Nominations were declared yesterday in the New South Wales state election. There has been a slight reduction in the number of candidates in the lower house. The ballot paper is slightly larger for the upper house, but the number of groups with a box above the line is down significantly.
There are 562 candidates for the Assembly, almost exactly the same as in 2019. This averages out to just over 6 candidates per seat.
There are ten candidates in the seats of Murray and Northern Tablelands. At the other end there are only four in eleven other seats.
These candidates come from 14 parties plus independents, down one from 15 parties in 2019.
Labor and the Greens are running full tickets across the state. The Liberal Party are running in 75 seats with the Nationals running in 20. Both parties are running in the independent-held seat of Wagga Wagga, and in seat of Port Macquarie where the sitting MP defected from the Nationals to the Liberal Party.
Amongst the other parties, Sustainable Australia stands out with 82 candidates. Animal Justice is running 33 candidates, Legalise Cannabis 23, Shooters 20, One Nation 17, and a handful for five other parties.
There has been an uptick in the proportion of women running this year. 39.3% of the candidates are women, with just one candidate unknown. If anyone knows who Alex Lee independent of Maitland is, please let me know. This compares to about 34% in 2015 and 33% in 2019.
There has been a noticeable uptick in the proportion of independents who are women - up from about one fifth to about one third.
Now let's take a look at the Legislative Council.
At first glance, the ballot paper is a bit larger. There's 21 groups, up from 20 in 2019. But there's a weird development - quite a lot of the groups have failed to nominate sufficient candidates to get an above-the-line box.
The upper house counting rules, which are embedded in the constitution, require voters to number at least fifteen boxes. The ticket voting system only works if a party runs 15 candidates. But this year, six of the groups haven't met that standard. These six groups include those headed by Craig Kelly and Silvana Nile. I'm particularly baffled by Fred Nile's decision to run as his wife's running mate on a ticket that will receive a tiny number of votes without the ability to receive above-the-line votes, rather than simply retiring after 42 years in office.
This is the sixth election under the current electoral system. In the first five, only three groups chose to nominate without the requisite fifteen, but this year there are six.
So who are the groups who are seriously running? There's a few tiers. The top tier are those parties who will definitely win a seat, and may win multiple:
- Liberal/National coalition
- Labor
- Greens
- One Nation
Then there are Animal Justice and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, both of whom are defending a single seat.
Most of the other groups can be classified into right and left streams. On the left:
- Legalise Cannabis
- Sustainable Australia
- Socialist Alliance
- Elizabeth Farrelly Independents
- Public Education Party
And on the right:
- Lyle Shelton group
- Liberal Democrats
- Informed Medical Options
- Riccardo Bosi group
In my opinion it looks like there's a much stronger range of challenger parties on the left of politics, with Legalise Cannabis likely the strongest. But the party relies a lot on the appeal of its name, and their ballot position in the middle is not great.
While Lyle Shelton might benefit a little from the donkey vote, he won't have any name above the line, and that will likely doom his challenge - only Pauline Hanson in 2011 has come close to winning without a party name.
That's it for now. If you're interested, I've posted my list of lower house candidates with gender coding here. I'm going to take the next day or two to seek out website links for the remaining candidates - if you're a candidate and want your website listed, this is your chance. By the end of the weekend the final lists should be up on every seat profile.
Where can I find a list of upper house candidates?
Surprising how Sustainable Australia has the most lower house candidates, outside ALP, LNP and Greens. This is despite being a relatively new party and one that has never won a seat in NSW. With the effort they’re putting in, methinks they could pick up an upper house seat. They may come fourth in lower house PVs statewide (if counting LNP as one party).
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