Category: New South Wales Politics

Kiama by-election: September 13

With the ignominious end of Gareth Ward’s political career, a significant New South Wales state by-election looms for the marginal seat of Kiama.

The New South Wales government has acted quickly to bring on a by-election in Gareth Ward’s South Coast region seat of Kiama, with the Speaker yesterday announcing a polling date of September 13. This follows Ward’s conviction a fortnight ago on sexual assault charges and resignation from parliament on Friday, forestalling an imminent motion for his expulsion. Ward held the seat as a Liberal from 2011 to 2021, when he resigned from the party and the ministry amid a police investigation that resulted in him being committed to trial in March 2022. Despite being suspended from parliament from this point, Ward retained his seat as an independent at the March 2023 election with a 0.8% margin over Labor, with the Liberals running a distant third.

The by-election will be contested by both major parties, with Labor sensing an opportunity to improve on its current 45 seats out of 93 and the Liberals confirming on Monday that they would take the field. It comes at a difficult time for the Liberals, whose standing in the polls looks to have deteriorated in the wake of the federal election, with the Sydney Morning Herald reporting suggestions Mark Speakman’s leadership is under threat. Local news website The Bugle suggests Labor is likely to again endorse Katelin McInerney, a former Illawarra Mercury journalist and official with the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, though another possibility is Kiama councillor Imogen Draisma. Former Shoalhaven councillor Serena Copley is named as a possible Liberal candidate.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 38, Coalition 32, Greens 13 in New South Wales

A new New South Wales state record breaks a long run of mediocre polling for the first-term Labor government.

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.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 33, Coalition 36, Greens 11 in New South Wales

The Minns government returns to a respectable position in Resolve Strategic’s bi-monthly state poll series.

The Sydney Morning Herald today carries the bi-monthly Resolve Strategic New South Wales state poll, compiling results from the pollster’s last two national surveys for an overall sample of 1123. It finds Labor recovering the four points it dropped in February (that Resolve Strategic’s February survey struck a distinctly poor sample for Labor was evident from both its federal and state results) to reach 33% on the primary vote, with the Greens similarly losing the three points they gained last time to record 11%, while the Coalition is down two points to 36% after gaining one point last time. This would pan out to around 52-48 on two-party preferred, compared with 54.3-45.7 at the March 2023 election. Chris Minns leads Mark Speakman 40-15 on preferred premier, out from 35-14.

Port Macquarie by-election live

Live coverage of a by-election for a regional New South Wales state seat in which the Liberals and Nationals go head to head in the absence of a Labor candidate.

Click here for full display of Port Macquarie by-election results.

Live commentary

End of Saturday. Liberal candidate Robert Dwyer ends the evening with 34.2% of the primary vote to Nationals candidate Sean Gleeson’s 31.2%, with preferences slightly favouring Dwyer. This is sufficient for my system to call it for Dwyer by a margin currently projected at 2.8%. In raw terms, Dwyer leads by 14,654 to 13,437 on the two-candidate count, a lead of 1217, which should increase by about 200 when a batch of postals that have as yet only reported primary votes are in. Still to come are about 13,500 more early votes, 2700 from two outstanding election day booths, and about as many postals. That leaves Gleeson needing a break of nearly 54-46 in his favour to pull off a win, when history suggests that only the election day booths will be unusually favourable to him.

9.26pm. The second pre-poll primary vote result, Port Macquarie Central EVC, has tipped my system into calling it for the Liberals after breaking 39.5% to 29.8% their way, although the swings weren’t particularly remarkable.

8.58pm. My system wasn’t updating for a while, but it’s back now. A batch of 1593 postals went well for the Liberals, but there’s been nothing further in the way of pre-polls (still on the primary votes for Port Macquarie EVC), the pattern of which is the main point of interest now.

8.20pm. Port Macquarie EVC is the first pre-poll to report its primary votes, and the swing from Liberal to Nationals looks slightly below par.

8.14pm. The primary vote swings are all over the shop, so presumably candidate factors are looming large here, as you might expect. Sean Gleeson’s home town of Hannam Vale has swung 36% in his favour.

8.12pm. On closer analysis, it undoubtedly has something to do with the Liberals having done about 8% better on pre-polls in 2023, none of which have reported as of yet, as compared with election day votes.

8.08pm. My system is back to almost calling it for the Liberals, but I couldn’t tell you why off the top of my head because the raw TCP count has the Nationals narrowly in front.

7.51pm. Just as my system was about to call it, the pendulum has swung back a little to the Nationals, though it’s not on account of the first Port Macquarie booth having reported.

7.36pm. My system seemingly gets closer to calling it for Liberal with every update, though there’s still nothing in from Port Macquarie, so I guess I’d offer a vague note of caution that the swings there might be radically different due to candidate-related factors that I’m not on top of.

7.32pm. Bit of a blockage there that I’ve taken care of with a few pieces of tape and string. My system is close to calling it for the Liberals, based on the fact that preferences are breaking evenly and the Liberals have the edge on the primary vote. The latter is somewhat more true of the projection than the raw figures, presumably because there’s still nothing in from Port Macquarie proper, where I imagine the Liberals do better.

7.18pm. Starting to look promising for the Liberals, though there are no votes in yet from Port Macquarie proper. I seem to have replaced the old problem in my primary vote projection with a new one that leaves Warwick Jonge with nothing, so I’m a little wary of it. So far as the projected TCP is concerned, the issue will resolve when enough votes are in for my system to switch to the projection based on the actual count.

7.06pm. I’ve tweaked my preference model in favour of Liberal, who I’m now projecting to a very narrow lead. Once enough votes are counted it will go off the actual preference flows recorded by the TCP count. There’s an issue with my primary vote projection that’s inflating the Warwick Jonge vote, but it’s probably an academic point.

6.53pm. Presuambly the sudden shift is due to Dunbogan Jubilee Hall, where I’m recording a 20% Liberal swing on the primary vote.

6.51pm. Looking quite a lot closer now, for whatever reason. I just noticed that my preference estimates were failing to account for optional preferential voting and a high exhaustion rate — they’re doing so now.

6.46pm. The first TCP result is in from the small Johns River Hall booth — to the extent that it suggests anything, it’s that the exhaustion rate will be rather high.

6.42pm. Three booths in and they suggest the seat will revert to Nationals type. A weak showing so far for independent Warwick Yonge, who at this stage doesn’t look like he will make the final three ahead of the Greens. I’m presently assuming Yonge’s preferences will break evenly between Nationals and Liberal, but his how-to-vote card favoured the Liberals. A TCP result or two should give a clearer idea.

6.20pm. Polls closed 20 minutes ago — frantically trying to iron a few last (hopefully) bugs out of my live results page, which you can find linked to above.

Preview

A mildly diverting by-election is on today in the New South Wales state seat of Port Macquarie, where Leslie Williams has called time on a 14-year parliamentary career. Williams held the seat for the Nationals from 2011 to 2020, then defected to the Liberals and retained the seat under their banner in 2023. This has made for a keenly fought contest between the Liberals, whose candidate is Laurieton United Services Club general manager Robert Dwyer, and the Nationals, who have endorsed Hannan Vale beef cattle farmer Sean Gleeson, with Labor sitting it out. Further complicating matters is that the original winner of the local Nationals preselection, general practitioner Warwick Yonge, is running as an independent after the party’s central executive mysteriously declined to ratify his endorsement. You can learn more about the electorate through my by-election guide – this site will offer the usual live results feature if I’m able to get my act together in time.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 29, Coalition 38, Greens 14 in New South Wales

No respite for a trend of weak polling for a Labor government approaching the middle of its term.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the bi-monthly Resolve Strategic poll of state voting intention in New South Wales records a further weakening in Labor’s already soft position, with a four point drop in the primary vote since the previous survey to 29%, compared with a result at the March 2023 state election of 37.0%. The Coalition is up one point to 38%, compared with 35.4% at the election, while the Greens are up three to 14%, compared with 9.7%. The results imply a Coalition two-party lead of a bit over 51-49. Chris Minns has nonetheless increased his lead over Mark Speakman as preferred premier, from 35-17 to 35-14.

The past practice of this series has been to combine responses from two of the pollster’s monthly national surveys, but this time the report says the poll was conducted “between February 18 and 23” (the same as the period for this week’s federal poll) from a larger than usual sample of 1903. (UPDATE: The 1903 figure turns out to be a misprint from the print edition – the sample was in fact 1074, and the poll as usual combined from two monthly samples. An earlier version of this post wrongly put the Greens vote steady at 11%, rather than up three to 14%).

NSW state polls: Resolve Strategic and RedBridge Group

Two more New South Wales state polls crediting the Minns government with unconvincing leads on two-party preferred.

Two concluding New South Wales state polls for the year, neither exactly hot off the press:

• Nine Newspapers’ Resolve Monitor feature has been updated with the bi-monthly state poll result, which doesn’t seem to have been reported on in the pages of Sydney Morning Herald. This has the Coalition steady on 37%, Labor up one to 33%, the Greens steady on 11% and independents down one to 13%, suggesting a Labor lead of around 51-49 on two-party preferred. Chris Minns leads Mark Speakman 35-17 as preferred premier, in from 37-14. The poll combines the New South Wales components of Resolve Strategic’s last two monthly surveys, with a combined sample of 1000.

• As noted here previously, there was a RedBridge Group poll a fortnight ago that had credited Labor with a 50.5-49.5 two-party lead, from primary votes of Labor 37%, Coalition 41% and Greens 9% (down from 9.7%). The poll was also conducted November 6 to 20, from a sample of 1088.

RedBridge Group: 51-49 to Coalition in Victoria

Another poll showing soft support for Labor in Victoria, where it has opted to sit out the Prahran by-election.

RedBridge Group last week had a poll of state voting intention in Victoria that has the Coalition leading 51-49, unchanged on the last such poll in late September and October. However, the primary votes suggest this implies an unusually strong preference flow to Labor: the Coalition is up three on the primary vote to 43%, which reflects a five-point drop in others to 13% rather than a further loss of support for Labor, who are steady on 30%, or the Greens, who are up two to 14%. The poll was conducted November 6 to 20 from a sample of 920. UPDATE: Full report here.

Labor has announced it will not field a candidate for the looming by-election in Prahran resulting from the resignation of Greens-turned-independent member Sam Hibbins, despite having held the seat as recently as 2010. The Greens have endorsed Angelica Di Camillo, a 26-year-old environmental engineer who had been preselected for the federal seat of Higgins before the redistribution abolished it. The Age reports a Liberal preselection vote is expected to be held on December 15, but there has been no indication as to who might run.

RedBridge Group also had a state poll for New South Wales, which doesn’t get its own post because I’m presuming there will be another along from Resolve Strategic in a week or two. This maintained a pattern of soft polling for the first term Labor government, credited with a 50.5-49.5 two-party lead that compares with a 54.3-46.7 result at the March 2023 election. The primary votes are Labor 37% (unchanged from the election), Coalition 41% (up from 35.4%) and Greens 9% (down from 9.7%). This poll was also conducted November 6 to 20, from a sample of 1088.

ACT election and NSW by-elections live

Live commentary on the count for the Australian Capital Territory election and the New South Wales state by-elections for Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater.

Live updated results from the Australian Capital Territory, Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater.

End of Saturday night

To summarise, the Liberals have had a disappointing result in the Australian Capital Territory, looking to have gained only one seat from their starting point of nine out of 25 and not even being assured of that. Labor has held steady on ten seats, despite its vote share being down by three to four points. The Greens have failed to match a best-ever result in 2020, but the cut in the party’s representation from six seats to three (or possibly four if things go their way in Brindabella) reflected only a slight drop in vote share. Of particular note was the election of two independents for the first time since the 1990s, dove-tailing with the emergence of David Pocock on the federal scene. With Labor and the Greens set to retain a combined majority, they face a marginal position in the new parliament.

Another notable independent win was chalked up last night by Jacqui Scruby in the New South Wales state by-election for Pittwater. Scruby fell 0.7% short of being the only teal independent to gain a seat at the March 2023 election, which she has accounted for on my projection with a swing of about 5%. In this she was no doubt aided by the ignominious circumstances of Liberal member Rory Amon’s departure, and also by both Labor and the Greens leaving the field vacant for her. Labor also did not contest yesterday’s by-elections for Epping and Hornsby, respectively vacated by Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean, where Liberal candidates Monica Tudehope and James Wallace both looked to have scored majorities on the primary vote.

Live commentary

9.46pm. Another update from Brindabella has the Liberals down from 2.58 quotas to 2.57 and the Greens up from 0.54 to 0.55.

9.26pm. The Brindabella preliminary distribution, which was calculated before the weakening of the Liberals’ position, had Labor’s Mick Gentleman, who is fighting for his and Labor’s third seat, excluded with 3708 votes to the third Liberal’s 4218, or 14.3% of the total to 12.6%.

9.19pm. Kevin Bonham can further discern a scenario where Brindabella comes out at Labor three and Liberal two, rather than the other way around. Clearly this is the electorate that will be the main focus of interest in the late count.

9.08pm. I’m not sure whether it’s because of the correction of the Chisholm booth error or a substantial addition of new votes, but the Liberals’ third seat in Brindabella no longer looks secure. The Liberals have a 2.58 quotas (a 9.7% surplus over the second quota), the Greens 0.54 (9.0%) and Independents for Canberra 0.45 (7.5%), leaving preferences from the latter the decisive factor in whether the Greens can yet pull an iron out of the fire here. The preliminary preference distribution has the Independents for Canberra preference going 30.5% to Labor, 19.2% to the Greens and only 13.1% to the Liberals, with 37.2% exhausting. That suggests to me the Liberals will need the fillip they are presumably likely to get from postals to hold out against the Greens.

9.03pm. Nothing in the preference distribution to doubt the earlier assessment of Kurrajong as two Labor and one each for Liberal, Greens and independent Thomas Emerson, the latter taking the Greens’ second seat.

8.55pm. No surprises in the distribution for Brindabella, a clear result of Liberal three and Labor two. Ginninderra is as expected projected as a status quo result of Labor two, Liberal two, Greens on. Jo Clay of the Greens gets the last seat by surviving ahead of Mark Richardson of Independents for Canberra by 13.6% to 10.6% at the decisive point of the late count.

8.46pm. Preliminary preference distributions have been published on the ACT Electoral Commission site, which I’ll now be poring over.

8.45pm. Antony Green on the ABC notes all 900 votes from the Chisholm booth in Brindabella have been allocated to the Liberals, an obvious error. However, its correction won’t fundamentally change the situation there.

7.58pm. So it looks to me like the Liberals are gaining a seat from the Greens in Brindabella, and independents are gaining seats from the Greens in Kurrajong and Murrumbidgee. That would leave Labor steady on ten seats but reduce their coalition partners in the Greens from six to three, while leaving them with a combined majority of 13 out of 25. The Liberals would at least gain parity with Labor on ten seats, but be unable to gain a majority even if the two independents supported them.

7.52pm. Yerrabi looks like a status quo result in every particular, returning incumbents Michael Pettersson and Suzanne Orr of Labor, Leanne Castley and James Milligan of Liberal, and Andrew Braddock of the Greens.

7.49pm. My system is now calling Pittwater for Jacqui Scruby (and I believe that’s despite a glitch in the projection that’s favouring the Liberals by a handful of votes).

7.48pm. A second independent looks like being elected in Murrumbidgee — Fiona Carrick, at the expense of Emma Davidson of the Greens, with Labor (incumbents Chris Steel and Marisa Paterson) and Liberal (incumbents Jeremy Hanson and Ed Cocks) remaining on two each.

7.44pm. Kurrajong, which went two Labor, two Greens and one Liberal in 2020, looks like electing Thomas Emerson, Independents for Canberra candidate and son of former federal Labor minister Craig Emerson. This is disappointing for the Liberals who look like remaining stalled on one seat (Elizabeth Lee’s), with the others going two Labor (Andrew Barr and Rachel Stephen-Smith re-elected) and one Greens (Shane Rattenbury re-elected, Rebecca Vassarotti failing to retain the Greens’ second seat).

7.33pm. Ginninderra looks like a status quo result of two each for Labor and Liberal and one for the Greens. Labor incumbents Yvette Berry and Tara Cheyne will be re-elected, as will the only recontesting Liberal, Peter Cain, likely to be joined by Chiaka Barry. Jo Clay should be returned for the Greens.

7.21pm. Antony Green says the ABC computer is calling Pittwater for Jacqui Scruby. I’ve got her probability at 97.4%, and don’t call it until 99%.

7.18pm. I’ll now go through the ACT seats alphabetically. Brindabella looks like Liberal three and Labor two, with the Liberals taking a seat from the Greens. The only contesting Liberal incumbent, Mark Parton, has a quota on his own, with Deborah Morris (especially) and James Daniel looking good for the other two. Labor’s only contesting incumbent, Mick Gentleman, is coming third on his party’s ticket, behind Caitlin Tough and Tamius Werner-Gibbings, the latter of whom had to fight for preselection.

7.06pm. As my projection suggested it would, a fourth booth from Pittwater has moderated Jacqui Scruby’s lead. We also have, very early, a batch of postals, breaking 743-606 to Liberal. So Scruby will need her lead on the booth results. She’s very well placed, but my system still isn’t calling it.

7.03pm. I believe it was just the one bug, and it’s now fixed.

6.58pm. Bugs in my ACT page: pretty much everything in the summary table at the bottom of the entry page, and the bar charts on the seat pages are misbehaving. Initial impression is that the Liberals are doing very well in Brindabella, but more modestly elsewhere.

6.53pm. Thanks to the magic of electronic voting, a massive influx of results from the ACT.

6.51pm. Three booths in from Pittwater, and I’m projecting Jacqui Scruby with 55.6% TCP when her raw primary vote is 58.7%, so presumably these are from good areas for her. My system isn’t quite giving it away yet though.

6.48pm. Three booths in from Epping, Liberal candidate on nearly two-thirds of the vote.

6.43pm. Two booths from Pittwater look hugely encouraging for independent Jacqui Scruby, her primary vote at over 60% in both.

6.42pm. Sixty-nine votes from Wisemans Ferry offers nothing to disabuse the assumption that a Liberal win in Hornsby is a formality.

6pm. Polls are closed for each of the above-mentioned electoral events, which you can read a lot more about through the election guides at the top of the sidebar. My results page for the by-elections offer booth-matched swings and projections and full results at booth level in map and tabular form. The ACT page is more elementary – no results at booth level and the swings simply compare the current results with the final ones from 2020.

Page 1 of 45
1 2 … 45