There are 93 seats in the NSW Legislative Assembly. While a majority of these seats will be straight-out contests between Labor and the Coalition, a sizeable share of these seats are what the Australian Electoral Commission calls ‘non-classic’ – where the final two-candidate-preferred count includes a minor party or independent candidate.
With over a fifth of seats being non-classic at three of the last four elections, it adds a degree of complexity – different seats have different pairings of parties, and thus different political dynamics. While there are lots of candidates who will run in this election, there are usually no more than two candidates with a serious chance of winning. We’ve moved past the era where voters in every part of the state had the same choice of political alliances when it comes to those serious candidates.
If you look back to the 1960s and 1970s, there were very few independents in the Assembly, but the chamber has never been monopolised by the major parties in the way that the House of Representatives had been. There was always at least one crossbencher in the chamber, and usually two or more.
I’ve started to track the number of non-classic races from 1976.
The first spike took place in 1988, when there were eleven non-classic races and seven independents elected to the Assembly. It's worth noting that the Assembly temporarily expanded to 109 seats in 1988, before dropping back to 99 in 1991, so these numbers are less impressive as a proportion of the total.
While the number of independents winning in 1991 dropped, the number making the final count in their seat actually went up to 13.
1995 saw a return to major party domination in most seats, but it also saw the first minor party in a non-classic contest, when No Aircraft Noise came second in Marrickville. Every previous contest in this analysis involved an independent. There were ten non-classic races in 1999, including the first Greens contest (Marrickville) and the only case of One Nation breaking through to the top two in New South Wales in Cessnock.
The record was smashed in 2007 thanks to a large number of independents breaking through, but only six crossbenchers were elected. Independents made the top two against Labor in four Hunter-area seats, winning Lake Macquarie, as well as Shellharbour. Incumbent independents lost to Liberals in Manly and Pittwater but they also made the top count in Goulburn, Hawkesbury and Willoughby.
In 2011, the number of independent races declined slightly, but the number of seats where the Greens made the top two surged. The Greens overtook Labor in every seat in northern Sydney, but didn't come close to winning any of them. But they did win their first lower house seat in Balmain. Independents made the top two against the Coalition in twelve seats, winning three of them.
In 2015 there was some return to normality, with independents only making the final count in five seats and the Greens in eleven, although the Greens increased their representation to three.
The number of non-classic races involving Greens continued to decline in 2019 as they concentrated their efforts on a handful of their stronger seats and Labor continued to recover in the northern suburbs, but for the first time the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers contested lower house seats at a general election. They made the top two in three seats, and also won those three.
Interestingly there are no cases of Liberals and Nationals facing off in the two-candidate-preferred count. There were some cases where the two parties ran against each other in the 1980s and 1990s, but there was only ever one of the two parties in the final count.
As for 2023, there are a number of categories of seats that will likely turn up on the list of 2CP contests as distinct from Labor vs Coalition.
The Greens made it to the top two in seven seats in 2019, winning in three. The other seats where the Greens made the final count in 2019 were all in seats with prominent independents, so it seems likely they will miss out in those seats, but have potential in seats like Summer Hill and Heffron (even if they aren't close to winning) and if they break through in Lismore or South Coast that would suggest they could be on track to win.
There are also a group of four incumbent independents in western NSW, three of whom were elected in 2019 as Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidates. An independent also came a close second in Dubbo and a distant second in Tamworth. There hasn't been much chatter about this independent sphere expanding in regional areas. Another independent also came second in Coffs Harbour, and is running again.
In urban seats, there are two incumbent independents: Greg Piper in Lake Macquarie and Alex Greenwich in Sydney. There are also a group of independents who could be labeled "teals" in seats like Vaucluse, North Shore, Willoughby, Pittwater, Davidson and Lane Cove. Four of these candidates have been endorsed by Climate 200, along with an independent in Wollondilly, which is outside of the typical "teal" territory. While I think "endorsed by Climate 200" is a useful way of judging who is a teal, I don't think it's the only way to define them, and for now I don't particularly want to get into drawing the outer boundary of this vague group.
All of those "teals" are contesting Liberal seats, and there are some other notable independents running in Liberal seats, in particular Michael Regan in Wakehurst.
The independents are mostly contesting seats which lean to the Coalition rather than Labor but there's a few exceptions.
Shellharbour mayor Chris Homer is running in Shellharbour, and there are reports that Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone may run for Cabramatta, and is looking at running an ally in neighbouring Fairfield. Carbone's local council alliance also includes Dai Le, who won the federal seat of Fowler last May.
A lot of this is speculative - I don't know which of these candidates will win, or come close, or prove to be a flop. But it provides a tremendous amount of complexity when it comes to tracking electorates, and has the potential to create a lot of pockets of marginality in areas that would normally be considered safe in a typical Labor vs Coalition contest.
It also creates a lot of uncertainty about what a hung parliament will look like. Some of my recent blog posts have assumed a similar crossbench to the current parliament, but there's a wide range of possible winners. I could imagine great differences in how a hung parliament would be handled by the Greens, the ex-Shooters and other rural independents, the council independents or the teal independents. There's a lot to fascinate you over the next month.
I don’t live in NSW, so this is purely an outsider perspective.
But I always thought that the NSW Nationals SHOULD BE vulnerable. Sure the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party has made a dent in their numbers. But when you look at the policies and practices of the NSW Nationals, aided and abetted by the Liberals (e.g. water security and supply) I am surprised that more people in regional towns and cities don’t vote for their own self interest and against the Nationals.
I would also be interested to see what, if any, impact the recent regional migration had in these electorates. Potentially a lot of former city folks are now voting in National country. Will these numbers and city values help stump up Labor, Greens or Third Parties or Independent candidates? I don’t profess to know, but it will be something that I will be looking for on election night.
2019 was a high watermark, not only in terms of number of cross benchers but also the number of parties winning. In 2019, SFF gained two seats and retained a seat that was previously won at a by-election. As like previously, the Greens and independents also won seats. In 2011, the Greens won a lower house seat for the first time in NSW. Before that, we’d have to go back decades to find a minor party that had won a lower house seat.
@Neil, SFF won’t be the threat to the Nationals this time. SFF imploded and their three lower house MPs all quit the party last year.
I sense that at the state election, it’ll just be LNP/ALP/GRN/IND who will win seats, whilst SFF may just come second somewhere at best.
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