East Hills and Oatley, but beyond that gains for them are hard to identify. Lismore remains a very confusing picture, but the Nationals have strengthened there. Shooters look good in all three of their target seats. Other than that, it looks like a remarkably stable result. The Greens look like retaining their three seats; the two independents have retained their seats, but don’t look like being joined by any new ones. The Nationals have not suffered as expected on the northern coast: Tweed and Upper Hunter look good for them.
8.16pm. I’m painting a somewhat less favourable picture for the Coalition because I’m focused only on seats where the count is seriously advanced, of which there are remarkably few. But the Nationals look okay in Tweed and Upper Hunter, which Labor seriously needed to win.
8.14pm. Antony Green says he thinks the government has been returned, and the only question is majority or minority.
8.12pm. General consternation at the slow speed of the count, or at least the slow rate at which results are being uploaded to the media feed, which also seem to contain some anomalies.
8.05pm. The surprisingly good picture for the Greens seems to be holding: they look like they’ve retained Balmain and Newtown, it looks very encouraging for them in Ballina, and the picture in Lismore remains as before – the Nationals struggling, and an open question as whether it would fall to the Greens or Labor.
8.02pm. Looking very close in Upper Hunter. I’m currently seeing a 1.7% swing to Labor, with a Nationals margin of 2.2%. They
7.52pm. And Labor look to be ahead in Kogarah, although there is a swing against them. Labor’s Chris Minns is down about 4.4% on the primary vote and the Liberals are up 2.5% – not enough for Labor to lose given their 6.9% margin. This is from six booths out of 28 on the primary vote and 13.3% counted.
7.51pm. Right on cue, Chris Uhlmann just said Labor scrutineers say they believe they will win Strathfield.
7.50pm. Encouraging numbers for Labor from Strathfield, given this was expected to be part of any Chinese backlash. Jodi McKay is up about 3% on the primary vote, and the Liberals are down about 4.5%, with seven booths in on the primary vote and 18.8% counted.
7.41pm. From what we’re seeing so far, the Greens seem to be doing surprisingly well. The first numbers in Ballina show a strong swing in their favour; they are in the hunt in Lismore; and Antony called Newtown for them, although perhaps too early.
7.38pm. Really tight three-cornered contest in Lismore. The Nationals are down nearly 5% on the primary vote, on which they will need to improve. Lineball based on current numbers as to whether Labor or the Greens will make the final count against them. Unless the Nationals improve – which they certainly may – the seat will go to whoever wins the Labor-Greens race.
7.32pm. Talking Blue Mountains a lot because the count is progressing particularly well there. It does look like there’s a modest swing to Labor of 3% to 4%, based on eight booths on the primary vote and 17.4% counted.
7.24pm. That big swing to Labor in Blue Mountains has disappeared, but they are still on track to retain their margin of 8%.
7.20pm. Early primary votes looking good for Shooters in Murray, although this could be missing geographic variability.
7.17pm. Antony says the Greens will win Newtown very easily. Latest numbers from Upper Hunter look less good for Labor than the ones I’ve counted earlier — no swing projected on the two-party figures that I’m seeing.
7.14pm. With 5.4% of the primary vote counted in Lismore, the Greens are down about 3.4%, the Nationals are down about 2.5%, and Labor are unchanged. That would get Labor into the final count ahead of the Greens, which they narrowly failed to do last time, and then to narrowly defeat the Nationals.
7.07pm. Based on five booths and 3.1% of the electoral roll counted, Philip Donato has a clear primary vote majority in Orange.
7.01pm. Good early results for Labor in Blue Mountains, with three booths in on the primary vote — Labor is on 48.5%, which compares with 38.4% in the same booths in 2015.
6.58pm. With 4% of the primary vote counted in Upper Hunter, the Nine system is projecting a 3.5% two-party swing to Labor in Upper Hunter, which would be sufficient to get Labor up by 1.3%. However, this is based on speculative preference flows.
6.31pm. First booth from Orange is 288 votes from Spring Hill Public, and there’s a good sign for Shooters member Philip Donato, who is up from 41.1$ to 57.3% on the primary vote.
6.25pm. Mulgoa Electorate Manager’s Office wins the prize for first booth to report. Splits 120-31 to the Liberals, which is a big swing in their favour for what that’s worth (i.e. nothing).
6pm. Let the record note that polls have closed.
5.25pm. The YouGov Galaxy exit poll for the Nine Network has primary vote numbers very similar to Newspoll’s, with the Coalition on 41% (the same), Labor on 36% (one point higher) and the Greens on 9% (one point lower). Two-party preferred is 50-50, compared with Newspoll’s 51-49 to the Coalition. However, the poll is from the state’s 16 most marginal seats, rather than statewide. A set of numbers from the 2015 election is provided for purposes of comparison, so the precise way to read this is to compare the results just noted with the following set of numbers: 53.1-46.9 to the Coalition on two-party preferred, and primary votes of Coalition 45.9%, Labor 36.1% and Greens 9.7%. In other words, the poll suggests a 3.1% swing to Labor, which is almost identical to Newspoll’s 3.3%.
Two-party breakdowns are provided for western Sydney and “regional” – I’m not sure of the precise dimensions of the latter. These have it at 50-50 in western Sydney, a 2.7% swing to Labor since 2015, and 51-49 to the Coalition in regional New South Wales, a swing of 3.5%, which is one point more favourable to the Coalition than the Newspoll result. The sample for the poll is 1666.
5.04pm. The Coogee exit poll has the Liberals crashing from 46.6% to 31% and Labor up from 32.5% to 41%. It does not appear there is a two-party figure, but with the Liberal margin at 2.9%, you can take it for granted that this points to an emphatic win for Labor. The poll was conducted by Lonergan Research for Greenpeace and the Nature Conservation Council from a sample of 1482.
5pm. One hour until polls close. I’m behind the scenes at Channel Nine’s election night coverage – they have YouGov Galaxy exit polling that will go live in 15 minutes. I have it in my hands right now, but I’ll spare you the “wow” routine. Greenpeace has put out a Lonergan Research exit poll of Coogee that apparently shows Labor set to gain the seat from the Liberals, in line with expectations. I’ll have a summary of that poll with you very shortly.
To get the ball rolling, I’ll repaste what I posted last night about how the NSWEC is approaching the count. We will not be privy to as much counting of pre-poll results on election night as we have lately grown accustomed. All we are promised is incomplete progress counts of the primary vote from pre-poll voting centres, which will presumably posted quite late on the night. That means no pre-poll results on two-party preferred, which could well leave us hanging in more seats than usual at the end of the night. Some postals will be counted on the night – I can’t tell you if this will just be primary votes or if it will include two-party totals as well.
The Legislative Council count on the night will be unusual, in that the only things that are specifically being tallied are above-the-line votes for the Coalition, Labor, the Greens, Shooters, the Christian Democrats, Animal Justice and One Nation. Beyond that, an “others” total will be published that will include above-the-line votes for everyone else, and below-the-line votes for all and sundry (including votes that will prove, on closer inspection, to be informal). Among other things, this means those of you hanging on the electoral prospects of David Leyonhjelm will go to bed disappointed.
“So whos the next Labor leader? Park? Dib? McKay? Minns?”
my money’s on a middle aged white male from the right who has zero charisma
Only thing that makes SKY watchable is Laura Jayes. my goodness.
Oakeshott Country
😆 The RW lads over at Sussex St. say ‘Hi Oakeshott Country”
Jodi McKay is spinning heroically on the ABC, but there’s no escaping that this is a pretty poor result for Labor. The fact that they haven’t locked in a single gain at this point in the night is truly dire – although equally dire is that the count still hasn’t hit 40%, so who knows if there are some surprises lurking in the pre-polls and larger booths.
For me the Greens’ undeniably strong result also suggests NSW Labor has some work to do. The Greens have had a shocker of a year and appear to have maintained their vote and seats, whereas I suspect if Labor was truly in a strong position they would have struggled. (It’s really interesting that the general narrative that the Greens were in serious trouble in Ballina and Balmain appears to be the opposite of true.) This does also suggest that the Greens’ vote in their heartland is solidifying.
If I were the Liberals I would insist on running in Orange, Murray and (if the Nats lose) Barwon at the next election, on the same basis that the Nats insisted on running in Wagga this year.
I tend to agree that the federal implications are pretty limited, though, although I hope Labor takes it as a reminder not to be complacent.
Shellbell
Auburn has the largest Chinese population in the state plus an ex-MP who puts his hand in journalist’s underpants. I thought there would be a significant swing despite its low SES
Over 3 hours since polling closed, and not even 40% of the vote has been counted.
#slowestcountever
poroti, seeing that commies are the ancient enemies of the ALP RW. I think this lot might be a better fit.
I dont think this state election will impact that heavily on federal seats in NSW. Lindsay is a guess given its issues, but Reid, Gilmore, Robertson are going to Labor. Banks is lineball.
It is a huge leap to think that somehow this result means bad news for Labor federally. I just think that while voters might be underwhelmed with the current state government, they weren’t desperate for change. Ad to that an underwhelming campaign at best from Daley and here we are. The federal election is completely different. Matt31
Yes that is definitely surprising. The one time their actual polling at the election has beaten their pre-election polling.
Obviously turfing that misogynist Jeremy Buckingham from the party was a positive for them.
The result of Labor’s campaign is a vote change of – 1%!!!!
Someone has questions to answer!
At the state level you take the good and the bad. Not so good tonight but that is politics.
What will be interesting is the final 2PP after prepolls, postals etc are added.
ratsak @ #396 Saturday, March 23rd, 2019 – 8:07 pm
With a lot of help from Daley, who said a racist thing some months ago.
And also the conservative media, who sat on their knowledge of that for months so that they could chuck it out when it would cause maximum political damage.
Labor needs to 1) not say racist things in the first place, and 2) expect these last-minute grenades and have some of their own ready to lob back. Certainly Daley could have gone hard on MDB, or climate change, or refugee fear-mongering, or any number of other scandals to redirect the narrative.
The strong move against the nationals must be a worry for the federal Coalition. It seems that after being conned for more than 4o years the farmers are finally getting it.
The strong move against the nationals must be a worry for the federal Coalition. It seems that after being conned for more than 4o years the farmers are finally getting it.
Also, I think this being a “bad result” for the Nationals is being vastly overstated. Yes, they’ve lost a fair bit to the Shooters and potentially two seats, and they are potentially in trouble in Upper Hunter and Lismore (although doing stronger than expected in both) and also Dubbo, but at the same time they have significantly increased their margin in Tweed, Monaro and Clarence. Faintly baffling, but it does appear they have held up a lot better than the general chatter was suggesting.
Comparing NSW to federal is like comparing apples to oranges.
For starters NSW has had stable leadership (no knifing leaders). And the NSW Coalition has far fewer deluded RWNJs than their federal counterparts.
The baseball bats are still out for Morrison.
there are some comments above about Greens solidifying their vote, but it looks to me like there is a swing against them of 0.5%.
AJP and Sustainable Australia combined have picked up +3.0%.
So, I would have thought a better read on the results is that the animal welfare vote has started to walk away from the greens, as have some of the population control voters.
After all, when was the last time you heard a greens politician complain about the number of migrants?
Yes it’s true the moderates control the NSW Liberals. But the federal Libs will get a shot of confidence from this result. And remember that election results set the media narrative.
It had been reported the NSW Greens membership increased after he was kicked out.
And yet Labor ran an anti-Green attack ad featuring Buckingham with a quote of his cherry-picked and out of context.
The irony.
Nice rebuke from Zimmerman to Barnaby: spend more time in Tamworth and less time on TV.
Morris Iemma is wearing a blue tie, looks right at home between the smug neocon and toolman – just sayin.
KB
9:15 The projection giveth and taketh away – Labor just jumped ahead further in Coogee but fell behind in East Hills.
As a member of the NSW Greens, I had grave fears for tonight. I was bracing myself for a wipeout. It has become clear that I need not have worried. Greens voters haven’t been fooled by the right wing MSM media beat up predicting the demise of the NSW Greens. The vast majority of Greens honestly couldn’t care less if Greens MP X likes Greens MP Y. What we care about is the environment, asylum seekers, inequality, etc… etc… We care about things that actually matter and that’s why we continue to vote for the Greens.
“a great Filip for the Coalition, and confidence breeds success.”
Yup, and what odds that it emboldens Abbott and Barnyard to maybe make more of a “contribution”. 🙂
Ben Raue
We have just called Ballina for the Greens with an increased majority, and Murray for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. It’s remarkable to say this, but Murray is the only seat that has changed hands so far tonight.
We have 14 seats we haven’t yet called.
There are three particularly complex seats where we don’t have a preference count. The Greens are leading Labor by about 4% in Lismore, but the two-candidate-preferred count is Labor vs Nationals (which Labor is winning for what it’s worth) and ex-Greens independent Sally Townley is leading Labor by about 1% in Coffs Harbour. Local mayor Judy Hannan is on 20% of the primary vote in Wollondilly, well ahead of Labor. In all three cases these challengers are trailing the Coalition on the primary vote, and we won’t have a two-candidate-preferred count tonight.
We then have 11 other seats where the count is too early or close to call, and we’ll just have to keep tracking those throughout this evening, gradually calling them as more votes pile up. This includes the Labor seats of Kogarah, Rockdale and the Entrance, as well as the Coalition seats of Barwon, Coogee, Dubbo, East Hills, Penrith, Strathfield, Tweed and Upper Hunter.
Not sure the baseball bats are out for Morrison in NSW. Shorten will struggle there. Very depressed by this election result.
It’s a very bad result for the Nats west of the Great Dividing Range.
Water is the number one issue. The success of SFF has nothing to do with gun laws. It’s about the Nats being spineless on water and failing to deliver infrastructure.
AJP and KSO took primary votes away from the Greens. A -.5 swing against the Greens seems relatively moderate given the Greens problems.
Still, the Greens have had a good campaign overall.
And once again, this is Labor’s fault, not the Greens.
Toorak,
Poll Bludger has a federal NSW swing to labor of 1.9 %. Labor was never going to win the federal election in NSW.
So, please explain how the result tonight is bad for federal labor.
Serious question.
Cheers.
somewhere Briefly is muttering about Liblings. He’s swaying back and forth consoling himself. He’s hit the bottle, perhaps a red.
Worth noting that the three seats with Greens MP s have recorded substantial swings to them – and that there have been substantial swings to the Greens in Manly & Vaucluse
Votersvotong out a Lib/Nat government isvery hard.
And I never underestimate, with voters, the power of stupid.
I see the nasty nath is back. 🙁
Good to hear a message from Tim Fischer read out on ABC TV about his old state seat of Murray. He is right that the MDBP and drought have been contributing factors. When country people make up their mind, they make up their mind.
imacca
says:
Saturday, March 23, 2019 at 9:31 pm
I see the nasty nath is back.
______________
cmon imacca, that’s not nasty. It’s not even on my dark side.
Why is abc claiming Lismore as nats beating labor. It should be declared greens have beaten the nats, on those primaries?
Is a green Tory better than a Tory?
One lesson for politicians in this result is that they should never, but never, mention ethnic groups in a way which contributes to stereotyping of them.
Apparently Sam Dastyari was the first to call the election result on Ch10 at 7:27pm with PvO. PvO says there are no federal implications from this result as it has been campaigned on on state issues, and the Turnbull knifing doesn’t appear to have been an issue at all. Interesting that he and Cassidy have the same thoughts re Turnbull, yet different conclusions.
https://twitter.com/10NewsFirstSyd/status/1109391170642284544
Labor had big wins in Queensland, WA and Victoria.
The coalition had good wins in Tasmania, South Australia and a win today in NSW albeit the final 2PP as yet undetermined.
Take the good with the not so good and those so called labor / progressive posters who are sucking on lemons tonight should harden up or one may start to question their real political leanings.
Cheers.
Someone is angling for Daley’s job, highlighting how different she is from the comments that Daley made.
There have been three significant periods of Liberal-National leadership in NSW, but none of them lasted longer than 11 years.
If Gladys Berejiklian is returned to office, as we expect, that would give the Coalition a shot at 12 years straight in office in this state – the longest period since 1904.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-23/new-south-wales-election-results/10897228
Voice endeavour
says:
Saturday, March 23, 2019 at 9:34 pm
Why is abc claiming Lismore as nats beating labor. It should be declared greens have beaten the nats, on those primaries?
_______________________________________
Looks like the ALP are improving in Lismore.
While the national has lost seats. None of it has definitely gone to the ALP. While there is a swing against the Coalition Almost all of it has gone to the SFF and not the ALP/greens who both went backwards. The biggest federal implication should be the only moderate Liberal government can win elections and not the conservatives
The Greens not only retained all three of their seats – they may have gained seats.
Briefly and Boerwar will be bedridden for weeks.
I don’t think there’s any question the Greens have done very well today. With the AJP and KSO running to hold their primary and potentially gain a seat and make the ones they already held safer is a top result for them.
Daley’s Asian immigration statement made bugger all difference in the big picture.
Wouldn’t have made a difference if Foley, Minns or Joe Blow was leading Labor. The simple fact of the matter is that NSW voters weren’t ready for a change of government.
Give it four years and the Libs will be a rabble in NSW. They’ll have their own Eddie Obeids caught with fingers in the till. You can guarantee it.
I’m sorry River Crossing. Tim Fischer has “bucketloads of extinguishment” hung about his neck like an albatross. It is never a good time to hear from him.
ALP still a chance to beat Greens for Lismore. Looks like Janelle Saffin might overcome her haters in the ALP and get a seat.