The Daily Telegraph reports (though seemingly not online) that latest DemosAU poll of state voting intention in New South Wales has the Coalition bouncing back five points to 25%, mostly at the expense of One Nation who are down four from a record high to 23%. Labor and the Greens are steady on 32% and 13% respectively. The pollster provides a two-party figure with Labor leading 57-43 based on preference flows in 2023, but cautions that this “factors in a large exhaustion rate for One Nation voters” that could be lower in the event of a preference deal. The poll also features upper house voting intention results with Labor on 31%, the Coalition on 25%, One Nation on 24% and the Greens on 14%, and a seat projection showing 20 or perhaps 21 seats out of 40 going to a broadly defined right.
Leadership ratings, which did not feature in the June poll, find Chris Minns at 37% positive, 41% neutral and 22% negative, Kellie Sloane is at 25%, 55% and 20%, and Chris Minns leading 44-26 on preferred premier. Further questions find 55% support for the federal-state gun buyback scheme with 27% opposed, and 28% of a view that the state is headed in the right direction compared with 49% for wrong direction (a uniform pattern of such polling of late). The poll was conducted August 19 to 26 from a sample of 1028; the full report features demographic breakdowns and should be available on the pollster’s website over the next day or so.
Further news of relevance to the election in March:
• One Nation has announced Mike Newman as its prospective parliamentary leader and candidate for the Labor-held Hunter region seat of Cessnock. Newman served from 2022 to 2024 as one of the state’s trade and investment commissioners, a role made famous by former Nationals leader John Barilaro and abolished when Labor came to power. The party’s upper house ticket will be headed by Stuart Bonds, who has twice achieved strong results in the federal seat for Hunter.
• The Daily Telegraph’s The Sauce column reports Tara Moriarty has been reduced to seventh position on Labor’s upper house ticket after leading it in 2019. Daniel Mookhey and Penny Sharpe will head the ticket, followed by newcomer Bernard Govind, incumbent Anthony D’Adam, and newcomers Mark Morey and Asren Pugh. Not featured are incumbents Mark Buttigieg, who reportedly lost the support of the Right because the Electrical Trades Union was no longer aligned with it, and Greg Donnelly, who is retiring.
• Rod Bruem of the Ballina News Daily reports Byron Shire councillor Janet Swain and former NBN News cameraman Lachlan Hall have nominated for Labor preselection in Ballina, which will be vacated at the election with the retirement of Greens member Tamara Smith.
Decent numbers for Minns, with the election just 6 months away. I have mixed views about Minns, his policies on some issues like gambling reform are woeful, but there have been a variety of road building and new manufacturing projects for Newcastle and the Hunter for which his government deserves credit. But regardless of that, he is certainly a very effective politician. He is always there on the evening news with commentary on whatever is the issue of the day, looking like he is on top of things. He is careful to never be out-flanked on the right, but doesn’t care about being out-flanked on the left, and the absence of any growth in the Greens vote shows that to be the correct strategy. I think he’ll certainly continue to be the premier after the next election, possibly even with a lower house majority.
I won’t be voting for the Minns government at this stage, it’ll be Greens, left wing minors, an independent or two if they look ok and a lot of empty squares
He has missed the mark for so many reasons
I’m hoping Mandy Nolan wins Ballina and replaces Tamara Smith as the Greens MP
Ticking voting time bomb ,if that amount of people in NSW say the state is going in the wrong direction then a large step down in labor support can occur as the election nears and people reflect on their vote.Why vote for gov if going in the wrong direction?.
Libs a real chance even with lplate leader.
Good morning William.
Error in the Headline here, with ON showing on 20, rather than 23, which you have stated twice is the actual figure.
Also, notably given the close balance in the current and prospective seats, there are 42 Members of the LC in NSW, so if someone is forecasting 20-21 seats for the “right” (though I still don’t think ON should be entirely categorized that way), then that is a split House or a 2 seat majority to the “Left” – 22-20.
HBG, I am not going to dissuade you from your comments about Minns, however I suggest you read some of Kevin Bonham’s work in regard while Compulsory preferential is a better system than Optional before you settle on that approach.
pp – you have made the classic mistake of assuming “Heading in Wrong direction” is a proxy for support of the Government. Perhaps many of the 49% are Labor or Green voters who are worried about the rise of One Nation. Perhaps particularly they are Greens voters who dislike the current Government’s rightwards lean but in no way will vote for ON or LNP. And I tend to doubt they will follow HBG’s advice and exhaust their preferences..
Chris Minns is a solid bloke, presents well on TV and in the media, and his government is pretty middle of the road, although some are disappointed with its approach to gambling reform – but Minns is a good mate of Peter Vilandys and an avid rugby league supporter, and Labor won’t want to risk any fight with the clubs industry.
2GB predictably is giving Kelly Sloan far more airtime and Ben Fordham now sings her praises regularly, but their audience are all Liberal or One Nation voters anyway. With optional preferential voting in NSW, her problem is One Nation voters potentially only numbering 1 square on the ballot paper, even if she does some preference deal with Pauline.
I can imagine Labor maybe losing Cessnock and Penrith or Camden, but picking up other seats like Ryde and Miranda and Holsworthy.
I find the results of this poll a little implausible. I can’t believe we’d have a significant swing to the Coalition given the context (although I’m also of the school of thought things like ICAC don’t have the impact they use to and often drive a more “pox on all your houses” response from the electorate.
I’m generally a bit circumspect about DemosAU polling generally at the moment. I’ll be waiting for Resolve before I’m celebrating the Coalition vote recovering. I suspect what we’ll get instead is a swing to the orange haired monster.
HS: “HBG, I am not going to dissuade you from your comments about Minns, however I suggest you read some of Kevin Bonham’s work in regard while Compulsory preferential is a better system than Optional before you settle on that approach.”
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Optional PV is far more democratic than CPV. Why should anyone be forced to preference a party like NSW Labor that enabled and empowered disgusting and unlawful police brutality against good people who were protesting against war crimes, genocide, and apartheid.
There is zero chance I will be giving either Labor, the Coalition, or One Nation a preference in NSW, nor should I be forced to do so. They will all be left blank like they deserve. I would much rather have my vote exhaust than have it go anywhere near the vile War Parties of the right.
The Wombat
Perhaps there is a different perception of the ICAC proceedings now and compared to the Keneally Government.
The current corruption looks like the games that politicians play while previously the man who was controlling the state was pocketing millions for personal use. Does this lessen the impact of the current proceedings?
Difficult – because, in Kevin Bonham’s words, the democratic system would be better off for knowing which candidate between the “War Parties of the right” you would most prefer NOT to be elected. And it doesn’t know that if you don’t preference down at least until the 2nd last one.
You are not being “forced” to vote for them. If the candidate you – and many others presumably – votes for comes in the top 2, then your later preferences go NOWHERE
Yeah high street, also polling tends to swing back towards the govt of the day as the election nears as people put more scrutiny on the opposition
Thanks – fixed.
HS, while it may be of interest to a psephologist to know where preferences may flow if allocated, that is not a concern of mine.
I would prefer that my vote does not flow to ANY party that is enabling war crimes and/or police brutality.
You are partially right about the last point though, since as a New South Welshman, I am not being forced to vote for or preference any of the three War Parties of the right – that’s why it’s called Optional PV. Under CPV we would be forced to, whereas OPV gives the voter the choice.
well Difficult, when your least preferred Party forms Government narrowly over your 2nd least preferred Party, don’t come back here and complain about it (and neither should all the voters you encourage to do the same exhausting).
(I really do think you should read Kevin’s work on this if you are not going to listen to me..)
You are placing high value in the “choice” to NOT have your opinion heard. To many of us, that is an odd hill to die on
To get the most out of your vote you should number your choices all the way through.
HS: “You are placing high value in the “choice” to NOT have your opinion heard. To many of us, that is an odd hill to die on”
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No, I’m placing a high value on NOT voting for or preferencing parties that are allied with war criminals and enabling police brutality. If you think that’s “an odd hill to die on” then that is a matter for you and your own conscience.
Rest assured, my opinion will be heard and counted when I vote 1 Greens. I will also be preferencing progressive left wing minors and independents – any good people who actually deserve support.
I’d agree it’s not vaguely in the Eddie Obied realm, Oakeshott, and the names are already hasbeens, but it’s gotta cause some damage. I just can’t believe the Liberal vote has gone up 5 points ( 25%) over the last month given what’s been happening in ICAC.
I’d be surprised if One Nation weren’t above 30% when Resolve is released in a few weeks time. My gut feeling is ON are really going to push the ALP at the state election. I can’t see the ALP losing, but I think One Nation is going to be much more of a threat in NSW than Victoria.
Difficult: this is not about what interests me, it is about what is in the interests of democracy. I don’t blame voters in OPV who choose to stop when confronted with equally awful candidates at the bottom but that does not make OPV a good democratic system.
For every voter in an OPV system who genuinely has no preference between remaining candidates and chooses to exhaust their vote, there will be many others who throw away preferences they do have, often because they do not understand the implications of deciding to keep preferencing or stop, and as a result vote against their own interests. As I point out in my article, much of the support for OPV is actually self-centred; the voter is so keen on how good it feels for them to not “approve of” the baddies that they seem not to care what system serves the common good.
Under a CPV system there is a simple solution for the informed voter to parties that are all and equally awful which is to randomise one’s preferences between them. You’re not doing yourself any moral harm in so doing because if you help them at all you’re only helping them to beat other equally awful parties.
I think some people on the left have a dream that exhausting their vote under OPV systems can force Labor leftwards to appeal for their preferences but there’s zero evidence from decades of this stuff in Qld or NSW that it results in lefter Labor governments or ever well. (Lefter Labor losses maybe).
Difficult
Agree with you – when in all conscience you cannot give your vote to either of the two parties that, until recently, you have been pushed to give your vote to under compulsory preferencing, the only option is an informal vote.
The AEC tries to determine between informal votes that are a deliberate choice and those that are accidental, so as a matter of courtesy I usually write “Deliberately Informal” on the ballot when I have made this choice
KB: “As I point out in my article, much of the support for OPV is actually self-centred; the voter is so keen on how good it feels for them to not “approve of” the baddies that they seem not to care what system serves the common good.”
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Opposing war crimes, genocide, apartheid, and police brutality committed against others by “baddies” and their enablers is now somehow “self-centered”.
No sir, blindly giving a preference to those “baddies” when there is no requirement to do so in order to cast a formal vote would be the height of selfishness, to put it very lightly.
There is no way that you or anyone else can spin this that will somehow make supporting war crimes and police brutality in any way acceptable to me.
It is absolutely in the interests of democratic freedom that no voter should ever be forced to vote for or preference such abhorrent acts in order to have their vote counted as formal.
OC: “Agree with you – when in all conscience you cannot give your vote to either of the two parties that, until recently, you have been pushed to give your vote to under compulsory preferencing, the only option is an informal vote.”
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Exactly, well said. Nobody should be forced to preference parties that they cannot support just to cast a formal vote.
Pauline Hanson thanks you for your support Difficult.
If she read your posts in this thread she would laugh at you.
I share the outrage some feel about what history has done to the Palestinians, and also to the Jews. The Sykes-Picot carve-up of the Middle East, the rigged UN vote to establish Israel, the centuries of European pogroms. But what percentage of the Australian electorate do you reckon know or care about any of that? Is that history, and the current horrible reality, of any relevance to the daily lives of Australian voters doing it tough with CoL, housing cost and insecure employment? The more left-wingers talk about Palestine, the less likely they are to attract support.
Hear hear KB.
All these voters who say that they would rather exhaust their vote or vote informal are not doing any favours to their side of politics especially Left. They feel so superior of themselves, it is ridiculous. They are the new tories, who look down upon people who they think are their inferiors.
If ALP goes down, Greens go down. The right-wing and far-right treat centre-left and left parties with absolute contempt when right-wing and far-right are/were in power. Greens won’t have leverage if ALP is not in power.
Just to clarify, my decision to not vote for Labor, or any other right wing parties, is just that. My decision. It’s not a suggestion that anyone else should do the same
Compulsory preferential voting is a better system but seeing as I’m given the chance to vote formally, send some dollars the way of the Greens and not have to hold my nose to vote for Minns or his party, I’ll take it
GoW: “Pauline Hanson thanks you for your support Difficult.”
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Considering I’m refusing to support/preference her and her disgraceful party, she has nothing to thank me for. Labor and the Coalition are entirely responsible for the lamentable rise of One Nation and they only have themselves to blame for now finding themselves up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
Donald Trump thanks Labor and Albanese for their support. If you are supporting Labor you are supporting and enabling the war criminal Trump.
Isaac Herzog thanks NSW Labor and Minns for their support and their failed, unlawful attempts to silence democratic protest.
The DemosAU poll has turned up on their website.
Link: https://demosau.com/news/labor-steady-as-coalition-wins-back-voters-from-one-nation-in-new-nsw-state-poll/
Page 10 – Female vote is a bit lowish for Labor at 29% – Combined Right being on 51%
Page 11 – Regional vote for Labor is not good. 23%
Labor has a firm grip on metro areas however.
The 18-34 demographic..
Labor 36
Greens 26
LNP 19
ON 12
I think Prem Minns is travelling quite well on this poll. Nothing too alarming, apart from the figures coming out of Regional NSW
You beat me to it Nadia
I’ll just add the key issues are the obvious ones
Cost of living and housing
“she has nothing to thank me for”
By not completing your preferences you are supporting One Nation. Pauline & Gina thank you for your support.
Justify it however you like but that is reality.
You must live a nice, financially and socially privileged life to be able to throw away your vote and not have to worry about the consequences of a One Nation Government on you, your family, your friends and your local community.
GOW I can picture someone on the other side making exactly the opposite argument
By not voting against Labor you’re supporting their re-election
Both arguments as rubbish as each other imo
Regarding OPV / CPV – Voting as an act is a very specific construct. The ballot paper itself doesn’t care about your thoughts, feelings, opinions or values; all it cares about is a (preferably complete) sequence of numbers. The numbers are signals you’re sending. Someone on the ballot paper for your electorate is going to be elected, so why not have a say on the matter. The end.
Oakeshott Country – “The AEC tries to determine between informal votes that are a deliberate choice and those that are accidental, so as a matter of courtesy I usually write “Deliberately Informal” on the ballot when I have made this choice.”
The AEC overwhelmingly and for counting purposes doesn’t do that. The small number of election officials looking at your ballot paper are only looking for an expected number sequence, which is then actioned as required.
I don’t care about the other side.
“By not voting against Labor you’re supporting their re-election”
By not preferencing Labor you’re supporting the election of Pauline Hanson.
You don’t have to vote for a major party, but to cast a valid vote you have to choose which of the two majors, Labor or Liberal-One Nation, you place higher in your preferences, even if it’s last or second last, because realistically, one or other will most likely win your seat.
With Liberal-One Nation (same-same) you get:
– a halt to climate action, with reversals where possible
– a Government that always sides with Money
– unconditional support for Trump and his successors
– unconditional support for Israel
– demonisation of powerless out-groups
– opposition to all improvements to any and all worker wages and conditions
– privatisations
– cuts to social welfare and social programs
– cuts to all levels of public education, with largess thrown at “private” institutions
– favouring property speculators over home buyers and renters
– slowly or not so slowly killing Medicare
– ditto the environment
– etc etc etc …the list can be expanded endlessly.
Who you put last matters. If it’s not Liberal-One Nation you’re voting for all of the above
I respect all those who are struggling to bring themselves to number a labor box after Minns behaviour in regards to the police and Palestine, but I strongly think you should vote below the line at least for the upper house as some of the Labor members here like Anthony D’Adam who is up was punished by Minns for criticising the police in regards to the pro-palestine protests and has protested significantly for palestine. Peter Primrose also went to the harbour bridge protest against the wishes of Minns. The rest though can probably be left empty…
Apologies, too late to delete, change or shift to the “open” thread..
I see that I have posted in the NSW thread, where Optional Preferential voting applies. That does mean you don’t have to make a choice between the majors. However, I think it’s best that you make a choice between the majors, because one or other will be the Government, not the Greens, not the Teals or anyone else you might prefer. If you don’t, you just let everyone else decide and who knows, maybe the electorate collectively isn’t as smart as you and makes a choice you don’t like. Best to have your say
So much comments section on this site is bloviating opinion even with analysis of actual historical data readily available
According to analysis of Antony Green
Labor doesn’t do so well from 2nd with reduced Greens prefs in NSW OPV, where they make little effort to win them over anyway these days I’d say.
Though Greens voters still use their preferences way more than any other voters.
But PHON and other minor RW overwhelmingly damage Lib prospects by exhausting at a huge rate, like 70%
In short both duopoly parties suffer, RW just seems to suffer significantly more from exhaustion
https://antonygreen.com.au/preference-flows-by-party-2019-nsw-election/
If anything I’d predict an even greater exhaustion than usual this time in NSW in current circumstances
You’d think a rational approach to what is obviously a fragmenting vote would see a realisation that the majors are going to have to accept the broader will of voters. Though given the often infantile and captured nature of duopoly party politics in auspol, I expect plowing on just doing more of the same until it’s all totally broken will be the outcome. Being the lucky country and all
G
Actually the AEC does try to interpret informal votes.
This report from the 2019 election
https://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/research/paper12/index.htm
They are not so much worried about the deliberate informals as reducing the accidental ones. A while since I read this report but I think it was about 50:50
Edit: sorry that’s the 2010 one – the later ones are somewhere on the internet
Tallyroom has 2023 data on OPV and apparently use of exhaustion went down a little, but still Greens far more than any other voters, including duopoly party voters, who used their preferences more
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/51507
No doubt some of the regular rusted on bloviators will be outraged by that cracking the veneer of their delusional generalisations
I live in what has traditionally been a blue-ribbon Liberal electorate, now Teal Federally but still Liberal at State level. I vote tactically against the Liberals. Teal first, then Labor, who has never won here. Liberal last, One Nation second last, number the others in between as seems best. Preferences count. I could stop at 2, but I prefer to place everyone else ahead of the Liberal.
Oakeshott Country – Yeah, the AEC have done some reporting but apart from a smaller piece of work at the last event, nothing since 2016 – https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/research/ .
I very briefly just skimmed a few of the entries and there’s a lot of consistent, repeated themes each time. In the current period, it’s not something that’s been reliably / consistently reported on (though the evidence already exists) and it would be good to see some different approaches at tackling the problem.
2010 – The 10 divisions with the highest rates of informal voting: Blaxland, Fowler, Watson, Chifley, McMahon, Werriwa, Greenway, Barton, Reid, and Parramatta.
2025 – The top 10 divisions with the highest informality rate: Werriwa, Watson, Fowler, Chifley, Blaxland, Riverina, Lindsay, Calwell, McMahon, Parkes.
I understand the VICEC have been doing work in the area, mostly internal I believe and I think QLDEC is more newly up to something as well with the same research team.
Noted
And we think we are going to get subs out of this mess.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DvMIoREJEik
Blah Blah while it’s good that a couple of uppper house MP’s did the right thing in terms of standing up for Palestine by speaking out and protesting they still voted along party lines as the rules require them to do
Noting it’s far from being the only issue Minns, and Labor, has disappointed on
Since their 2011 Election win it has mostly been the Liberals strategy to commend that Liberal voters only Vote 1: Liberal.
In 2027, I would be very surprised that they don’t pursue this strategy, again.
They and their rural cousins are most at risk of losing seats to One Nation.
They have seen the result, in Secret Harbour, and the consequence of preferencing One Nation.
The progressive parties, also, need to carefully configure their preference flows in order to minimise the chance of marginal seats being lost to One Nation or the Coalition.
Usually, I number all of the ballot paper, with the Liberal candidate last – a decades old family tradition, but I don’t want a Liberal or One Nation candidate retaining Terrigal due to their exchange of preferences.
Hopefully, a One Nation candidate may weaken the Liberal vote, but the demographics of Terrigal suggest to me that they may only poll, lightly.
I live in the Tory enclave of the Central Coast, so I’ll be voting 1 – Labor.
I’d be more concerned about what will happen on the Central Coast, it looked a lot like Secret Harbour in some ways, but there’s so much development up here lately which is changing the demographics to be less One Nation friendly
HBG, I hear this reasoning a lot, that gentrification of regional areas outer metropolitan and regional areas results in a shift voting behaviour ie: folks from the city move in and bring their voting habits with them. I’m not aware of any evidence one way or another on this topic, and really only have election results and anecdote to go on, but I believe more often the opposite is true, that people pushed out of the city into more peripheral and regional areas tend to adopt the similar voting practices of the locals, or even more radical.
In fact, i think the net internal migration in Australia from metropolitan areas, particularly Sydney, is one of the driving forces behind One Nation. A lot of people on the Central Coast will feel they were pushed out of the city by the cost of housing, some will be happy with the move, most get on with things, but many will harbour animosities towards the major parties who they feel have marginalised their position.
We’ve been here before Steve777, but back to the well I go….
The debate on this post yesterday was centered on the virtues or otherwise of OPV vs CPV and by extension whether when faced with the OPV system, a voter is being sensible in deciding to exhaust their vote because they don’t “like” any of the remaining candidate/parties.
Whether to vote tactically is an entirely different question. Your logic of not preferencing Labor No.1 simply because “they have never won around here” is entirely absent of logic. At the very least, you are contributing to this fact continuing. Every other comment on the thread about OPV/CPV contained sound logic, it was just whether it was in ones overall best interests to exhaust.
BTW – if you live in Willoughby electorate – which I reckon you either do or in a neighbouring electorate – then Labor has indeed won In Willoughby – in 1978
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_district_of_Willoughby
For Ven and Hard Being Green:
I probably should of looked at the actual known NSW labor ticket for the upper house as Peter Primrose is retiring.
1. Mookhey. 2. is Penny Sharpe who I was sympathetic with in the past as she did the bridge march but fell in line over the security legislation and has done some odd things with being accused of contempt of parliament. 3. Mark Morey whose the head of Unions NSW and did the bridge march and was very critical of Minns with the whole Herzog police stuff and has also been very outspoken on other Minns protest laws. 4. Is D’Adam whose been bullied by colleagues, demoted by Minns, called Herzog a war criminal, targeted by a dossier by the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs, went to the anti-Herzog protests anyways as well as many other Palestine protests and has taken up many other progressive views and is a lifelong trade unionist. 5. Some SDA hack who I am sure can’t wait for RAFFWU to be de-registered by the new Vic Labs. 6. Arsen Pugh who is a progressive Councillor from Byron and has voted with the Greens against colleagues to support Palestine. 7. Is cabinet minister Tara Moriarty who was demoted and is from the left but has toed the Minns party line on Israel-Palestine issues and didnt go to any protests and also was one of the movers of the Wednesday 3 May 2023 celebration of Israel’s seventy-fifth independence day which others like D’Adam spoke out against. 8. No idea probs wont matter though.
Anyways whether or not the NSW government can have the ability to influence that area of the world it is still important to display solidarity and do all we can. As Hard Being Green says as well they have disappointed on other things too and the Israel-Palestine and protest issues should definitely not be the only reason why you vote for a particular party but it is a pretty straightforward morality test for someone running to have a position on and its the same with the Russian Invasion of Ukraine too. And from that ticket at this point in time as someone who is an avid union member and has handed out how to votes for labor at the federal level for the last few elections but not for Minns last time as he came off not right back then I feel the majority of the labor ticket fails the test. With D’Adam of the current members I feel I could put a number next too (not necessarily near the top though), but I might number Morey and Pugh as well. I do acknowledge that they will vote along party lines or be kicked from the party but considering no other party left of centre-right is likely to be in government I would at least like some people in the government to resist some of Minns ideas and with hope roll him.
The Wombat
folks from the city move in and bring their voting habits with them.
If only that was true, Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie would be solid Labor seats. We used to say westies suddenly became National Party voters when they passed Raymond Terrace