I’ve pulled together the primary vote totals as of this afternoon and calculated swings for each council and ward in urban NSW.
I’ve restricted my analysis to councils between Newcastle and Shellharbour, as councils outside this area are almost always dominated by independents.
Across this region, here were the total votes for the three large parties:
| Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Labor | 350,043 | 28.34 | +5.62 |
| Liberal | 348,983 | 28.26 | -3.54 |
| Greens | 124,154 | 10.05 | +1.45 |
| Others | 411,937 | 33.35 | -3.52 |
Labor and Liberal have polled pretty much exactly the same vote.
The Liberal swing would’ve been worse if not for the Northern Beaches council, where the Liberal Party ran for the first time in the former Pittwater and Warringah councils.
The Liberal Party polled almost 63% in the Hills, which is the only place where they polled a majority of the primary vote. Labor’s vote peaked at 49.75% in Burwood. The Greens polled 29.7% in the Inner West, as well as over 20% in Waverley and Woollahra.
Labor’s largest swing was in Ryde, where their vote increased by almost 14%. They also gained a swing of over 13% in the new Cumberland council, and swings of over 10% in both Wollongong and Newcastle.
The biggest drop in the Liberal vote came in Newcastle. The Liberal primary vote crashed from 29.5% to 15.6% after a number of the party’s lead candidates were disendorsed after nominations closed.
The Greens vote rose in most councils. The party gained a swing of 9.7% in Woollahra, 7.9% in Waverley and 6% in Hornsby. The Greens vote only rose slightly in the Inner West (arguably the Greens most important council), with swings ranging from 13% in Ashfield ward to -10% in Balmain.
I’ve also made this map where you can toggle between layers showing the swings for Labor, Liberal and Greens in this region (you can zoom out to see Newcastle and Wollongong/Shellharbour).
Great work Ben, as usual.
Great work Ben. I’d say at 33% ‘other’ vote the state/national implications are a bit clouded, although you and others clearly indicate that the current state Government has taken something of a swing. We assume that it relates to council amalgamation, but can that be proven??
It’s worth pointing out that the ‘other’ vote has been steadily declining at every recent election. I don’t think there are national implications but I think we’ve seen a pretty clear trend of Labor gaining ground and Liberals losing ground in council elections last year and this year which I think does have implications for the state government – you can see this in the swing figures.
By the way, the swing against the Liberal Party is 5.7%, not 3.5%, if you ignore Northern Beaches. It’s 5.9% if you exclude Hunters Hill, where the Libs ran for the first time.
And the swing against the ‘others’ drops to 1.7%. But that is less interesting. A big part of the ‘others’ vote dropping over the last decade has been the major parties (particularly the Liberal Party) running in more councils.
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