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9.23pm. We’re still awaiting a pre-poll result from (I think) “Upper Hunter EM Office”, but that’s it for my commentary until the small hours. My live results page will continue ticking over tonight and over the coming days. A reminder that this is the only place you can find swings reported at booth level, that took me at least a week of fairly heavy-duty labour, and that donations are gratefully received through the “become a supporter” button at the top of this page.
8.43pm. Clarence Town now in on TCP, and it swung 22.5% to the Nationals.
8.38pm. Oddly, despite the Nationals doing quite badly on that Quirindi pre-poll, they got a 4.0% swing on two-party. I still have a big gap on my TCP swing projection and overall swing projection, which is presumably because two of the three booths where we only have primary vote results, Clarence Town and Singleton Heights, both had Labor down by about 17% on the primary vote. When their TCP numbers are in, presumably the TCP swing projection will shift in favour of the Nationals.
8.15pm. The Quirindi pre-poll booth is in on the primary vote, and it’s weaker for the Nationals than their overall election day result — down 6.8% as compared with 2.0%.
8.07pm. We’re at the stage of the count where the election day pattern is clear, and those booths yet to report results — 11 for the TCP count, but only one for the primary — are not going to change things much. The known unknowns are the pre-poll booths, of which we will get the Singleton and Quirindi results later this evening, and whether the dynamic there is different from election day; and how non-major party candidates go on preferences, which holds out at least the theoretical possibility of Labor not making the final two-party count, followed by who-knows-what.
7.49pm. As someone just pointed out to me on Twitter, the large-ish Clarence Town booth has the Nationals up 14.6% on the primary vote, so the conventional TCP-based projections should get a kick in their favour when its TCP result is in.
7.42pm. Projections based only on the TCP count — mine, Antony Green’s and Kevin Bonham’s — all show very little swing. However, my overall projection, which presumes to make use of primary vote results from booths where the TCP is yet to be reported, adds about 2% to the Nationals.
7.37pm. The largest booth to report so far, Muswellbrook Indoor Sport Centre, has recorded the biggest drop in the Nationals primary vote — 9.4%.
7.35pm. My preference projections are back to showing much the same splits as occurred in 2019, with no particular increase in the exhaustion rate. My projection of the Nationals swing/winning margin has accordingly come down a fair deal, without suggesting they’re in any danger (from Labor).
7.25pm. There’s quite a big gap between my two-candidate preferred swing of 2.1% to the Nationals, which booth-matches the TCP results in the 12 booths where they’ve reported, and my overall projected swing of 7.6%, which projects the changes in preferences on to the 14 booths that have so far only reported primary votes. Presumably the former figure will inflate as those 14 booths reports their TCP numbers.
7.15pm. Six booths now in on two-party. The exhaustion rate now looks higher than at the election, which sees off any hope Labor might have had that something would turn up on preferences. The gap in the primary vote swings in favour of the Nationals has also widened, the projected Nationals primary vote is now in the thirties, and my projection says 100% Nationals win probability — over Labor. But could one of the minor party candidates preference snowball their way ahead of Labor into second place?
7.12pm. I’ve just corrected a bug that was screwing up my projected two-party swing display. It’s predicting a swing to the Nationals of around 5%.
7.08pm. Observe my booth results map carefully and you will now see numbers indicating the two-party results in the two booths where they are available. Now I’m sure everything’s working, a plug for donations if you find this useful or interesting, which you can do through the “become a supporter” button at the top of the page — naturally there was a fair bit of work involved in all this.
7.06pm. Antony Green’s numbers basically align with my own, which is always reassuring.
7.03pm. Okay, now we’ve got two booths in on two-party preferred, and they are behaving very similarly to how they did at the 2019 election. That’s enough for my system to effectively call it for the Nationals, but I’d want to hold out for a few more booths. Note that this is entirely a two-party model, which is to say it rates the Nationals a near certainty of beating Labor — it’s a different story if another candidate makes the two-party cut. I may be being generous though in allowing that as a possibility, given the gap between second and third.
7.01pm. So going off primary vote projections based on the existing booth-matched swing, both Nationals and Labor are projected to be in the twenties (though only just in the case of the Nationals). I guess with that much non-major party vote out there you can’t rule out something surprising happening with minor candidates when preferences are distributed. Kirsty O’Connell, One Nation and Shooters are all just above 10%.
6.59pm. I observe that Kirsty O’Connell won the Wingen booth. You can see this by observing the booth results map at the bottom of my full live results page — the booth is colour-coded in grey, whereas other booths that have reported are green or red depending on who out of the Nationals and Labor has the highest primary vote.
6.56pm. A bit surprised there are still no two-party numbers — the NSWEC may be holding them back until they’re satisfied they have picked the right candidates for the notional count.
6.54pm. I believe we can be confident the final preference count will be Nationals versus Labor.
6.52pm. Primary vote results coming in at a fair clip, and there’s a fairly steady picture of the Nationals primary being down 3%-4% and Labor being down 5%-6%. If that holds, Labor needs to pull a rabbit out of its hat on preferences, on which we will continue to fly blind until two-party counts start to come in.
6.47pm. Eleven booths now on primary, and Labor’s drop is back to being a few points worse than the Nationals. Still nothing on two-party.
6.45pm. Ten booths now in on the primary vote and things looking a little better for Labor. But with the non-major party vote so high, this is very hard to read without information on preferences, which we won’t have until a two-party count comes through.
6.43pm. Given the booths in so far are from Nationals territory, they would have to be encouraged that their primary vote is almost holding up — Labor’s greater drop comes off a lower base. Other than that, the presence of a One Nation candidate is gouging support from Shooters.
6.40pm. Eight booths in on the primary vote now, and the Nationals still holding up somewhat better than Labor on the primary vote. Still nothing on two-party preferred though — maybe the preference dynamics will be different this time.
6.37pm. I think I’ve picked out most of the bugs, but disregard my projection until a TPP result gets reported. At the moment we’ve got five small booths in on the primary vote, and it does seem like Labor are down more than the Nationals.
6.30pm. That’s more like it. Two booths in. Only 201 votes, but so far, so interesting — both major parties down about the same amount on the primary vote.
6.28pm. Okay, the first booth is in and, frankly, disregard my results display for now — there’s a pretty big glitch in there.
6.15pm. Greens activist @seamus_polsci relates on Twitter that “the NSWEC has indicated that they will only be counting the election managers (Singleton early voting) and Quirindi early voting tonight (about 7,700 voters out of just about 19,000) rest will start counting from 9am tomorrow”.
5.45pm. Polls will close in 15 minutes. I’m in my usual state of semi-confidence about my live results facility working — it’s complicated on this occasion by the fairly high chance that the two leading candidates will not be those picked out by the NSWEC for the notional two-candidate preferred count, who, I think it’s safe to say, will be the Nationals and Labor candidates. Anyway, we’ll see how we go.
Some explanatory notes about the booth results map at the bottom of the page. Where no result is in for a booth (i.e. all of them at first), the location is indicated by a white dot. When a primary vote result is reported, the dot becomes colour-coded to indicate the party that won the primary vote. When a two-party result is reported, the dot turns into a number indicating the (colour-coded) winning party’s percentage two-party vote.
From Antony Green:
“#upperhunter 44.3% counted, all polling day votes
PartyCode, First pref %, (change in %)
NAT 32.9 (-1.1)
ALP 20.3 (-8.3)
SFF 12.0 (-10.0)
ONP 11.6 (+11.6)
OTH 23.1 (+7.8)”
-8.3 against the ALP in a by election. Aren’t they listening to the PBers slag the Premier?
lloydois @ #22 Saturday, May 22nd, 2021 – 7:12 pm
Because we’re all corrupt now and want that reflected in the parties we vote for?
Now Now c@t , it was a fair fight and Labor lost.
Them’s the breaks – what Labor does next is the critical thing. Interested to hear your views on what happens next in NSW Labor?
SFF must be pissed with PHON
Could have got past ALP without them.
Hopefully Latham and Borsak will strip to the waist and wrestle on the floor of the Legislative Council .
Early federal poll coming with LNP being re-elected. Jodi Mckay is finished and Chris Minns should be leader far better. Albanese should be finished now but will stay but gone after election.
Early federal poll coming with LNP being re-elected. Jodi Mckay is finished and Chris Minns should be leader far better. Albanese should be finished now but will stay but gone after election.
Thanks William!
marky says:
Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 8:34 pm
Early federal poll coming with LNP being re-elected. Jodi Mckay is finished and Chris Minns should be leader far better. Albanese should be finished now but will stay but gone after election.
___________________
It may be Ryan Park – there seems to be a lot of loathing to Minns, it may be the anti Minns/ pro McKay forces throw it to Ryan Park.
Antony Green has called it.
Chris Minns is in a marginal seat and representative of all that is wrong with NSW Labor. If Labor go to him, IF Jodi (spell her name correctly please), is overthrown then look at 2-3 more terms in Opposition. Murdoch and the Coalition would be salivating at the prospect.
Ok, thanks c@t for correcting me – if Jodi goes or resigns – what about Ryan Park? Could be block Minns?
Surprise.Surprise. The sheep voted for the Nationals again.
The sheep become weak and pathetic.
May as well live in a dictatorship government!
C@t and Lars,
I think NSW Labor would be silly to burn through another leader at the moment.
Until we are into a Post-COVID phase, which is looking further away than it was a month ago, then I think there will be a rally around the flag effect at any election. Labor needs to play a long game, get its house in order, and develop good policy while it waits for a “break in the Traffic”.
Ahh and my reference to The Newcastle song reminds me of Kay Jay. Sad times indeed.
To answer your previous question William. If you travelled by train from sydney tp Wauchope (not Port Mac) you would have passed through the electorate towns of Stroud, Dungog and Gloucester. All of which are really Mid North Coast but I guess are added to Upper Hunter to make up the numbers
Mrs Shellbell and I travelled by train from Sydney to Port Macquarie for a wedding in Feb 1993.
Son or daughter of the local fire chief.
Stayed at the Red Door Motel.
On the question of hometown candidates, Jodi was criticised for spending time last week in her home town of Gloucester. Unfortunately for the narrative the swing was 11% against Labor
Presumably the ALP lose the Federal seat of Hunter now, even if Joel stays on. Also, not hopeful for Capricornia and Flynn in Queensland.
HiT
Upper Hunter does not include the Labor heartland of Greater Cessnock. (Of course in 2019 the rust bucket towns of Cessnock turned against Joel, so heartland may no longer be accurate)
Looks to me like NSW Labor are being outflanked by Matt Kean’s policies. To move further and faster to renewables than that means that they will loose seats like Upper Hunter unless they directly address employment issues in these areas.
It’s not clear to me what NSW Labor are trying to achieve here. Compare this to Qld Labor’s efforts on the ground around Gladstone and Townsville.
Happy to be pointed to any materials that correct my opinion.
Mark McDonald @ #63 Saturday, May 22nd, 2021 – 9:07 pm
Ryan Park is as far from Latham as you could ever hope to get.
Lars Von Trier @ #61 Saturday, May 22nd, 2021 – 8:42 pm
He has a pretty good chance, I reckon of getting the numbers that won’t touch Chris Minns with a barge pole.
Qld Labor has been careful about its public stance on renewables. It is doing a reasonable amount but it doesn’t over promote that fact. Plus Palasczuck is a fairly reassuring conservative figure. I think that’s the only way to remain competitive in regional Queensland seats at a State level, at least those in CQ and NQ. Do some of the environmental and identity left agenda but don’t make too much of it publicly.
If C@t and Earlwood are doing Ryan Park’s numbers you’d be putting your hard earned on Minns.
10 1/2 years in opposition and this is the result they dish up. Jodi loses Gloucester with an 11% swing having sat there on pre-poll all week. You can’t make this stuff up!!
There’s actually some good people in NSW ALP. Ryan Park being one. Jihad Dib being another. The problem that Labor have, imho, is twofold, and they are linked. Maybe threefold.
Firstly, Labor seem to be crap at developing resonating messaging.
Secondly, they don’t seem to be up with the latest campaign techniques in the same way that the Coalition are. Honestly, if I were running their campaigns I’d be trying to poach some of the Coalition team away somehow. I’m sure there’s one or two mercenaries who are only doing it for the money for the Liberals but who might like to go on the open market and work for Labor if the price was right.
Finally, Labor should be developing relationships with friendly media outlets, like the one that the Liberals have with 2GB. They don’t have a go to megaphone. If I were in charge I would be cultivating 2SM. Friendly Jordies has established a relationship with their morning shock jock and I would be trying to cement that in for Labor and giving 2SM exclusive access to the MPs. It may only be small bickies to begin with but if they provide that alternative then more people might start listening to 2SM and to them.
Look, the basic problem with the ALP is that it is tribal in the most petty political way and it is full of self-entitled wannabes of no particular talent other than embedded themselves like ticks into the party. Honestly, speaking of friendly jordies, I don’t know why he hasn’t already been drafted into a seat like Michael Daley’s because that guy had his run and lost and so should move out of the way for real talent to take his place.
Oh, actually, I do know why it hasn’t happened, their jealous of Jordan Shanks. He’s actually talented and plays the game better than them.
Moderate @ #75 Saturday, May 22nd, 2021 – 10:16 pm
I’m not doing anyone’s numbers. You, on the other hand, are continuing to prove you are a dick.
C@tmommasays:
Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 10:16 pm
Media is anti-Labor.
You don’t have this problem with WA and NZ.
Chris Minns does a regular weekly spot on 2GB with Barilaro on the Jim Wilson program – there’s one labor person who makes an effort to get a run on commercial media in Sydney.
Here’s an idea out of left field for the leadership – Hugh McDermott! MP for Prospect, got a huge swing to him in that seat in 2019. Good local member, extremely intelligent, and has an understanding of how to attract votes in outer Sydney electorates, which will be crucial next time, in 2023.
One thing is for certain: Jodi McKay isn’t resonating with the electorate, even taking into account that it’s tough for oppositions at the moment to get a run in this current covid influenced climate!
Oh FFS,
The Nationals won a safe National seat!
Braggers and panic merchants alike, rest assured Labor has the next NSW and Federal elections in the bag.
Buc and company enjoy your little weeny moment of joy.
George Megalogenis sees the problem for Labor with very clear eyes:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-s-in-a-race-to-get-re-elected-before-he-has-to-do-the-one-thing-he-s-stubbornly-avoided-20210520-p57ts4.html
Maybe Labor should give Latham another try as leader. Leave the Greens in their wake and outflank the lot of them from the Right. Landslide election win to Labor right. bloody. there.
The ALP is far too smart to bring back Latham. If they were stupid enough, The Greens` vote would at least double and the ALP would probably loose a lot of votes to the Libs as well.
Lose Tom, not loose.
You lose a game, you loosen a knot.
Why should intelligent people not get this?
It really annoys me, like people driving into petrol stations the wrong way.
If you have to ask then you are one of them.
Latham is not the answer when the next election will be won in suburban seats like Brisbane Reid Banks Boothsby Chisholm and Higgins.
Evening all. I won’t pretend this is a good result for Labor, it is a poor one. By bi-election standards (with a disgraced previous opponent) it is a shocker.
I cannot comprehend what Labor’s policy is on climate change and coal now. Clearly, neither can the people of Upper Hunter. Each way bets do not inspire confidence. But it would be unfair to only blame incoherent policy and division within ranks (Fitzgibbon’s support for the peaking plant).
Leadership weakness also has to be acknowledged. At this point, some Labor figures would do well to remember the example of Jacinda Ardern’s predecessor as NZ Labor leader. Neither McKay nor Albanese show signs of winning an election. Sorry, but I’d rather say that now and hope to see improvement than have to say it after another loss. Night all.
Just learned that McKay is from the seat and spent a week in her home town and the booth there was still bad. She’s toast – has to be.
McKay kept things at the current level despite all the negative press sent her way.
She’s the next Premier.
Been There says:
Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 11:41 pm
“McKay kept things at the current level”
What? The ALP lost almost a third of its FP vote. How is that keeping things at the current level?
Is there any chance labor not in the final 2? Could nats lose if this was the case
someone should start telling the coal miners the truth.
___________
The world’s seven largest advanced economies agreed on Friday to stop international financing of coal projects that emit carbon by the end of this year, and phase out such support for all fossil fuels, to meet globally agreed climate change targets.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-accused-of-being-out-of-step-on-climate-as-g7-agrees-to-stop-international-funding-for-coal
________
communiqué […] from the G7 Climate and Environment Ministers’ Meeting which took place virtually on 20 to 21 May 2021.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/g7-climate-and-environment-ministers-meeting-may-2021-communique
AV
Unfortunately they are not listening to the truth, until it will inevitably happen.
On these results the next Premier will be Jodi McKay.
Well done NSW Labor for containing all the Liberal bullshit!
Next election is a shoe in for NSW Labor.
This will translate on a Federal level as well.
BT – shades of Bob Ellis style delusion.
Bucephalus says:
Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 8:15 pm
-8.3 against the ALP in a by election. Aren’t they listening to the PBers slag the Premier?
———————————-
Labor may had a chance if it was against the liberal Party not the national Party
This is a bad result for Labor and a bad result for the Greens.
The combined Centre Left and Far Left vote lost 10.1% of the primary vote in a bye-election.
There are federal implications.
The first is that the Centre Left trying to win a majority of federal seats without the regions is a tough ask when it is being wedged by the Far Left trying to pick up inner urban seats.
The second is that regional seats are both issues-driven and culturally driven. The Far Left enjoys differentiating itself from the regional voters in order to pick up the inner urban seats.
The third is that house prices, share prices and COVID safety are an uneatable trifecta for most voters.
The fourth is that members of some cultural tribes will vote against their economic interests.
The fifth is that climate change and biodiversity are vote losers in the regions.
The sixth is that racism, nationalism, defencism, anti-wokism, and war drum beating work for many male voters.
Again it show why aren’t the election commission at state and federal level ,doing something about this political fraud of the National Party and Liberal partys claiming to be seperate political parties
Pasokification has begun. it’s the end days !!!
Boerwar
Your first, second, and sixth points are spot on.
“Been Theresays:
Sunday, May 23, 2021 at 12:31 am
On these results the next Premier will be Jodi McKay.
Well done NSW Labor for containing all the Liberal bullshit!
Next election is a shoe in for NSW Labor.
This will translate on a Federal level as well.”
Looks like a Labor bot or Lib bot sent to make fun of Labor plight
Blind Freddy knows that coal is on the way out big time. If we are still using it in 30 years time I would be very surprised. So our Hunter Valley friends have their heads in the sand and wont have a bar of switching to renewables because they are too complacent or too bloody lazy to consider what the future looks like without their beloved black gold. So why the hell isn’t Labor cutting through with their renewables policy. Labor has to start thinking big and convincing Australians that we are being left so far behind in the development and use of renewables that the world will move on and we’ll be left with a few solar panels on roofs and that will be it. I wont be here to see it but I fear for my Grand kids