Category: New South Wales Politics

DemosAU: 59-41 to Labor in New South Wales

A New South Wales state poll tells a familiar story of Labor well on top in two-party terms, but with One Nation support at historic heights.

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.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 38, Coalition 28, Greens 10 in NSW

Following Labor’s Kiama by-election win, a new NSW state poll finds the Coalition shedding support to minor parties and independents.

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday carried the latest bi-monthly Resolve Strategic result of state voting intention in New South Wales, combining 1000 responses from the state out of the last two monthly national polls. Coming in the wake of Labor’s win in Saturday’s Kiama by-election, it found Labor with a steady primary vote of 38% while the Coalition slipped four to 28%, the Greens also slipping three to 10%. The generic independents category was up three to 11%, and others were up two to 12%. No two-party preferred was provided, but conventional preference flows would have got Labor to a lead upwards of 59-41. Chris Minns’ lead as preferred premier was out from 35-16 to 37-16.

Kiama by-election live

Live results and commentary from the New South Wales state by-election for Kiama.
Projected 3CP Projected 2CP Win Probability

Click here for full display of Kiama by-election results

End of evening. Labor has comfortably won the Kiama by-election with what I’m projecting to be 59.2% of the two-party vote. This pushes Labor to 46 seats out of 93 in the Legislative Assembly, such that the government will now rely on the support of one independent rather than two. It will be noted that the two-party swing is nonetheless a seemingly healthy 10.8% in favour of the Liberals, but this is somewhat deceptive: far more ballots had Labor higher than Liberal at the 2023 election because much of the conservative vote had gone to Gareth Ward, and as with all voters in New South Wales, a good proportion of these would have given him a first preference and left it at that. It may be more instructive to compare the result with the result with Ward’s 8.7% margin as a Liberal on the same boundaries in 2019, such that this can be seen as a Labor swing of around 18% off that base.

8.57pm. The big Albion Park early voting centre is the first such to report, with 7771 formal votes, and it too records swings little different from the polling day votes.

8.27pm. There are now 2415 postal votes in the count, which have swung in an almost identical fashion to the polling day votes.

7.49pm. All but three out of 22 polling day booths are in on the primary vote, with the TCP counts starting to catch up. As yet there are no pre-poll booths in, but we will presumably see at least some of those later in the evening, and perhaps also some postals.

7.39pm. And now I’m calling it for Labor, with 15 booths in on the primary and three on two-candidate, the projected Liberal swing now down to 10.0%.

7.34pm. With 13 booths in on the primary vote and two on tw0-party, my system is now basing its projection on the actually observed preference flow so far, which is more favourable to Labor than my estimates. The swing is accordingly down 10.4%, and the Labor win probability up to 98.6% — the system will call it when it gets to 99%.

7.18pm. We’re now up to seven booths on the primary vote, and my projection of the two-party Liberal swing remains short of a required 19.7% at 13.8%. However, my system is applying a wide margin-of-error to this due to the absence of two-candidate results, getting Labor as far as a 78.9% win probability. If the two-candidate results confirm my preference estimates are broadly correct, it will probably start calling it for Labor.

7.14pm. A fourth booth, which was probably the Gerroa Neighbourhood Centre, moves the dial slightly to the Liberals, their vote there picking by a handy 22.5%. This pushes the two-party swing up from 12.0% to 13.8%, though that’s still well short of the 19.7% they need. It should be noted that this is based off my pre-determined preference estimates, there being still no two-candidate preferred results.

7.05pm. Three booths in now on the primary vote, and while I’m projecting a 12.0% two-party swing to the Liberals, they actually need more like 20% — the figure flatters them because much of their normal support base cast a one-only vote for Gareth Ward in 2023.

7.03pm. The first result in is 386 primary votes from Kiama High, and while the Liberal vote neatly doubles to 21.0%, the gain is less than what they would not from Gareth Ward’s vote from 2023. However, it looks like this was quite a weak booth for Ward, and my system is well short of calling it.

6pm. Polls have closed for the Kiama by-election, occasioned by the forced resignation of independent Gareth Ward, and generally considered a strong opportunity for Labor to get its representation up from 45 to 46 in a chamber of 93. There are a few small rural booths in this electorate, so we will presumably be seeing some sort of result well within the hour.

Kiama by-election minus four days

A contested by-election looms in New South Wales, offering a strong opportunity for a seemingly ascendant minority Labor government.

The New South Wales state by-election for the southern Illawarra seat of Kiama will be held on Saturday, presenting Chris Minns’ minority Labor government with what would seem a strong chance of improving its lower house representation to 46 seats out of 93. The seat is being vacated after Gareth Ward resigned on August 8 pending his expulsion over sexual abuse convictions recorded against him the previous month. Ward gained the seat for the Liberals at the 2011 election and held it as an independent after 2021, when he resigned from the ministry and the party after identifying himself as the subject of an inquiry of the child abuse and sex crimes squad.

Despite having changes hanging over him at the March 2023 election, Ward managed to retain the seat with a 0.7% margin over Labor, the Liberal candidate finishing a distant third. Importantly for the matter at hand, Labor recorded an emphatic win on the two-party preferred vote over the Liberals by a margin of 19.7%, with the bulk of Ward’s primary vote exhausting. The Liberals have not shied from the contest, despite early suggestions it might be better left to the Nationals, who made up for what they lacked in any sort of historic presence in the region in not being associated with Ward. However, the Nationals ultimately ruled themselves out, and the seat will be contested for the Liberals by former Shoalhaven councillor Serena Copley. Labor’s candidate is Katelin McInerney, who fell narrowly short of winning the seat in 2023.

I have belatedly published a guide to the by-election; live results will as usual unfold on the site from the usual time on Saturday evening.

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.

State polling: NSW, Victoria and Queensland

State Labor governments afloat in New South Wales and sinking in Victoria, while a new conservative government enjoys its honeymoon in Queensland.

Four recent state poll results from the three largest states:

• DemosAU had been a handy supplier of state-level polling lately, its latest entry being from New South Wales, where Labor is credited with a two-party lead of 54-46. This compares with 54.3-45.7 at the March 2023 election, and is a happier set of numbers for the Minns government than most of its mid-term polling. Labor is nonetheless only 33% of the primary vote, compared with 37.0% at the election, but the benefit has been yielded by the Greens, up from 9.7% to 14%, with the Coalition down from 35.4% to 34% and others on 19%. Chris Minns holds a 42-24 lead over Mark Speakman as preferred premier. The poll was conducted last Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1013.

• The bi-monthly Resolve Strategic Victorian state poll, combining 1000 responses from the last two monthly national polls, is only slightly better for Labor than a diabolical result last time: they are up two points to 24%, with the Coalition down one to 41% and the Greens up one to 14%. Two-party preferred gets hard to estimate with the non-major party vote at 35%, but I make the Coalition’s lead to be between 53-47 and 56-44. It will likely be the lead story on The Age website come morning, but in any case you can see the numbers through its Resolve Political Monitor feature (click on “VIC” near the top of the page). Demos AU also had a poll last week for Victoria, conducted March 17 to 21 from a sample of 1006, which had the Coalition leading 52-48 on two-party preferred from primary votes of Labor 25%, Coalition 39%, Greens 15% and others 21%. The November 2022 election result was 54.8-45.2 to Labor, from primary votes of Labor 36.7%, Coalition 34.5% and Greens 11.5%. Brad Battin led Jacinta Allan for preferred premier in both polls, by 36-23 in Resolve Strategic’s case (out from 36-27 last time) and 43-30 in DemosAU’s. DemosAU found 60% holding that the state was headed in the wrong direction, compared with 25% for the right direction.

• As reported in the Courier-Mail on Monday, RedBridge Group has the first Queensland state poll since the October election, recording the new Liberal National Party government with a lead of 56.5-43.5, from primary votes are LNP 44%, Labor 27%, Greens 12% and One Nation 10%. The result at the election in October was 53.8-46.2 in favour of the LNP from primary votes of LNP 41.5%, Labor 32.6%, Greens 9.9% and One Nation 8.0%. David Crisafulli is rated favourably by 46%, neutrally by 25% and negatively by 17%, while Steven Miles is at 26%, 22% and 39%. The poll was conducted March 17 to 25 from a sample of 1507.

In other Queensland news, the first signs of progress on a state redistribution that must be held at some point this year, with the Courier-Mail reporting Attorney-General Deb Frecklington has floated three names for the redistribution commission: two uncontroversial, the other John Sosso, who has held senior public service positions under various conservative governments, presently serving under Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie as director-general of the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning.

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