New South Wales election one more time

Final results for the New South Wales Legislative Council: David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democrats misses out, Mark Latham has company with a second One Nation member elected, Animal Justice gains a second seat, and a nearly four decade winning streak ends for the Christian Democrats.

No details results yet that I’m aware of, but the button has been pushed on the New South Wales upper house count, and the last two seats that seemed in doubt to me at the time of my previous post on Wednesday have gone to One Nation’s second candidate and Animal Justice’s first. Those in the hunt who missed out are, notably, David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democrats, along with the Christian Democrats, who together with their predecessor Call to Australia had hitherto won a seat at every election since 1981, and Keep Sydney Open.

The overall result is eight seats for the Coalition, seven for Labor, two for the Greens and One Nation and one each for Shooters Fishers and Farmers and Animal Justice. Combined with the 21 members carrying over from the previous election, the numbers in the Legislative Council are Coalition 17, Labor 14, Greens four (UPDATE: make that three and one independent, owing to Justin Field’s resignation – hat tip to GhostWhoVotes), One Nation two, Shooters Fishers and Farmers two, Animal Justice two and Christian Democrats one.

UPDATE: Distribution of preferences here.

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.

16 comments on “New South Wales election one more time”

  1. No Christian Democrats at last and no Leyonhjelm. There is a silver lining to the election even with another PHONy. It will give someone for Latham to fall out with.

  2. While the Legislative Assembly was a train wreck for the ALP, at least they can take some comfort from the weakened position of the LNP in the upper house. You’d imagine that the 5 votes needed for a majority would be 2 ON + 2SFF + 1 CD, but the right wing minors will all want their pound of flesh for their vote, getting them all lined up will be messy.

  3. Good to see that two progressive parties both took a seat each from the last three but bad news that one wasn’t KSO and the third went to PHON rather than Leyonhjelm. Will be interesting to read Kevin and Antony’s summaries of the important stages of the count.

  4. So the only changes from 2015 are PHON got 2 seats, 1 from LNP, 1 from CDP

    @Parramatta Moderate;

    “The President of the Legislative Council has a casting vote should the result be equal from among those present eligible and choosing to vote. With 42 members, with one removed as President, a majority is 21 of the 41 possible of the whole 42.” – Wikipedia.

    Wouldnt they need 22 to get stuff passed, unless they can get someone from the left to be speaker ?

    That might be challenging.

  5. Essentially the split is 22-20 in favour of the right wingers (the left being notionally ALP, Green, AJP and the ex-Green independent).

    The coalition will need all the votes from the One Nation/Shooters and Tooters/Fred Nile bloc to pass things, which suggests that negotiations will push things even further to the right.

  6. Anyone starting a book on how long Ron Roberts (2nd ON elected) will be in the same party as Mark Latham?

    I give it 5 months.

  7. “Did not realise there was a Buttigieg in the Nsw parliament. There you go.”

    Both newly elected MLC Mark and Bend, Indiania Mayor Pete are of Maltese heritage.

  8. I wonder how long it will take before the PHON upper house reps change their minds and decide to go independent instead.
    I bet by the time we get to the next state election there are a lot fewer sitting PHONs.

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