The Resolve Monitor feature on the Nine Newspapers sites that records the polling conducted for it by Resolve Strategic has been updated with new state voting intention numbers for New South Wales (hat tip to commenter nadia88 for pointing this out), and it ends a long run of soft polling for the first term Labor government in crediting it with a commanding primary vote lead over the Coalition of 38% (up five on the last result in April) to 32% (down four), with the Greens up two to 13%. I would estimate this as implying a two-party Labor lead of at least 57-43, compared with 54.3-45.7 at the March 2023 election. Oddly, Chris Minns’ lead over Mark Speakman as preferred premier has actually narrowed, in from 40-15 to 35-16, with a remarkably high uncommitted result.
In the absence of a report (so far at least) in the Sydney Morning Herald, nothing can be related concerning field work dates and sample size. The normal practice for this series is that monthly national polls and federal results published accordingly, with state results for New South Wales and Victoria appearing bi-monthly on an alternating basis, combining the samples from two monthly surveys (similarly, a quarterly result is also usually published for Queensland). However, the Resolve Strategic series has only just resumed post-election with the poll published on Sunday, so it’s unclear if the latest poll from the normal sample of 1000 combined over two months.
UPDATE: The result has now been reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, which says it was conducted from a sample of 1054 from July 13 to 18. This was presumably also the survey period of the federal poll, which had a larger-than-usual national sample of 2311.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of NSW state politics. The open thread for general discussion is here.
Minns starting to find his feet. Albo effect continuing to have the country under Labor moving forward. Speakman completely irrelevant to the community.
I predict a smashing Labor win in 2027 and the country finally moves out of the post-Liberal doldrums as Minns secures his second of at least three terms with a proper majority, as Labor retains SA & Victoria despite the best effort of the far-right Murdoch shitrags.
Minns will lead Labor to at least 55+ seats in 2027. Could be over 60. Miranda, Holsworthy, Terrigal, Oatley, Ryde, Kiama, Tweed, Drummoyne, Winston Hills are the most obvious Labor gains. That gets Labor to 54 seats already.
I suspect Upper Hunter and Goulburn will stay with the coalition if you believe on trends based on federal figures.
Epping and Lane Cove will be tossups, Labor could win them which would take them above 55 seats. Manly should be lost to an Independent.
Badgerys Creek and Hawkesbury will only fall if It’s a Labor landslide of 60+ seats, And I suspect Castle Hill and Kellyville will be marginal but like Mitchell federally, I suspect they won’t fall but would be marginal.
Hornsby also could go to an Independent, But I don’t see Labor getting it.
Edit: If Kylea Tink runs in North Shore, she would be well placed to win it off the Libs. I encourage her to run, I think she would be a great addition to the NSW Parliament.
Considering the coverage of NSW politics and government has been entirely negative, i don’t understand where a poll bounce would come from?
I think voters factor in the negative coverage and basically ignore it.
For about 10 years both the Melbourne main newspapers have been attacking state Labor, yet Labor keeps winning elections, sometimes increasing their majority.
Voters look at tangible changes made (ie: infrastructure improvements etc) and put aside the “gotcha” headlines on the front pages.
The Minns gov’t – I assume – is tackling major infrastructure issues in Sydney & surrounds, and this is what voters want. You know, a freeway here, a set of traffic lights there, grade seperation of train lines from roadways to make things safer. Costs money, and takes time, but when the job is done voters see the actual benefit and tend to forget aboout some silly gotcha headline which is usually all sexed up to highlight a normal human blooper.
I’d say as well, a lot of people now get their news from social media feeds and generally avoid trad media such as the SMH/2GB drive/Daily Tele etc etc.
Another thing – WFH.
Minns led the charge around Aug 2024 to dismantle the WFH arrangements. I’m sure this would have impacted his polling, and going by the Resolve graph, it did take a dive.
It would appear that by March this year he had tailored that down, and I understand there is now a “sort of policy” to allow 50-50 office/WFH.
Link: https://www.afr.com/politics/transport-the-exception-to-return-to-office-push-says-minns-20250509-p5lxyn
A lot of workers, especially women with carers responsibilities, don’t want to have to frock up and waste time on the train or driving etc, when they can get the job done at home, and have spare time to say – take a meal around to mum, or clean her house. I don’t WFH, but I can imagine a lot of workers will fight tooth and nail to retain the ability to do so.
Chris Minns does well in front of the TV cameras and on radio, he’s a likeable sort of bloke, and his government on the whole is steady despite a few non-performing ministers. The main problem he faces in the next couple of years is the housing situation in Sydney, which is dire, and every proposal he comes up with to alleviate it is instantly shot down or criticised by one interest group or another.
It helps NSW Labor a lot that the Opposition are basically invisible – Mark Speakman has virtually no profile and even on usually Liberal friendly 2GB, he’s not a factor, whereas Minns has a weekly spot with Ben Fordham.
I think too that the association the state Liberals have with Mark Latham isn’t doing them any favours either.
I’ll add that you wouldn’t know it’s a minority government running NSW, Labor rarely has any trouble getting legislation passed by the lower house at least, the agreement with Alex Greenwich and one or two others is iron clad and the other independents are mostly of a progressive hue.
I don’t think there is an agreement with Alex Greenwich, is there? Wasn’t it with Piper and McGirr – there was another but – it was a three name itle that sounded like a legal firm but not sure Greenwich was there. Happy to be proven wrong.
Lane Cove is my sleeper for the next state election. Hard right Anthony Roberts not a good fit for that seat anymore and with a Labor Federal MP, the game has changed in that area.
Kylea Tink lives in North Willoughby, so don’t know why she’d run for the seat of North Shore. I can’t possibly see what she would bring to State Parliament. At least Tim James in Willoughby has been a local his whole life and has deep connections to the area – you have to say that about him.
I suspect Minns realised after seeing how badly Dutton got thrashed for stealing his WFH policy this year that he’d stuffed it and quietly backed away, and is now seeing the benefits of losing his most unpopular policy.
Key update:
Definitely True 8
Probably True 3
Probably False 2
Definitely False 1
7 false keys needed for opposition 2PP win.
If it was today:
Definitely True 10
Probably True 1
Probably False 2
Definitely False 1
Padlock update:
Definitely True: 4
Probably True: 3
Possibly True: 6.298
Being Kind of Honest but Also Lying by Omission: 2
Possibly False: 12
Probably False: 4.5
Definitely False: 8
7.24 true padlocks needed for the Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers to lose the 3PP
Hi Arange,
With keys No.10 & 11, when converting to state from Federal , do you substitute military for police, or emergency services. I gather you’ve got both these keys sitting as true atm.
Key No.1 – I gather you could confidently mark this as True now, given the half way mark for Minns is upon us.
These numbers are what I would have expected when Minns was in his honeymoon phase rather than now-the LNP primary vote seems to have really fallen away both federally and in NSW this year. Labor already holds almost all seats in the Hunter and Central Coast, so not a lot would change on these numbers, but there would still be a few seats to watch. Terrigal is the only Liberal seat in the region, but the margin is slim, and Labor would fancy their chances. Greg Piper is deeply entrenched as a progressive Independent in Lake Macquarie-if he retires, will it revert to Labor or could Piper endorse an independent successor? And I think Tim Crakanthorp could be vulnerable to an independent challenge in Newcastle, given his ICAC troubles. An ex-Labor independent knocked over the long-term Labor mayor Nuatali Nelmes at the last Newcastle City Council election.
nadia88says:
Thursday, July 24, 2025 at 2:38 pm
“With keys No.10 & 11, when converting to state from Federal , do you substitute military for police, or emergency services. I gather you’ve got both these keys sitting as true atm.”
I’m not really sure what to substitute the military-related keys for, at least right now. Maybe something more localised like, as you say, police.
I personally have the foreign/military success key as Definitely True, cause of the Trump Effect, and the no foreign/military failure key as probably true.
“Key No.1 – I gather you could confidently mark this as True now, given the half way mark for Minns is upon us.”
I actually marked it as probably false, since I only looked at the exact halfway point of the term. Maybe it could be marked as probably true instead.
Yes arange – per Key 1 – you are correct. Halfway mark would’ve been the polls around Feb/Mar this year. Misread from me.
nadia88says:
Thursday, July 24, 2025 at 4:29 pm
“Yes arange – per Key 1 – you are correct. Halfway mark would’ve been the polls around Feb/Mar this year. Misread from me”
Ok. No worries.
Good result for the Greens, up 2%
Liberals collapsing – good.
Does anyone know where the Green vote in Sydney is strongest. Ie: inner city or elsewhere
Rebecca & nadia.
Agreed, wfh was a Minns fiasco policy. Glad he sniffed the breeze and backtracked.
Also, when do the Vic figures come out?
I think Jenny Leong will lose her seat if Minns pulls a Miles and makes transport cheaper and other policies the greens have longed pushed for. When Labor introduces Greens backed policies, it convinced progressive voters that Labor is the better option if you want real progressive policies.
Leong also isn’t without controversey, She infamously yelled at the speaker Greg Piper (Its on Youtube) because speaker Piper rightly had protesters removed from NSW parliament last year, and didn’t allow people in the speakers gallery. Leong lost it and argued and started yelling at him, which rightly prompted him to ask her to leave the chamber.
Just like Mad Max learnt in Griffith, these tactics of yelling, kicking a fuss, and attending rallies does not garner you more support, it losses you support. and Leong will learn that on the night of March 2027 election.
Vlad,
Greens vote coalesces around the inner south and inner west of Sydney (Basically the Federal Divisions of Grayndler & Sydney). There is also a Green presence on the north coast (just south of the Goldie).
When Resolve is next updated federally (late August), we should then have the Vic state based primaries a couple of days later (similar to this week).
I’d say there will be quite a correction to the previous Victorian figures, which had the Libs at 41% and Labor at 24%. We will see in 4 weeks.
Daniel T
When Labor introduces Greens backed policies, it convinced progressive voters that Labor is the better option if you want real progressive policies.
++++++++++++
Have no issue with this – Greens exist to get Labor to do left wing policies so if they do them and deny the Greens a reason to exist – great!
But Labor have a long way to go before this happens.
The main SMH article is now online.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/how-the-diabolical-federal-election-result-has-hit-the-nsw-liberals-20250722-p5mgz9.html
How the diabolical federal election result has hit the NSW Liberals
By Alexandra Smith
July 24, 2025 — 5.34pm
The NSW Liberals have been hit by the aftershocks of the Coalition’s disastrous federal election result, with the state opposition trailing the Minns government for the first time in 18 months.
In the first voter survey since the May election, when the federal Coalition was decimated across the country, the NSW Liberals’ primary vote has slumped to 32 per cent, down from 36 per cent.
May I propose part of the improvement of Minns electoral fortunes may be thanks to the RTBU who kicked themselves an own goal in respect to future metro construction and retention of the existing Sydney Trains Network.
I have NEVER heard of an RTBU member arguing that there is value in keeping the Sydney Trains Network in government ownership and operation and value in keeping what is left of the old NSWGR as the subject matter expert in rail transport planning operation and delivery in NSW.
Nobody has ever said or pointed out that the reason Melbourne has a much more extensive urban Freeway network than Sydney is that the old NSWGR in the 1960’s delivered a doubling of capacity for negligible capital cost by going Double Deck and built upon what the NSWGR did in the 1920’s by increasing the loading gauge when electrification happened. When you look at what the DMR proposed in the 1960’s to what got built is very minuscule compared to the modest NSWGR program of Double Deck suburban cars which was just normal fleet replacement.
Looks like a by-election is likely.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-25/nsw-mp-gareth-ward-found-guilty-sexual-abuse/105552556
The below commenter clearly doesn’t live in Sydney.
But the Minns government will likely get credit for improved livability flowing from the massive transport improvements (The Metros, the two new Light Rail lines, the M4 and M5 extensions as well as the M8 and even around Western Sydney Airport, as well as others) that were initiated by the previous Coalition government.
“The Minns gov’t – I assume – is tackling major infrastructure issues in Sydney & surrounds, and this is what voters want. You know, a freeway here, a set of traffic lights there, grade seperation of train lines from roadways to make things safer. Costs money, and takes time, but when the job is done voters see the actual benefit and tend to forget aboout some silly gotcha headline which is usually all sexed up to highlight a normal human blooper.”
Does anyone know if Ward’s conviction automatically and immediately forfeits his right to sit in the house? As he will no doubt appeal, will that delay the seemingly inevitable boot up the bum?
Halfback:
I have no idea what the actual law is re the NSW parliament, but I would have to assume a criminal conviction of that nature would force a sitting MP to resign.
Any probable byelection in the seat of Kiama would probably be won by Labor, especially if the candidate from the 2023 state election who almost won the seat stands again for the Chris Minns ALP team.
A member’s seat is vacated if the member:
* fails to attend the House for one entire session
* is convicted of an infamous crime, or of an offence punishable by imprisonment for life or for a
term of 5 years or more
In relation to what is considered to be an infamous crime, in 1940 the Court of Disputed Returns
argued that an “infamous crime” depended upon the nature of the crime committed rather than the terms of the offence and whether it is “contrary to the faith credit and trust of mankind”.
In June 2000 the Constitution Amendment Act 2000 was passed to make provision for a member
convicted of certain offences to lodge an appeal within a prescribed period and not have their seat
vacated.
This is different to expulsion:
The leading case is Armstrong v Budd (1969) 71 SR (NSW) 386. In that case the NSW Court of Appeal held:
That in addition to the powers specifically conferred by the Constitution Act 1902 , the common law confers on each of the Houses of Parliament such powers as are necessary to the existence of the particular House and to the proper exercise of the functions it is intended to execute.
That in a proper case a power of expulsion for reasonable cause may be exercised, provided the circumstances are special and its exercise is not a cloak for punishment of the offender.
The grounds for expulsion suggested by the Solicitor General and accepted by the NSW Court of Appeal were as follows:
The Houses of the Legislature of New South Wales have inherent or implied power to exclude temporarily or permanently by suspension or expulsion members whose conduct is resolved to be such:
(1) As to render them unfit to perform their high responsibilities and functions in the Council as Members.
(2) As would prevent the Council and other Members thereof from conducting its deliberations and exercising its functions with mutual respect, trust and candour
(3) As would cause to be suspect its honour and the good faith of its deliberations.
(4) As would tend to bring the Council into disrepute and would lower its authority and dignity unless it was so preserved and maintained (at 396).
Unsurprisingly, Anne Twomey made a video on this a few days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIOFIjF9D0A
”
Halfbacksays:
Friday, July 25, 2025 at 3:27 pm
Does anyone know if Ward’s conviction automatically and immediately forfeits his right to sit in the house? As he will no doubt appeal, will that delay the seemingly inevitable boot up the bum?
”
Halfback
It is not automatic disqualification because it doesn’t come under the category of serious crime.
That is reason Minns asking Ward to resign.
I think you are disqualified only if you are in jail for 5 or more years (I could be wrong about it)
Thanks Ghost, Sausage and Ven – very informative. So, according to AT, it all comes down to the proper functioning of the house. As Ward is an indi, has no support from the major parties and the govt has a safe majority, ipso facto his vote is not essential in the current circumstances. So he may stay. Let’s hope for all concerned that he does resign before the names ‘Ward’ and ‘Orkopoulos’ are spoken together. BTW, does anyone know how many former MPs are doing time currently? Is there still an ALP ‘Ward’, I ask cheekily.
Hello NSW Laborites,
Is anyone here going to go to the Labor For Ending Homelessness gig at The Forest Lodge Hotel on the 8th of August to listen to the talk by Tim Sneesby? If so I’d be interested to know so I can catch up with you on the night. 🙂
Minns is a pretty boy and a very good media performer. He empathises with everyone.
He’s virtually a moderate liberal who is beholden to the usual vested NSW interests (ie pokies reform).
Opposition leader Speakman is not a bad bloke but he just doesn’t cut through.
He’s probably keeping the seat warm for former channel 9 newsreader Kellie (I love high rise development, just not in my electorate) Sloane.