Resolve Strategic: Coalition 38, Labor 38, Greens 8 in NSW

The first major NSW state poll since the start of the campaign finds a strong gain for the Coalition at the expense of the Greens and independents.

The Sydney Morning Herald breaks the New South Wales election campaign poll drought with a result from Resolve Strategic that suggests the momentum of the campaign has been in favour of the Coalition. Whereas the previous poll of February 22 to 26 was unique among the polls at the start of the campaign in crediting Labor with a strong primary vote, this one has them both at 38%, with the Coalition up six and Labor steady. Making way for the improving Coalition are the Greens, down three to 8%, and independents, down five to 8%, with others up one to 8%. UPDATE: Gorks in comments makes a point I should have picked up on: that “Resolve does this every election where final poll shows massive primary vote changes because they show the ballot paper in survey questions”. No two-party preferred is provided, but I would roughly calculate this at a bit over 52-48 in favour of Labor.

Dominic Perrottet also records a solid improvement in his personal ratings, his combined very good and good result up seven from the previous poll to 52%, while his poor plus very poor rating is down eight to 32%. Chris Minns is up three on very good plus good to 46% and down two on poor plus very poor to 26%, with 28% remaining undecided. Perrottet’s lead as preferred premier increases from 38-34 to 40-34. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Sunday from a sample of 1000.

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.

238 comments on “Resolve Strategic: Coalition 38, Labor 38, Greens 8 in NSW”

Comments Page 1 of 5
1 2 5
  1. On this poll you’d think the Coalition has a reasonable chance of clinging on, with Labor only winning two or three seats.

    However, I think you have to mentally discount any poll that has the Greens on less than 10% as suffering from sampling bias. Also, a gain of six points on the primaries by the Coalition is implausible.

    But as I commented yesterday, $1.13 for Labor is nuts.

  2. This is a curious one. Speed limits are generally imposed according to road conditions with safety a primary concern. If a higher speed limit is appropriate, why hasn’t this been done before and why only for Western Sydney drivers? It makes the front page of the DT.

    How Sydney speed limit change will affect your daily commute
    A new election pledge will put Western Sydney drivers in the fast lane, with the Premier vowing to shave valuable time off the weekly commute.

  3. Historyintime says:
    Monday, March 20, 2023 at 9:15 am
    On this poll you’d think the Coalition has a reasonable chance of clinging on, with Labor only winning two or three seats.

    However, I think you have to mentally discount any poll that has the Greens on less than 10% as suffering from sampling bias. Also, a gain of six points on the primaries by the Coalition is implausible.
    ——————————————
    If accurate on election day
    lib/nats combined primary 38% is decrease of 3.6% (41.6% 2019)
    Labor 38% is a increased of 4.7% (33.3% 2019)

    Depends on how you read the swing against the lib/nats
    Lib/nats currently on 45 seats likely to lose up to 7-8 seats

  4. Citizen
    It was an issue in Western Sydney whenI lived there 25 years ago.
    Then the M4, which was an expressway had a limit of 90 and all other expressways were 110. People used to grumble about it but wasn’t really a big issue.
    Don’t know what the situation is now but i know the government has been spending a motza putting “smart” technology on the road

  5. Resolve does this every election where final poll shows massive primary vote changes because they show the ballot paper in survey questions.

  6. If the two party preferred swing is 4 per cent I could see the Coalition hanging on by keeping Upper Hunter, Tweed, maybe Goulburn and the ALP only winning 3 seats in Sydney. That would put the ALP on 41 seats and in a tricky situation to assemble a minority government. If the Coalition truly is on 38 per cent you’d think it has to be in with a chance, maybe 30 per cent of forming government.

  7. Edit: getting behind the pay wall I see that this is to raise the limit in the new westconnex tunnel to 90.
    Interesting – I thought all NSW tunnels were limited to 80 after a horrendous accident in Melbourne about 20 years ago.

  8. I travelled along the M8 from UNSW to Homebush last Wednesday night.

    I am a Volvo driver in spirit but keeping to 80 in a four laner where there is no one around was challenging.

  9. The key figure in the resolve poll is 38/38 primary which means the coalition is not gaining from opv. The green preferences will flow much more strongly to Labor then right preferences to the coalition and every non Labor seat will impact differently. The pendulum outside very safe seats does not predict the result

  10. It’s concerning that the Coalition appears to be gaining momentum as the voting period kicks off, and fits with my personal vibe view that Perottet will squeak back into office via a minority government. I just don’t get the sense that this is a “throw the bums out” election, but given how low-key everything has been, who really knows?.

    That said, there are numerous wild cards at play which make predicting the election outcome next to impossible. First of all is the close polling – no polls have really shown any clear advantage to one side or the other; Labor just ahead (maybe), but not by enough to feel at all confident. Then there is optional preferential voting – how will the 25%+ of voters who don’t vote for one of the majors break? Will they preference one side or the other, or will they just exhaust? That factor alone could will be crucial. Finally, it seems likely that the election will won or lost in western Sydney. Is there any lingering resentment about the 2021 lockdowns? And what about the huge demographic changes in seats like Leppington and Camden? Seats like this were largely rural a decade ago, but are now full of housing developments. No one really knows anything about how these people will vote.

    For an election with a pretty desultory campaign, there is much to excite those psephologists among us, and Saturday night should provide some interesting viewing.

  11. Scott @ 9.31 Says:
    If accurate on election day
    lib/nats combined primary 38% is decrease of 3.6% (41.6% 2019)
    Labor 38% is a increased of 4.7% (33.3% 2019)

    Depends on how you read the swing against the lib/nats
    Lib/nats currently on 45 seats likely to lose up to 7-8 seats.
    ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
    Je suis Scott.

  12. I don’t put much stock in late polls with unexplained methodology changes.

    My predictions:

    Labor government. Most likely a thin majority. As this is NSW politics, expect them to be very polite to the crossbench to sandbag for losing MPs during the term.
    Greens on 10%, not 8%.
    Teals will look good when primary votes come in. Then OPV will kill them.
    Despite saving them from the Teals, by the end of the night, the Coalition will vow to abolish OPV and go back to mandatory full preferences, as a decent number of seats go to Labor due to OPV as the right wing vote exhausts while the Greens preferences mostly don’t.

  13. citizen says:
    Monday, March 20, 2023 at 11:48 am
    I presume that nobody will be predicting Antony to call the election at 7:30?
    ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
    How about 8.00?

  14. All of the comments about election outcomes seems to miss the critical point. The North Shore (especially Wakehurst, Pittwater, Manly and Willoughby) is highly likely to vote massively for independent candidates. This will mean that the Liberals will lose seats they currently hold to Independents and not Labor. This means that for Labor to win they need to take seats off the Libs in Western Sydney. And they only need 3 or 4 to change and they will be the Government.

  15. Is Alex Greenwich actually left of centre? He gives off inner city Liberal voting businessmen vibes. Labor should not presume his support, even if they win more seats than the LNP.

  16. Voice Endeavour at 12.04 pm

    According to Antony Green’s calculations before the 2011 election, Labor had won only two seats due to OPV (Bathurst and Gladesville in 1995, both vital in deciding that election) over 30 years. See:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-02-13/the-record-of-optional-preferential-voting-in-nsw-since-1980/9389684

    In some seats your last comment may be pertinent. E.g. Goulburn, where there was a 24% difference between the exhaustion rate for Greens and Shooters voters, but the Green exhaust rate was still nearly 40%. See:

    https://www.abc.net.au/dat/news/elections/nsw/2023/guide/NSW2019_PrefFlowTables.pdf (Goulburn is toward bottom of p 8)

    More important in Goulburn will be the primary votes, i.e. how far Labor can reduce the 9% gap in 2019, which will partly depend on what happens with the 9% of people who voted, largely as a protest, for Hanson in 2019.

    Note that the Hanson/Latham franchise is a factor only in western Sydney. Of the key seats they are standing only in: Penrith, Holsworthy, Parramatta and Camden. They are not standing even in Upper Hunter.

    Labor could well win those 4 seats, plus others in western Sydney, but the cause will be an increase in Labor’s primary vote, as reflected in the polls.

  17. 98.6 says:
    Monday, March 20, 2023 at 12:02 pm

    Je suis Scott.
    —————————————-

    There are 2 swings going against the lib/nats

    1- The swing against the Lib/nats is 3.6%
    2. The swing to Labor of 4.7%

    The lib/nats are not going to gain any seats but lose enough seats not to be able to form any government

  18. This poll seems to have been skewed to the over fifties.
    There’s no way the Greens will poll only 8%. They must have missed a significant portion of the younger demographic.
    Nevertheless I did have the feeling that the momentum was moving more towards Perrottet.
    It’s not impossible that it could be almost a dead heat for the Coalition and Labor.
    The kingmakers may be independents and Greens. If so, let’s hope they strike a hard bargain to get some greater action on homelessness and the climate crisis.

  19. “Following the incident, the Chinese-built catamaran ferry was removed from regular passenger service and is now docked at the Balmain shipyard.”

    Dear oh dear. Could the Libs possibly have hoped for worse than this 5 days before an election ?

  20. Only on this site, can a 6% rise in the LNP vote be variously charachetrised as a disaster and election losing, or have posters questioning the methodology of Resolve – which curiously no one cdid when it was 38/32 ALP.

    And by the way Scott there aren’t 2 separate swings at play. There’s a swing away from a party, and a swing to the alternate party. But amazingly, it actually constitutes the same swing.

  21. Only on this site, can a 6% rise in the LNP vote be variously charachetrised as a disaster and election losing, or have posters questioning the methodology of Resolve – which curiously no one cdid when it was 38/32 ALP.

    When Resolve switched to ballot paper questionnaires at the federal election, its result from independents fell from 9% to 4%. With the same thing done here, it’s fallen from 13% to 8%. Yet the SMH report tells us independents have “taken a hit”. To the extent that it’s “only on this site” that you will see it pointed out what’s really happened here, then good for this site.

  22. Scott aren’t you worried about the steps the corrupt media might take to silence you ?

    Who is that person sitting in the car in the trench coat and pork pie hat outside your bed sit?

    Stay safe!

  23. Barely a week goes by where one of these cheap and nasty overseas built floating piles of junk procured by the Liberal Party breaks down. Minns has been campaigning hard on this. Build here in NSW.

  24. Lars Von trier instead of these dull moments between federal and state/ territory
    elections, election campaigns are good, they should happen more often , it fires every one up,

  25. If you are aspiring ALP politician and hope your achievements will exceed your abilities, all roads lead to Maroubra.

  26. Oakeshott Country says:
    Monday, March 20, 2023 at 1:53 pm
    I don’t think a ferry breaking down on the Sunday night run to Manly is necessarily a game changer

    No but the overhead wires falling on a city bound train at Oatley on Friday afternoon 10/3 caused massive problems that day and Saturday across the network. Sydney Trains is supposed to have been “untangling” the network so that a disruption on one line has minimal effect on other lines. Clearly the lines haven’t been untangled enough and the situation was made worse by concurrent trackwork on the line to Bondi Junction and the main western line somewhere between Flemington and Granville.

    A lot of people would have experienced the massive disruption that occurred across the network on the Saturday on top of the previous week’s computer/communications failure and many earlier problems. Coming from Canberra we only had a sample [edit: spelling] of what must be extremely annoying for regular Sydney commuters.

  27. The federal liberal party in question time, must not want the NSWLib/nats government to be retained , they have gave Albanese a dixer question about NSW power price rise

  28. Well there has been no Michael Daley style dirt on Minns or Perrottet in today’s papers. Looks like they both may be safe on that front.

  29. Hey Bludgers, long time reader/lurker and infrequent poster here.

    Looking at Oz politics from across the Dutch, I mean Ditch, is always fun. (So many elections for starters, perfect for politics junkies!)

    Anyway, my prediction for what (little) it’s worth is a minority ALP government. Based purely on erosion, a near universal law of politics… after three terms and endless ups and downs, surely this govt is on the nose?

    But in any case I’ll be kicking back with a large bottle or two of Cooper’s stout (love their beer, pass on their politics) and listening to Sir Anthony and co on Saturday night.
    Best of luck to the forces of good, and stay safe all 🙂

  30. Voice Endeavour says:
    Monday, March 20, 2023 at 12:04 pm
    I don’t put much stock in late polls with unexplained methodology changes.

    My predictions:

    Labor government. Most likely a thin majority.
    ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
    I’ve put you down on the Labor to win list.
    I think your the tenth to do so.
    Still no takers on Liberals to win.

  31. S. Simpson says:
    Monday, March 20, 2023 at 3:07 pm
    Well there has been no Michael Daley style dirt on Minns or Perrottet in today’s papers. Looks like they both may be safe on that front.
    ———————————————————-

    Perrottet is likely to quit state politics after this saturday , Perrottet may have a few options to enter federal parliament ,as a liberal party senator or maybe a surprise liberal party candidate for the federal seat of cook, or other NSW federal seats if they suddenly come available

  32. From north of the border, this election campaign looks like resignation more than competition.
    the Greens will get 11% + so put me down for a 3 seat Labour majority please.
    Cheers.

  33. If there was to be dirt thrown at Minns, I think it would be the money that came his way in past years from Chinese businessmen with alleged links to the Communist Party. These events are all well-known and easily found through Google, and Minns has said he regrets taking the money. Of course Chinese money has flowed to other politicians and other parties too, but if the LNP and Murdoch had planned a hit on Minns, that would have been it.

    I don’t agree that the Libs will lose a lot of seats in northern Sydney to independents. Under OPV, the independent has much less chance of coming from second on ALP and Green preferences to overtake the Lib. Plus issues like a Federal ICAC and the sham policies of the previous Federal government to address climate change, which helped the teals federally, are less important at this election. I’m hoping I’m wrong, but my guess is zero wins by independents off the Libs in northern Sydney.

  34. From the DT:

    ‘Underhanded deal with Greens’ sparks Coalition rift
    Nationals MP Wes Fang has slammed the Liberal party over election material which encourages voters to direct preferences to Greens above Labor in inner city seats including Balmain.

  35. “No two-party preferred is provided, but I would roughly calculate this at a bit over 52-48 in favour of Labor.”…. Which is encouraging….

    “Perrottet’s lead as preferred premier increases from 38-34 to 40-34. “… Which I can live with very happily, given the usual far greater exposure of the Premier in the media….

  36. I’m thinking NSW would be happy with a Labor + Greens government. Put me down for 44 Labor + 2 Greens + 2 Independents, who guarantee Supply and Confidence. All of them. Greens included. No shenanigans.

  37. If there is an election guessing competition on, put me down for:

    Coalition: 43
    ALP: 43
    Crossbench: 7 (2 Greens, 3 indies, 2 SFF)

    Anyone’s guess who the crossbench will back!

    Of course, what I’d like to see would be quite different – something like ALP 50, Coalition 35, x-bench 8 would be nice!

Comments Page 1 of 5
1 2 5

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *