YouGov: 56-44 to Labor in New South Wales

A new poll finding Labor on course for a clear win in New South Wales, plus news on preselection developments over recent weeks.

Today’s Sunday Telegraph has a YouGov poll suggesting Labor is headed for a comfortable win at the New South Wales state election on March 25, leading the Coalition 56-44 on two-party preferred and 39% to 33% on the primary vote, with the Greens on 11% and others on 17%. The poll also encompasses questions on the Dominic Perrotet Nazi costume scandal (67% say it won’t affect their vote, 20% say it will make them less likely to vote Coalition, and 8% demonstrate the problems with this sort of question by saying it makes them more likely to vote Coalition), cashless gaming cards (61% are in favour with 19% opposed), better party to deal with the cost of living (30% Labor, 25% Liberal, 26% neither) and issue salience (39% cost of living, 17% economy, 14% health, 10% each for housing affordability and environment). The poll was conducted January 14 to 17 from a sample of 1069.

Other recent election-related news:

• Labor-turned-independent MP Tania Mihailuk has joined One Nation and will run as the second candidate on the party’s Legislative Council ticket behind Mark Latham. Mihailuk quit the ALP in October, a month after being dumped from the shadow ministry after she raised allegations in parliament about links with Eddie Obeid, for which no evidence could be found my an independent investigation completed last week. Latham was elected in 2019 and will cut short his eight-year term to run again to improve the party’s chances of electing a second member.

• Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour has withdrawn from his plum position on Labor’s Legislative Council ticket, complaining of a “smear campaign” that included extensive reportage on his council expenses claims in the Daily Telegraph. However, Chris Minns said Asfour had made the right decision as the claims were unacceptable, and promised to reform council allowances if Labor wins the election. Tania Mihailuk’s breach with Labor, noted above, relates to accusations she made against Asfour in parliament over alleged dealings with Eddie Obeid, for which Asfour was cleared by an independent investigation earlier this month.

• Lawyer and factional conservative Katie Mullens is set to succeed the retiring Geoff Lee as Liberal candidate for Parramatta, emerging as the only preselection candidate standing following the withdrawal of Tanya Raffoul, chief-of-staff to David Elliott of the centre right. James O’Doherty of The Daily Telegraph reports that Raffoul’s decision was made “amid concerns any preselection vote would be tainted by members signed up to the Liberal Party with fake emails”, six local party members having been expelled from the party last month for allegedly using false emails to sign up members. Labor’s candidate is local lord mayor Donna Davis, who was chosen at the behest of Chris Minns without a ballot of the local membership.

• Chris Minns will face an independent challenge in his seat of Kogarah from Troy Stolz, a former auditor for ClubsNSW who is being sued by the organisation after he leaked a report disclosing failures by poker machine venues to comply with money laundering and counter-terrorism laws. Stolz has been critical of Minns’ nuanced response to Dominic Perrottet’s push for cashless gaming cards, as recommended by a NSW Crime Commission report into the use of poker machines for money laundering.

Max Maddison of The Australian reported on January 3 that Liberal Democrats members were in revolt over the disendorsement of the party’s lead Legislative Council candidate, former Liberal Party activist John Ruddick. The decision was carried by a four-to-three vote of the state executive over allegations of bullying and abuse, and will now be referred to a special general meeting before the end of the month.

• Labor’s new candidate for Ryde is Lyndal Howison, a teacher and former communications and marketing manager who ran unsuccessfully for the federal seat of Bennelong in 2016. The party’s original candidate, local doctor Franscisco Valencia, withdrew in December after an apprehended violence order was sought against him over an alleged domestic incident.

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.

131 comments on “YouGov: 56-44 to Labor in New South Wales”

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  1. Alex Smith at it again the SMH.

    Perrottet’s boost in popularity, which dropped to 28 per cent in August after the damaging John Barilaro New York trade appointment scandal, also followed his determined push to overhaul gambling in NSW through the introduction of a cashless gaming card.

    Where is the policy Dom? How can she keep writing this stuff.

  2. Labor is running on bread and butter issues and increasing livability it western Sydney. The Lib/SMH Coalition is running on a non-existent gambling “policy”. If we get into the campaign proper in late Feb and March and there is still no policy Perrottet will be shown up as a fraud. SMH won’t be able to polish a turd despite their best efforts.

  3. Another data point…

    NSW Labor has a winning lead eight weeks from the March 25 election but Premier Dominic Perrottet’s popularity has risen despite a torrid week in which he admitted to wearing a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday party.

    As NSW voters prepare to head to the polls in the tightest election contest since the Coalition swept to power in a landslide in 2011, the latest Resolve Strategic for the Herald shows Labor is ahead with a primary vote of 37 per cent.

    The Coalition’s primary vote is on 34 per cent, down from the 42 per cent secured when Gladys Berejiklian won in 2019. In a boost for Perrottet, his rating as preferred premier is the highest since he took over from the popular Berejiklian in November 2021.

    One-third of voters prefer Perrottet as premier over Labor leader Chris Minns, who is only just behind on 29 per cent. More than a third of voters remain undecided about which man they back.

    The Greens are on a primary vote of 12 per cent and in an ominous warning for the Liberals, independents are polling at 11 per cent.

    Independents are shaping to be a significant threat to the Coalition, with teal candidates hoping for a repeat of the federal election in NSW which saw a wave moderate Liberals defeated by progressive females in once blue-ribbon electorates.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-labor-in-election-winning-lead-but-perrottet-preferred-premier-20230124-p5cf5o.html

  4. Very true that Alexandra Smith of the SMH is an obvious pro Perrotet mouthpiece, funnily enough Chris Minns gets a better run in the Daily Telegraph although that newspaper and Sydney commercial TV and radio is still very much pro Dom. Minns I think is still invisible to a lot of voters,at least when the election campaign starts for real, Minns ought to get some more media coverage of his announcements, he is very much in the mould of the South Australian Premier.

  5. At least Alexandra Smith can accurately report which seats Teal backed Independents are running in and identifying other possible Independents that are likely to run.

    Notably no mention of Willoughby in either her news or opinion articles, which runs a bit counter to the intel Chris O’Keefe reckons he is getting.

  6. Sydney Morning Herald has removed Alex Smith’s “analysis” that sought to play down Labor’s chances from the front page of its website. Also the comments are no viewable anymore, perhaps because they largely ridiculed the article noting we saw similar commentary before the federal and Vic election.

    Labor may be in front but eight weeks is an eternity in NSW politics https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/labor-may-be-in-front-but-eight-weeks-is-an-eternity-in-nsw-politics-20230124-p5cf2e.html

  7. Sprocket at 9.10 am
    Mentions that Perrottet took over from the popular Gladys Berejiklian in Nov 21.
    Gladys might have been ‘Miss Popularity’ in NSW at the time but in QLD she was seen as The Wicked Witch From the South, especially when she frequently attacked Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on most aspects of her fighting off the Pandemic, for which she was rewarded with a third term with an increased majority.
    Gladys, thank heavens is gone and PAP has already got eight years behind her and still got two years to go at least.
    Now that’s POPULAR.

  8. As to Western Sydney I think if the new release areas are given the choice between a new mega hospital or a Metro they will take the Hospital every time. I was driving on the new widened Northern Rd between Xmas and new year and what I noticed is the dedicated bus lanes for much of the distance between Nepean Hospital and the airport site so if a “new” government is looking to pay for a new mega hospital the airport metro could be up for the cut as its Infrastructure Australia ROI numbers are not that stellar. With the corridor being handed over to freight for a freight hub near the airport.

  9. The NSW election is now coming into view, and it is looking increasingly likely that we in the Premier State will see a change of government on 25th March – this poll is largely in line with other polling late last year, and the Resolve poll in the Herald today.

    In one crucial way this is to be expected: the longer any party stays in office, the closer their next defeat becomes, and given that our current government has been in office for nearly 12 years, it’s no surprise that voters are looking around at the alternative. The key motivation for swinging voters is less about policy and more about the general vibe of whether it’s time for a change – or not yet. This election is looking increasingly like the former, and NSW Labor has got themselves together to the extent that they come across as a plausible alternative, which is really all they need to do at this stage of the electoral cycle.

    It’s not a done deal of course. The task is not an easy one for Labor – they need to win a net 9 seats and/or a 6% swing to claim a majority, though a 5-6 seat haul would probably be enough to put the ALP in the box seat to forma minority government.

    Looking at the pendulum, it looks very much that south-west and western Sydney will be where the election is won and lost – look out for seats like East Hills, Holsworthy, Penrith, Badgerys Creek, Camden, Riverwood, Winston Hills and Parramatta. Some of these margins are quite large (in the 6-8% range), but many of these areas were disproportionately hit harder by the 2021 lockdowns (and that hasn’t been forgotten), and on top of that many of these seats have also seen a huge population influx over the last decade or so; seats like Badgerys Creek and Camden were largely rural not so long ago, and so the voting cohort of many of these seats will be quite different from even 2019.

    My guess at this stage is a narrow Labor majority, say one or two seats, but things are still fluid enough for the undecideds to break decisively either way. However, you’d probably rather be Minns at this stage (notwithstanding that his own seat is in some danger) than Perottet.

  10. 98.6 – there’s no doubt at all that Gladys was broadly popular in NSW. She was seen as broadly competent leader, with a likeable personality, the sort of person that most people felt they new well. Like all of our state leaders during the worst of the pandemic, she turned up every day to dole out the bad news, and so she became part of the family for most. With all due respect to Queensland Buldgers, it doesn’t really matter what other states’ voters thought about her, because they didn’t get to vote for her.

    Now, speaking for myself, I am a rusted on Labor voter, and so she was never going to get my vote, but I can’t say that I actively disliked her (unlike, say, Morrison), and I think that largely true of NSW voters across the spectrum. Perottet, even though he is governing from the same Centre-Right positioning as Berejiklian (and indeed, Baird and O’Farrell before that), doesn’t have that same likeability factor that Gladys enjoyed.

  11. No-one asked me, but my predication is Labor will win 51 of the 92 seats, LNP, teals, greens and assorted rabble will share the rest.

    This is a very scientific analysis (55% of the seats to Labor).

    You heard it first, here!

  12. labor still does not have candadates in holesworvy and bageries creek got some unknown candadate in riverstone i think perottit comes a cros as arogent typical north shore liberal even his anti pockies thought bubble appears to be atempting to devide western sydney targiting labor seats claiming there high gambeling but leaving out the bush and the sity so perottit does not seem to ghave a high opinion of western sydney plus he has mixwed mesages on environment one for teel seats and one foor western sydney

  13. i agree with the coments minns all though he does not stand for a lot comes a cros as a nice guy and relatable like gladis perottit seems to have no life expirence a corear politican and atmempting tocreate a morale campaign on pockies which just re inforces imo he is a conservative christian and out of tuch with nsw gladis at least was relatively socialy progressive as the premier who pushed very hard for packers casenoo andincreased pockies all a cross the state toatempt to punish western sydney after his terible covid record just sends the mesige he is no moderit desbite the best atempts of the herald how ccan he look after envirotnment when he wwants toraise the waragamba dam wall and does not care about plants

  14. even on that ishue he has left it so late to come up with a policy that the publick have moved on much to the frustration of the herald who areunhappy they cant save perrottit the herald is basickly campaigning like news corp in stead of reporting the news there actively campaigning for the government choosing an ishue most people dont care about cost of living rising toles energy bills lack of school teachers matter more to the averige family then the heralds political jernalist smith who does not seem to know what the voters care about

  15. maybi alix smith is looking for a job with the liberals poast election that could be the only explanation for her columns she must want to be aadvisor to t he next liberal opposition leader desbite all the evidence the anti pockies stunt not working yes the opinion poles back it now but same with grey hound racing its time costellow gets removed as nine chairman it is obveous he must be influencingthe heralds pro liberal reporting desbite evry bit of evidence being against smiths reporting even smmethurst tried to be some what ballenced

  16. smith seems to just report what ever the premiers office sends her with out actualy checking it no research required you dont have to check weather it is true if you get a story of perottit just poast itlike herthe only liberal premier that have won fromm opposition are asgin griner and ofarell

  17. Hogoaugogo ,who did not vote for Gladys, but said says it seems the voters of NSW saw Gladys as broadly competent with a likeable personality and was the sort of person that most people felt they new well.
    After Gladys’s ICAC revelations, most of those voters would have realised what they saw in her was all BS.
    Bring on the ICAC findings!

  18. With Labor well in front in all the polls, now is not the time to pussyfoot around. With exactly two months out from election day, if I were Minns and the Labor Party I would mention in every interview and every press release and at every opportunity, the downfall of Premiers Gladys Berejiklian, Barry O’Farrell and the 11 Liberal MPs, including ministers who had to resign due to ICAC inquiries.

  19. i find it strange that matt kean is spockin about as a nsw liberal faction leader how ever at least this election he has litle success actualy getting candadates preselected his two friends peter poulus is half way down the ticket and cris rath who is atempting to be the newl liberal attack dogis left with an unwinable spot where as alex hawke friend mclaron jones her staffer along with an other right winger gets the safist seats plus kean failed in evry lower house seat such as davidson maybi hawke is good at numbers

  20. thesmh isgeting desperate with there anti pockies stunt there triying to build up some narative atempting to remind voters about the last labor government but to pick a ishue that is contravercial is a strange move the p papper seems frustrated the voters are not buying there pro perrottit spin maybi alix smith could start reporting on politics in stead of comentating mins is focusing on main stream ishues cost of living teacher shortages housing perottit is just triying culture wars how everhe cant get any policy through his cabenit for so long that no one cares about the s mh stunt

  21. people have short memories labor needs to go more agressive walt secord was a good attack dog at pointing out the liberals own record but minns does not realy have a simelar current shadow minister apart from rose jackson who could be the attack dog or maybi carr or houssos the liberals including hazard praisingthe mp john sidoti with icac finding a gainst saying he is a great mp should also be mentiond

  22. no body picked up on hazards coments this is a senyor nsw minister praising a mp that made findings against and yet no mediacoverige okay it was over a hospital but still the nsw government is so bad that even mclimont started writting articles against barilarow in stead of re hashing the last labor government

  23. i think sidotie and ward are more relivant then the 11 liberals under ofarell but the liberals suport integrity so much there candadate replaceing sidoti is his former staffer who is deputy mayor to a mayor who labor would not allow to run

  24. Labor should surely preselect Tu Le in Cabramatta or Fairfield they would be fools if they don’t.

    Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. Apparently Labor are going to open up a preselection in Cabramatta and Tu Le is expected to stand. But apparently she is not favored to win. The preselection is going to take place but if Le loses you can’t then whinge about the result.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11593993/Tu-Le-run-Cabramatta-Labor-allow-rank-file-vote-NSW-parliament-seat.html

  25. As for Cabramatta, while Tú Lê might be regarded by a lot of people outside of The area. as the candidate who should be preselected to run, and she has apparently put her hand up to have a go through a rank & file ballot, there’s apparently still a lot of push back – from local factional warlords, who were KK’s supporters. Some of these have their own ambitions, but were not quite popular to the local communities, particularly within their own ethnic community. Rumours is that deals are being canvassed with strong local non-ALP forces so these warlords can run as independent/s against Tú Lê should she win the preselection. Interesting seat to watch. It is believed that which ever way the chip falls, the seat will be marginal. That can only be good for local residents

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