There are a number of seats that are in doubt after last night’s counting.
Balmain – Balmain is the most interesting seat of the election at the moment. At time of writing, the Liberal candidate James Falk leads on 32.3%, with sitting Labor MP Verity Firth on 30.7%, only 86 votes ahead of Greens candidate Jamie Parker. The current two-party preferred count has Firth leading over Falk with 51%. However, if Parker were to overtake Firth either on the primary vote count or on preferences from minor candidates such as Maire Sheehan, it would be an entirely different contest. Parker would be favoured to win, but it is hard to know.
East Hills – Sitting Labor MP Alan Ashton suffered a 14.1% two-party-preferred swing, which puts him two votes behind Liberal candidate Glenn Brookes.
Maroubra – Sitting Labor MP Michael Daley is 1215 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Michael Feneley.
Monaro – Nationals candidate John Barilaro is 603 votes ahead of Labor MP Steve Whan.
Newcastle – Newcastle Lord Mayor John Tate, who came close to winning in 2007, suffered a 12.6% swing and has come fourth in the seat. Liberal candidate Tim Owen is 674 votes ahead of Labor MP Jodi Mckay.
Oatley – Liberal candidate Mark Coure is 332 votes ahead of Labor MP Kevin Greene.
Swansea – Liberal candidate Garry Edwards is 491 votes ahead of Labor MP Robert Coombs.
Toongabbie – Labor MP and former premier Nathan Rees is 485 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Kirsty Lloyd.
Wollongong – Independent candidate Gordon Bradbery is 138 votes ahead of Labor MP Noreen Hay.
Ben,
Which were the Seats where the Greens preferenced Labor?
Granville and Toongabbie. Maybe a few other none inner city left seats.
However both seats have very weak Greens (in Granville Greens come like 5th or something). And the preference flows were by no means good. The booth I was on had about 20% Greens flow to Labor, 6% flow to Coalition and 74% exhaust.
Greens preferenced Labor in Toongabbie, Granville, Riverstone, Coogee and Wallsend.
NSWEC didn’t count between those candidates in Balmain, Newcastle and Wollongong on election night, so I don’t really understand where those figures have come from. NSWEC does have fresh 2CP counts up on their website today for Newcastle and Wollongong. In Newcastle Owen has a 1,000 vote lead over McKay with all booths counted. In Wollongong Hay leads Bradbery by less than 300 votes with 12 booths still to recount.
I can’t resist… just a few more thoughts on Balmain. Two weeks ago I had put into print a prediction that the Libs would top the primary, but the Greens would win on prefs, which I thought would come from 3rd placed Labor. My report earned a sternly worded rebuke from the inner west Greens campaign manager, who questioned my maths, sanity, etc.
I asked him if I could print his letter (taking out the strong personal abuse), but he declined and gave me something more considered to publish. Which I did this weekend.
However the interesting thing now is how close my prediction was to the actual result. I did however underestimate the Labor vote.
There is another sting to this tale. Of course I had seen the Labor’s HTV being handed out to pre-pollers as late as Friday. Confirmed by Verity’s people, that they were preferencing the Greens via Maire Sheehan. I repeated my prediction (Greens win, via Labor prefs) in our weekend issue (printed this Friday).
So yes, now I have “egg on my face”. Labor changed that HTV for Saturday. I’m not sure how many Labor and Liberal votes will preference Green despite their cards ( Jamie is pretty unpopular in Balmain), but as Ben has noted, a lot of people are pretty confused about preferences anyway.
A confusion not being helped by all the party’s games with them.
Predictions of the seats in doubt….
Balmain – who knows? Whoever finishes 3rd out of Parker or Firth, most likely. We might even see a Liberal MP if enough preferences exhaust.
East Hills – really don’t know if there’s 2 votes in it. I think Labor will end up doing better on pre-polls, but the Lib might win narrowly on prefences.
Maroubra – Daley should be safe here.
Monaro – The National will probably win….unless there’s a strong pre-poll for Whan.
Oatley – Greene didn’t have a lot of campaign resources….so probably the Liberal here.
Swansea – Much will depend on what happens to Snedden’s preferences….the Lib I think will get up here.
Toongabbie – Rees is probably home, but it’s hard to say.
Wollongong – Hay will probably win….as major parties tend to be better organised on pre-poll and she’s got a fair lead on the primary vote.
Maroubra is not in doubt, Daley has won. Monaro has gone National, the ALP is already talking about Steve Whan taking Eric Roozendal’s upper house spot.
Toongabbie should be a Labor hold. Swansea is going liberal.
The rest are up for grabs.
I’d be very surprised if the preference flows are very strong at the best of times, especially in state elections where preferences are totally OPTIONAL.
Ben, please clarify this for us, but my understanding is that especially for Greens voters the preference flows tend to be around 30-50% at best. That is, they make their own mind and only a small percentage follow the HowToVotes.
“Steve Whan taking Eric Roozendal’s upper house spot”
Wow, if we keep going like that this rebuilding party stuff is going to be great!
After all the ordinary votes have been recounted in Wollongong between Hay and Bradbery, Hay is leading on 52.5% – should be enough for her to win.
Oh yeah, and Newcastle….Owen should win here you’d think – he’s 5% ahead on primary votes on McKay.
Current ABC Count shows Bradbury up by 130 votes against Hay on 2PP. Doubt he would be up for a hot-dog.
The ABC count is not the correct count. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a 2CP count between Hay and Bradbery. Refer to NSWEC website.
Looks like Antony Green is assuming close to a 100% preference shift from the Liberal Party to the Independent. Can be the only way.
I’d be prepared to call Newcastle, Swansea and Monaro for the Liberals. I’d be prepared to call Maroubra and Tonngabbie for the ALP.
Balmain, East Hills, Oatley and Wollongong are too hard to call.
Yesterday, I thought I saw some pre-polling in East Hills which put Brookes about 250 votes in front. I could be wrong. On a re-count, Brookes is presently 15 votes better than Ashton with about 1/3rd of the vote from Saturday to be counted. My sources tell me that the Libs didn’t have scruitineers at all booths in East Hills.. hence I suspect they will end up a little better than the 2 votes on Saturday.
I also thought I saw some pre-polling yesterday in Oatley which made the race much tighter than the vote on Saturday.
My 21 for the ALP I think might be spot on.
.
DB, your sources regarding East Hills are wrong. My sources tell me that Glenn Brookes had two scruitineers at each and everybooth and yesterday his head office sent an army of scrutineers (who all had formal training) to the returning office at Merrigold St Revesby to oversee the recount. On the re-count Brookes is ahead by 342 with six boothes being re-counted this morning and it is likely that the swing will also be reflected in the postal vote count.
My prediction: Glenn Brookes for East Hills by 0.7%
SECMan – Ok, thanks. It is good to know that he had scruitineers at all booths on Saturday. An ALP source told me this was not the case and that about 6 booths did not have a Lib scruitineer. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now given the recount.
I hope you are right on the overall vote. I have compared the vote from Staurday to the one on the NSWEC site and Brookes appears to be 15 votes ahead on the count done on Saturday on a booth-for-booth basis. It will come down to postals (which might not be good) and pre-polls (which will be good).
I also heard that not all booths were manned at all times in Condell Park. Is this right? My info here has come from the ALP, not the Libs. Great poll booth result from Picnic Point, which is the one I often Captained years ago for the Libs. Best booth in the district.
SECMan – yes, had another look. Brookes ahead on pre-poll by 215, plus 2 from election night, plus extra 15 on recount = 231 ahead on like-for-like basis.
Probably an extra 6500 votes to be counted? Still makes it very tight. Postals will be the key.
Did Brookes issue postals to the electorate? That’s the key here I think.
hahhahaha… Ashton is going down…
Boutros – while I’d like to share your enthusiam, I wouldn’t count your chickens until Wednesday. If he gets 500 in front it is all over.
I am not worried who wins – I just taught both sides a lesson…
Just so you know most of my votes were from usually labor voters especially in condell park… If I had a bit more resources it wouldve made a difference… Ashton would be in front right now if I didnt run…
Libs ahead by 86 in Oatley
Brooks 680 ahead in East Hills
Boutros: interested to know, how did the three DLP/Ind candidates do?
Getting ahead of yourself Boutros. A vote of 1.7% and you stand there pontificating that you helped to bring down the ALP? There was a 12.4% swing away (on primaries) from the ALP and I do believe that the majority of that went straight to the Coalition. Give me a break.
Also the SEC really needs to change their VTR page for Balmain. It’s still showing a Firth vs. Parker two horse race.
I am confident we will come second on primaries in Balmain, even with just the 90 vote lead right now. Postal votes have a high percentage of pensioners and older constituents – more likely to vote ALP than Greens, and ALP traditionally runs better postal vote campaigns.
It’s then just a question of if Greens preferences can carry ALP over the Libs.
1.7% for a top of ballot position which includes donkey votes? Not to quash your enthusiasm mate but Hawkeye is right.
Hello my fellow Italian (Hawkeye), Brad did well in Wakehurst (Expected), I am hoping that Nathan Rees holds on in Toongabbie, for the sake of the ALP they need people like Nathan!
Brooks now 308 ahead
Okay then maybe I shouldnt have run and most of my 571 votes would go to labor… then what would of happened???… mate 1.7% is not bad considering the circumstances. I spent $500 and was working full time… I dont even live in the area unfortunately…
DLP in mulgoa got 1.4% and DLP in macquarie fields got 1%
Swansea
COOMBS Robert+ ALP+ 9,230 49.7
EDWARDS Garry LP 9,350 50.3
Labor only 120 votes behind….
Bob Santamaria was a good man!
Your 571 votes would have gone to the ALP? I really doubt that, considering how strong the swing to the Coalition and away from the ALP was! Furthermore, there were about 6.3% in votes completely up for grabs, with no AAFI and no Unity Party candidates running in the election. With the CDP suffering a 2.4% swing away from them (and Family First getting 2.3% of the vote), the logical explanation for your vote was that the 6.3% of that vote went to either the other independent (Tony Batch) or yourself. With Batch getting 4.5% and yourself getting 1.7%, it looks like that logic is pretty close to the mark. You didn’t take any votes away from Labor, nor did you deny Labor any votes. The people who voted for you seem like completely dis-satisfied voters with any of the major parties. Not a donkey vote (as crazed-mongoose suggested) but people who don’t like any of the parties.
After commentary on various blogs about the Greens campaign in Blue Mountains collapsing they actually held their vote.
A glance through Anthony Green’s site at the diversity of actual results in various seats offers some evidence for the fact that individual campaigns did make a difference even in the context of an electoral tsunami. Regional patterns but no uniform swing.
Worth noting is that on the North Shore (plus Vaucluse) ALP voters are starting to look a bit like an endangered species and two party preferred counts in future for these seats will be Liberal versus Green.Same applies to the far north coast in Ballina and Lismore where it will be National versus Greens.
On my adjustments I think Brookes is only ahead by 207.
I’m in the seat of North Shore & I voted Labor 1, CDP 2. I refused to vote for the Lib candadate & point blank refused to acknowledge The Greens
The only seats I think are in contention now are:
East Hills – LP 207 in front (could go either way)
Oatley – LP about 90 in front (probable ALP)
Balmain – I don’t think is sorted. Still has Grn v ALP, but not sure about that.
I think the others are as per above who were leading. A bit hard to run down a 400 vote lead in a state election.
Down to 12 votes between Green and ALP for second place in Balmain according to comments on the Poll Bludge site
AEC confirms that view….either Green scrutineers screwed up on the night or ALP scrutineers screwed up day after.
Always check which booths have been recounted. The 2 remaining to be counted had a 90 vote advantage to Labor on last nights numbers. Firth will take a 100 vote lead into non-ordinary votes and preferences.
Days to go here.
At completion of check count, plus what looks like the in district pre-poll votes, Firth is 110 votes ahead of Parker. Absentee and out of district pre-poll votes will probably favour Parker, as will iVotes judging by the count in Marrickville where 2/3 of iVotes have gone to Green in the 2CP count. Postals are probably better for Firth I assume.
Pauline is now leding the Greens for the final seat in the LC
Pauline has .4091 Quota, while the Green has 2.4077
So the Green might not get 3 quota
The Sheehan preferences will be crucial in deciding whether the ALP or the Green is eliminated.
dovif – one can only hope. It is good to have different views representing parliament, no matter how reprehensible those views are to some. The Greens would still be represented with 2.
This was posted on my Facebook news feed today by an ALP scrutineer in Oatley:
“voting story of day – ballot paper had PENIS written over Kevin Greene’s name – fortunately the I was in the box next to his name and i successfully had it recorded as a vote for KG! Right back at you penis voter!”
So close right now, but Mark Coure went from 86 votes ahead to about 233 votes ahead at last update.
To that Penis voter, sorry to disappoint but the Australian Sex Party isn’t running in NSW. Maybe you can talk to Fiona Patten about getting it started up.
@ALO: Thank you for the kind words. Brad had a big win and the ALP vote was completely decimated. The latest 2PP margin is above 30% and is against the Greens.
@DB: I think Brookes will take East Hills. That will make my better half very happy 😀 That can only mean good things. Oatley, I think the Coalition will hold on but Balmain is a complete coin-flip. It looks like Falk is increasing his lead slightly on Primaries. I think the wild-card will be if Parker does come 3rd as there will be 1. a high exhaustion rate and 2. a possible 50:50 split of the left-over preferences. This could go anywhere…
Hawkeye, The ALP vote in all seats on the North Shore of Sydney was decimated, It will be interesting to see when come next State Election if they will claw back votes from The Greens who sadly to say ran second to The Libs in all but 1 North Shore seat (Hornsby).
I always say that my dog (who in fact is more important to me) could run as the Liberal Candidate for the seat of North Shore & my dog would win. All people look for is the word Liberal & they put the number 1.
The North Shore of Sydney has allot of yuppie mid aged environmentally friendly families who i find vote for The Greens as they see them as the trendy party to support. In saying this The Greens nor Labor will ever get close enough to really threaten The Libs, the real only hope would be a strong conservative Independent with a strong profile who would come close to knocking off The Libs.
Hawkeye – Libs have increased margin in Oatley by about 230 votes on the back of strong postals. Couldn’t be more than 4000 to count there.
No postals counted in East Hills but Lib Brookes is 216 votes ahead. Would be interested to know how postals went in 2007 as a guide.
In Balmain, who ever finishes second will win. Fauk is not far enough ahead. He needed high 30’s to win and didn’t get there. Great campaign though. ALP seem best chance to me at this point. Could be wrong.
Labor’s legislative council vote for Balmain is only about 21% at the moment (with Liberal and Greens about the same as there legislative assembly votes). Seems like Verity has about 10% personal support, or there were a lot of below the line Labor votes.
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