Category: New South Wales Politics

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the regular bi-monthly Resolve Strategic result on New South Wales state voting intention (available in the print edition, but not yet online that I can see) has Labor up three points to 32%, the Coalition up one to 26%, One Nation down one to 22% and the Greens steady on 10%. Chris Minns holds a 38-18 lead over Kellie Sloane on preferred premier, little changed from the previous result of 38-17. The poll was compiled from New South Wales responses out of the pollster’s last two national surveys, with an overall sample of 1000.

We’re now well inside a year out from the next election, and preselection news is starting to accumulate:

• Lachlan Leeming of The Australian reports that Mark Buttigieg is likely to lose his position on Labor’s Legislative Council ticket to Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey, having lost favour with the Right after the Electrical Trades Union detached itself from the faction. Buttigieg was the last of the seven members elected from the Labor ticket in 2019. Another Right faction MLC, Greg Donnelly, is “mooted by some colleagues as likely to retire”, but his position is in the domain of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Left faction MLC Peter Primrose is also expected to retire, his likely successor being Asren Pugh, “a former councillor at Byron Shire who is set to benefit from the Left’s rules that one of their candidates be from regional NSW”. The report further says the male dominance of the ticket could put pressure on male MPs in the lower house.

• The Nationals upper house preselection in March returned the party’s three incumbents, Sarah Mitchell, Nichole Overall and Wes Fang, to the second, fifth and eighth positions mandated to the party on the joint Coalition ticket. However, the eighth position seems a highly dubious prospect in the current electoral environment, such that the result raises doubts about the future of Fang, who has a strong social media following and support base on the right. The Daily Telegraph’s The Sauce column reports Fang may have been the victim of a lack of tactical adroitness by Young Nationals members whose enthusiasm for unsuccessful newcomer Angus Webber helped Overall take the fifth position at Fang’s expense. It further reports “strong rumours” that Fang is considering defecting to One Nation, noting he is “old friends” with Barnaby Joyce and has “removed Nationals branding from some of his social media posts”. Former Nationals leader and Bathurst MP Paul Toole has also confirmed being approached by One Nation.

• In a review article on One Nation in the Sydney Morning Herald in late March, “political strategists” identified a threat to the Nationals in seven of their 11 seats — Upper Hunter, Tamworth, Dubbo, Bathurst, Oxley, Coffs Harbour and Clarence — together with Liberal-held Goulburn. Conservative vote-splitting — a particularly live issue under New South Wales’ system of optional preferential voting — “may even lead to Labor picking up more metro seats”. The most vulnerable Labor-held seats are said to be Cessnock, Camden and Penrith. Lachlan Leeming of The Australian reports One Nation’s upper house ticket is likely to be led by Stuart Bonds, who has twice achieved strong results in the federal seat for Hunter.

• Michael McGowan of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Sue Higginson, who filled David Shoebridge’s vacancy when he was elected to the Senate in 2022, will lead the Greens’ upper house ticket at the next election. Higginson won 51% from a party membership vote held last month, ahead of 24% for the other incumbent seeking re-election, Abigail Boyd, who retains the second position from which she was elected in 2019.

• Mark Hodges, first-term Liberal member for Castle Hill, lost a preselection vote in late February to The Hills Shire mayor Peter Gangemi. Linda Silmalis of the Sunday Telegraph reports Hodges was eliminated in the first round, with Gangemi prevailing in the second over fellow factional conservative Thomas Ryan, senior manager of polling firm Freshwater Strategy. A conservative factional source links Hodges’ defeat to the weakening of the centre right faction and its figurehead, federal Mitchell MP Alex Hawke.

• Former deputy police commissioner Mick Willing has been preselected as the Liberal candidate for Camden, which Sally Quinnell gained for Labor in 2023 (and which, as noted, is a potential target for One Nation). Wendy Lindsay will seek a comeback in East Hills, which she held from 2019 until Kylie Wilkinson gained it for Labor in 2023. Lindsay has served Revesby ward on Canterbury-Bankstown City Council since 2024.

• Linda Silmalis of the Sunday Telegraph reports Phil Longley, whose father Jim Longley held the seat from 1986 to 1996, has “apparently nominated” for Liberal preselection in Pittwater. Longley is director of government relations at the Workers Insurance Association of New South Wales and a former policy adviser to Jason Falinski, the then federal member for Mackellar. His sister, Claire Longley, ran for preselection in the seat before the last election but was defeated by Rory Amon, an outcome that was criticised by then deputy Liberal leader Matt Kean. Independent Jacqui Scruby fell narrowly short of defeating Amon at the election, then gained the seat at the by-election held in October 2024 after Amon was charged with child sex offences.

• Tamara Smith, who has held the Byron Bay area seat of Ballina for the Greens since 2015, has announced she will not contest the next election.

The bi-monthly New South Wales state poll from Resolve Strategic in the Sydney Morning Herald is the first to have One Nation included as a response option, with a predictably transformative effect: support for the party is at 23%, which more than accounts for a drop in the independents and others result from 26% to 11%. What’s unusual is that the One Nation surge has seemingly taken a bigger bite out of Labor than the Coalition, who are respectively down eight to 29% and two to 25%, with the Greens unchanged at 10%. The convulsion on voting intention has had no impact on preferred premier, on which Chris Minns has an unchanged lead over Kellie Sloan of 38-17. As usual, this combines the New South Wales samples out of the pollster’s last two monthly national polls, with a sample of 1000.

The Sunday Telegraph today carries a DemosAU poll of state voting intention in New South Wales, recording primary votes of 34% for Labor, down three on the last such poll in October; 23% for the Coalition, down seven; 21% for One Nation, for whom no result was recorded in October; and 15% for the Greens, up two. Chris Minns records personal ratings of 38% positive, 45% neutral and 17% negative, while Kellie Sloane is at 22% positive, 59% neutral and 19% negative. Minns holds a 48-24 lead over Sloane for preferred premier, bettering his 44-25 lead over Mark Speakman from October.

Also featured are results on upper house voting intention, which have Labor on 29%, One Nation on 22%, the Coalition on 21% and the Greens on 13%, with none of the minor players exceeding 2%. This compares with equivalent results at the 2023 election of Labor 36.6%, Coalition 29.8%, Greens 9.1% and One Nation 5.9%. The poll was conducted February 24 to March 4 from a sample of 1032.

There was also a Roy Morgan SMS poll a fortnight ago which had One Nation at an improbable 30%, ahead of both Labor on 25% and the Coalition on 19%, with the Greens on 12.5%. It was conducted February 16 to 19 from a sample of 2108.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the regular bi-monthly New South Wales state poll from Resolve Strategic, combining sub-samples from the last two monthly national polls, shows next to no change on the result that preceded the Liberal leadership change in early December. The primary votes are Labor 37% (steady), Coalition 27% (down one), Greens 10% (steady), independents 11% (down four) and others 15% (up four). No two-party preferred is provided: my best estimate based on typical preference flows gets Labor close to 60-40, though that would be a few points lower if One Nation provided the bulk of the expanding “others” vote.

Chris Minns holds a 40-18 lead over Kellie Sloane as premier, which is stronger than his 31-19 lead in the last poll with Mark Speakman as Liberal leader. Minns’ net likeability rating increases from plus 14 to plus 25, while Sloane is at plus ten. The sample from the January survey found 49% rating the state government’s response to the Bondi attacks as strong and 19% as weak, with 67% supporting its gun reforms and 16% opposed. The sample was 572 from the January survey and 1145 overall.

The first published poll of New South Wales state voting intention since Kellie Sloane replaced Mark Speakman as Liberal leader shows no improvement in the party’s position, with Labor leading 57-43 on two-party preferred from primary votes of Labor 38%, Coalition 30%, Greens 10% and One Nation 4%. Forty-three per cent agreed the government had the right focus and priorities, with 33% disagreeing, while 20% felt Kellie Sloane and the Coalition deserved to win the next election, with 45% disagreeing. The poll was conducted by RedBridge Group/Access Research from November 24 (three says after Sloane became leader) to December 8 from a sample of 1293 and published in the Financial Review.

The New South Wales Liberals will choose a new leader tomorrow after the late afternoon resignation of Mark Speakman, who has thrown his support behind Kellie Sloane, factional moderate (UPDATE: Alexandra Smith of the Sydney Morning Herald rates that Sloane is both moderate and unaligned) and Shadow Health Minister, who entered parliament at the March 2023 election as the member for Vaucluse. Recent reports have indicated that Sloane would have had the numbers to depose Speakman, but that she was choosing for the time being not to proceed. Nonetheless, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Speakman lost decisive moderate support over the past week after failing to act against Alister Henskens after he sought support from a right faction meeting last week for a leadership challenge of his own. It is not yet clear if Henskens, or indeed anyone else other than Sloane, will nominate. Speakman’s late afternoon announcement came just hours after he told 2GB he was “here to fight”, suggestions his resignation might be imminent having been prompted by visits to his office yesterday from MPs Chris Rath, James Wallace and Scott Farlow.

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday reported that the bi-monthly New South Wales state poll from Resolve Strategic has Labor down one to 37%, the Coalition steady on 28%, the Greens steady on 10%, generic independents up four to 15% and others down one to 11%. I would roughly estimate Labor’s two-party preferred lead at 58-42, compared with a 2023 election result of 54.3-45.7, though the size of the independent and others result makes this highly imprecise. Chris Minns lead over Mark Speakman narrows substantially from 37-16 to 31-19. The poll was conducted from the New South Wales components of the last two monthly national surveys, from a collective sample of 1000.

A new poll by DemosAU finds state Labor in New South Wales, which appeared to be struggling in the polls until at least up to the May federal election, recording a blowout two-party lead of 59-41, from primary votes of Labor 37%, Coalition 30% and Greens 13%. Various demographic breakdowns are featured in the full report. Chris Minns holds a 44-25 lead over Mark Speakman as preferred premier. As in the Queensland poll earlier this week, the poll finds cost of living and housing affordability by far the most salient issues. We are also treated to a result on upper house voting intention which has One Nation at a formidable 15%, with Labor on 30%, the Coalition on 21% and the Greens on 13%. The poll was conducted October 16 to 22 from a sample of 1016.

Also on the NSW state politics front:

• The Daily Telegraph’s The Sauce column reports Mark Hodges, the Liberal member for Castle Hill, faces as many as three preselection challengers, among them Peter Gangemi, former Hills Shire mayor. Columnist James O’Doherty cites “faction bosses” saying Hodges “was never going to be around long-term”, having emerged as the sole preselection nominee ahead of the 2023 election after the party’s candidate vetting committee blocked presumed front-runner Noel McCoy.

• Also courtesy of The Sauce, talk of two further challenges against sitting Liberals: Miranda MP Eleni Petinos faces former federal Hughes MP Jenny Ware, a circumstance Petinos reportedly blames on deputy leader Natalie Ward; and an unspecified challenger has emerged to North Shore MP Felicity Wilson, who survived by one vote against a challenge in 2018 from now Willoughby MP Tim James.

• In a report on Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig’s alleged involvement in an Office of Local Government inquiry process to aid the council preselection of former Bayside mayor Bill Saravinovski, Max Maddison of the Sydney Morning Herald relates expectations Steve Kamper will retire from his seat of Rockdale at the next election and be succeeded by his chief-of-staff, current Bayside mayor Ed McDougall.