8:52 – Seats that Labor currently appears to have lost to the Coalition: Blue Mountains, Camden, Campbelltown, Charlestown, Coogee, Drummoyne, Gosford, Heathcote, Londonderry, Maitland, Menai, Miranda, Mulgoa, Parramatta, Riverstone, Rockdale, Smithfield, Strathfield, The Entrance, Wollondilly and Wyong. The Nationals have gained Bathurst, but have fallen short in Cessnock and still fighting for Monaro.
8:13 – The swings are all over the place. In seats like Monaro and Wyong it is too close to call, despite smaller margins. Seats like Campbelltown appear to have fallen on far higher margins, while neighbouring Macquarie Fields is much closer, despite a much smaller ALP margin.
8:10 – Balmain is turning into the most interesting seat of the election. At the moment all three candidates are polling around 30%. The order of elimination will decide who wins, and this is complicated by a vote of 3% for Maire Sheehan, a left-leaning independent who preferenced Labor candidate Verity Firth. Her votes could determine who comes third. It doesn’t appear that James Falk (LIB) can win, but if he comes in the top two, the other person in the top two should win.
7:58 – The counts in Marrickville and Balmain are far too close to know what is going on.
7:52 – The Liberals are currently leading in Toongabbie.
7:50 – As far as seats on high margins that Labor was worried about, they are currently losing Campbelltown, winning Oatley, and leading in Blacktown.
7:20 – So far the ABC has called 55 seats for Coalition and 8 seats for Labor, which means the Coalition has won the election. In case there was any doubt.
7:13 – Random stat – with three booths in, the ALP is down 24.6% on primary votes in Menai.
7:09 – The seats that were expected to fall are clearly trending that way, including Menai, Wollondilly and Londonderry.
6:00 – Polls have just closed in the NSW state election. Results should begin to come in around 7pm. I will be driving back from a polling booth in the north-west of Sydney until around 6:45pm.
Antony Green has already called for the Coalition (no surprises there, of course), but would this be a record in terms of fastest election call?
I’m pretty sure that Bob Hawke called it a win for John Howard in the Federal election of 1996 at about 6.40.
I saw the Nielsen poll and the Newspoll this morning – both tipped a 16% swing on 2PP.
The Labor primary vote has dropped massively in many seats, especially those previously Coalition held or where they had already written off their chances. Almost all going to Coalition.
Historic win for the lib Nats, that will teach labour to be arrogant dishonest corrupt , dreadful 16 years of rubbish
I have to put in a special plug for one of the candidates I’ve been working for, Andrea Vickers, who has doubled the Greens vote in Tweed from 8% to 16% – possibly the best increase in the Greens vote anywhere in the state. She’s done a great job in the face of attack ads from the Nats and attacks on the Greens in local media.
The end of 16 years of you Labour Party pigs gorging yourselves at the trough.
What a fitting end to you disgusting purveyors of wanton waste of your “workers” funds.
Shaping up as a contest between Jeremy Buckingham and Pauline Hanson for last seat in upper house by the look of things at this stage.
Please let it be Buckingham…
So far the primary vote for the Greens in the South Coast electorate is 13.4% and that is a gain of 4% on the last state election. Congratulations to Amanda Findlay and the supporters who helped with the polling.
As a Labor supporter, there is only one upside from tonight. Carmel Tebbutt, Nathan Rees, Sonia Hornery, Michael Daley, Cherie Burton, John Robertson, Paul Lynch, Kristina Keneally and Ryan Park all won their seats. The electorate has spared our best talent – thank goodness we still have a Labor party.
Lachlan: hopefully Verity Firth holds on too, ditto for Andrew McDonald.
I see a glimmer of hope for Labor’s future in the victories of Ryan Park & Clayton Barr(Cessnock) – two young blokes with decent resumes.
Sadly Steve Whan & David Borger look to have lost their seats.
Western Sydney was a frigging disaster – any explanation for the rout in seats like Parramatta & Smithfield? Anti-Carbon tax sentiment?
While the overall result was somewhat close to what I had predicted, there were a few surprises:
A poor result in the St. George if you ask me, not winning Kogarah and (at the moment) limping into Oatley, obviously Kevin Greene is more popular than say, Virginia Judge or David Borger.
Surprised to see Campbelltown fall, but then again, no-one was expecting Carrum to fall at last year’s Victorian election.
I was swept away by the MONSTER swings in Bathurst and Riverstone (who wasn’t)
Also, the fact that the Greens failed to win Marrickville and possibly Balmain is kind of surprising, but then again, those comments about Israel…
The fact that the Liberals might win Newcastle also came as a shock, I could not believe my eyes!
I must say, I am very pleased with the overall result, makes 1988 look like a narrow victory in comparison.
I ALMOST cried when in the space of an hour I found out that Nathan and Carmel were both okay, and that Verity was in with a chance.
The Left lives! The Left lives! The Left lives!
Crazedmongoose, not being a party member, nor caring at all about the “fate of the left”, I am not quite so emotional about Balmain and Marrickville. But like many who live and work in the inner west, I am very relieved. The people of Balmain can’t relax yet, but clearly, since everyone (EVERYONE!) gave these seats to the Greens, there are some lessons to be learnt.
I do have my own theories, but to all those who posted that “faith, hope and fantasy” (as those false predictions turned out to be) tell me: What went wrong?
Save the “it was all Labor smears” for other forums. Like the people of the inner west have proved themselves to be, the posters here are more intelligent than that.
Great result for the long suffering of the people of NSW who have had to endure what could only be called the most inept government ever to lead NSW.
Sure the Fiona Byrne fiasco should send a clear message to the Greens: do not select fruit loops no matter which seat they’re running in.
If even people in friggin’ Marrickville think you’re too extreme Left, you have a problem….
The best news I saw was Nathan (whom I handed out for yesterday) will hold Toongabbie! And secondly the Looney Greens will not win Marrickville & good hance they wont win Balmain, 2 useless & radical Mayors who should stick to climbing trees!
Nathan for PM!
I too was a bit surprised at the relatively weak result for the Libs in St George.
Perhaps because most of the sitting MPs stayed and fought? The only certain Lib gain is Rockdale, where there was no sitting MP.
Russell, I posted in the lead up and on election day that Verity remained a contender. This was mainly due to the poor reputation of the Green candidate Jamie Parker. Handing out HTV for her on polling day revealed no anger toward her; just genuine feeling she was a good local member. Fingers crossed that Verity squeaks home. It would also seem poor candidate choice destroyed their chances in Marrickville, where despite no direction from head office many Libs made Carmel their no.2 preference!
MDM the results in St George can be explained for 2 reasons – extremely poor candidate selection in Kogarah for the Liberals. The Liberal candidate was a Lebanese real estate agent whose husband is also on an adjoining council and who jointly are involved in developments. Cherie Burton’s record in terms of driving offences and honesty in relation to the same was the lesser evil. It certainly wasnt a vote for her.
In Oatley, Kevin Greene (despite regular sleepy time in parliament) was a popular local MP and despite being centred on Oatley had areas like Penshurst and Mortdale which are solid Labor voting territory despite that he lost, his swing was 14.5 as compared to the average of 16 hence he had a personal vote of 1.5%
Think of it this way. The ALP has probably got 22 seats in the Lower House and 14 in the Upper House, they will need to have 20 shadow ministers of which 15 will be drawn from the Lower House.
They need as much as possible to be putting up people with no connection with the old government and establishing them in the public mind as the basis for rebuilding. If half of the shadow cabinet are former ministers it’ll be a terrible look in terms of that criteria. Look at SA and VIC after there landslide elections there was 1 or 2 people left from the old government when they got re-elected.
I hope Verity holds Balmain, if not then James Falk to win. Yesterday was not a good result for The Greens, people have woken up to Boofhead Bob Brown & his looney sidekicks, you are not a true democratic political party. You were so confident of winning Balmian & Marrickville, what a shame.
Fiona & Jamie, you are the weakest Links, GOODBYE!
ALO – your comments could have been tempered by reference to the overall count and say more about your emotions than you powers of analysis. The Greens increased their vote in the lower house by 1.4% to 11.3% and in the Upper House by 1.99% in absolute terms – nearly 12% of the population without winning a seat, though Balmain is clearly a possibility.
I wonder about a democratic system that awards 18 seats to the Nationals with 12.4% of the state wide vote and perhaps 1 seat to a party representing nearly the same number of voters.
A correction to Ben’s 8.10 note on Maire Sheehan in Balmain. She did not “preference” Labor, she indicated three ways her voters could allocate their prefs, if they wanted to. There were no numbers, but she then listed Jane Ward, Verity Firth and Jamie Parker all as suitable second preferences, with favourable comments next to each individual.
Doug: Yeah yeah we all want a PR system and rainbows and free puppies.
But the fact of the matter is that Nationals aren’t going up against fierce competition. Where as the Greens have to assail Labor Left or small L Liberal strongholds.
I can’t agree that the BDS or the calibre of Fiona Byrne as a candidate was what cost the Greens Marrickville. Marrickville saw the best primary vote swing to the Greens of any of the inner west or eastern suburbs seats. Note there was a swing against the Greens in Heffron, Sydney, Maroubra and Vaucluse. It’s clearly more the case that Tebbutt’s campaign was quite well targeted, and that overall this was an election where people simply wanted to vote for a change of government, and weren’t inclined to look to the Greens or others instead.
Looks like Daley is going to struggle and then go down in Maroubra as the old ladies’ postal votes get counted. Good riddance.
Doug, Nationals are not represented in all seats thus why they have 12.4% of the vote. It’s allot better than 11.3% to The Greens who are represented in all seats in NSW. Nothing to happy about if you are A Looney Grren!
Your not talking apples with apples Doug!
Sorry,
Nothing to be happy about if you are A Looney Green!
Daley’s lead of 1100 should be enough.
Peter the world’s most clueless Lawyer: Pensioners vote Labor. ALP runs much more impressive postal vote operation than Libs, Daley leads by 1100. You are wrong on all counts.
If attempting to present a rational argument is to be labelled as a “looney green” well I leave that to the reader of this exchange to make the judgment as to where “looniness” truly resides. A rhetoric which makes that sort of judgement about people does not contribute much to the political process. 12% of the NSW population voted for the Greens and some of them may turn out to be your friends. Play the ball and not the man.
On the issue of comparing the Green and the National vote, I doubt that they would get much if they did run in the Metropolitan area, so the comparison isn’t as far fetched as you suggest.
Nationals don’t run in Metro seats as they represent the bush!
My friends are not that crazy to vote The Greens, actually I know some who have & have vowed to never vote for them again.
All that matters is that Nathan, Carmel & hopefully Verity are back!
Paul Lynch, Sonia Hornery, Carmel Tebbutt, Nathan Rees, hopefully Verity Firth – there is still an ALP left faction, thank goodness.
Just looking at where we won – it’s no coincidence that our toughest wins came in the seats where we had the biggest on the ground presence. Maroubra, Marrickville, Toongabbie, Wallsend and Blacktown ran barnstorming campaigns and they all had great results. Granville also ran a barnstormer and suffered a 13% swing, losing the seat by 1% – but an amazing effort considering all the seats around it swung over 20%.
If that doesn’t show the party our need to be a grassroots movement once more, than I don’t know what will.
Well done in particular to Michael Daley and Carmel Tebbutt – they are as tough as old boots.
Balmain might have suffered the lowest swing of the whole lot if we retain. 2.7%. It is no coincidence that like Lachlan’s list, Balmain also had a massive grassroots campaign. In fact, the first two things I remembered happening on the Balmain campaign were respectively:
50 people, not just hacks, but activsts from all walks of life, packed into Leichhardt town hall to brainstorm with Tim Gartrell over messaging.
100 activists, again, not just hacks, training about community organizing with Campaign Action, the Australian version of the American Wellstone Group who are well known for electing progressive candidates.
This was back in early December, before most people even thought about campaigning.
It’s all about grassroots. Centre-Left parties do not have a future without massive grassroot involvement. The rank and file need to be re-energized, young people need to be recruited, our numbers and activism on each campus must continually grow, we need to continually grow the union movement. Sussex St. must be made to understand that if they grow their influence at the cost of the rank and file, then ultimately everybody loses. They can only productively grow their influence by growing the base.
Or else we face stagnation and a repeat of the last few years.
I agree with MDMConnell about Byrne – she’s just deluded.
That’s malarkey cmong.
There was a swing of 9% from Labor to the Liberals in Balmain. If Verity is re-elected it will only be because its a 3 horse race in Balmain rather than a straight Liberal Labor contest.
Its funny this claim that Verity was “one of the good ones” in a bad government. This was the women who promised to replace the school heaters ie 400m without even taking it to cabinet and who was publicly rebuked by Keneally.
Politics is a horrible business and it produces fluke results like this one.
Claiming it was a grass roots campaign is a joke too – look at election leaflets.com if you want to get a sense of the money spent by Verity.
Credit where credit is due – it was a smart play by the ALP to disassociate local members from the government and present them as almost community independents – it was obviously worth a point or 2 in the vote. On the other hand it just shows the rottenness of the brand. Verity of the Burgmann dynasty aint the answer to the road back for the ALP.
Hey Millard, who was minister, premier, backbencher and then voted out in one term?
Certainly wasn’t Nathan.
Millard F, Angelo Tsirekas did the “community independent” thing in Drummoyne, many of his leaflets had no Labor branding at all. He also has a very strong personal following – including me coming outside the newsagent on Lyons Rd giving him a spruik on Ten news at 11.30am (an accident!). But look at the disastrous result there…
Pretty hard to make generalisations. Drummoyne is only a few clicks away from Balmain, but it feels like a different political universe.
errr, typo – “coming”… I had just bought my Tele and SH, and Ten news whacked a mike in my face. The had picked Drummoyne because of the incredible swing there, I guess… Big swings west of the Iron Cove Bridge were common. Verity and Carmel’s results on the “east side” of the inner west look amazingly good to me. I had put Verity’s primary as much much lower…
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