NSW 2011: seats in doubt

By
Ben Raue
-
169

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.

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169 COMMENTS

  1. Oatley is a Liberal gain by 409 votes with 100% of the vote counted.

    This leaves:
    co-alition 69
    ALP 20
    Ind 3
    undecided: Lib/ALP/Grn 1. ALP favourite. If Firth is ahead of Parker, the Libs are an outside chance. If Parker gets ahead of Firth the Greens will win.

  3. Almost certainly a Greens win there now.

    It’s worth noting that the Greens in Marrickville also had a huge resurgence. The Greens will need a swing of only .9% for next election to win.

    Hope Tebbutt likes sitting in opposition. If she quits parliament, the by-election will be a Greens win.

    I expect too if Heffron doesn’t get a Liberal candidate in a by-election, the Greens will win there.

  4. Credit where it is due, James Falk has done a brilliant job to bring Balmain right down to the wire. He has opened up an 1100 vote lead on Primaries and it will be very interesting to see what happens post-preferences. I don’t think all of the absentees are counted yet so this could go anywhere.

    As for Toongabbie, Rees will hold on, just.

    Also note that the ABC have confirmed Oatley for the Coalition. So the only possible seat now is Balmain but the Coalition has hit 69. VERY NICE… I LIKE!

  5. Greens just over 200 votes ahead of ALP in Balmain (Argh) with 89.4% counted. 2PP Greens just over 1,500 ahead of Libs.

    ALP 194 votes ahead in Toongabbie with 93.9% counted (Double Argh)

  6. Lopo – NSW EC saying that 100% of all votes made have been counted in Toongabbie. I have given to Rees on that basis.

    From the above, Balmain now sure looks like a Green gain. Does anyone have the current primary vote split?

    Co-alition 69
    ALP 20
    Ind 3
    Grn 1

  7. Current PV totals after 89% counted:
    FIRTH Verity ALP Australian Labor Party (NSW Branch) 13,673
    SHEEHAN Maire 1,366
    FALK James LP Liberal Party of Australia New South Wales Division 14,738
    GESLING Leeanne CDP Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) 422
    WARD Jane 674
    FOLKES Nicholas 285
    PARKER Jamie GNS The Greens 13,876
    SHAPIRO Jon 220
    Informal votes 1,128

    Still up in the air. 2800 minor candidates prefs to distribute before the final 3 candidates, will affect the totals (unless they exhaust). CDP, Folkes and Shapiro will probably go Liberal, Sheehan and Ward’s preferences will decide who out of Firth and Parker will finish second and then win the seat. Will happen tomorrow.

  13. Id Candidate Affiliation Votes
    1 FIRTH Verity ALP Australian Labor Party (NSW Branch) 13,745
    2 SHEEHAN Maire 1,373
    3 FALK James LP Liberal Party of Australia New South Wales Division 14,824
    Leeanne CDP Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) 424
    WARD Jane 678
    FOLKES Nicholas 287
    PARKER Jamie GNS The Greens 13,963
    Jon SHAPIRO 223
    Informal votes 1,141

  15. Happy for Nathan Rees – really a decent man!
    Sad for Verity – maybe they’ll find her a spot in the Upper House?

  16. Doubt it. With John Hatzistergos retiring, the seat will probably go to another members of the ALP right. I’m looking towards Steve Whan.

  19. Robertson apparently wanted Verity to be his deputy!
    And, isn’t Obeid’s spot meant to go to Walt Secord?

  20. Verity 222 votes behind Parker after primary votes. 2800 minor candidate preferences to distribute today (Friday). Can she pull off a third place win like Andrew Wilikie at the Federal election?

  22. Secord and Whan are both on the list or so the grapevine goes. I think there’s a few former MPs who it would are competent and the right type of people we want in the Labor Party, such as Steve Whan, Verity Firth and David Borger, and it’ll be a monumental shame if this is the end of their political careers.

  23. Honestly, for the NSW ALP to re build & get respect back from it’s once loyal supporters, they need to start afresh with a new leader who has no baggage from the last 4 years. Unfortunaetly appointing Robbo has not turned a new page for the NSW ALP. When you get bagged from members of your own party, & it gets reported through the media with hundreds of thousands of people listening or watching this, all it does is shows & proves to the party loyal along with the everyday voters that NSW Labor has not learnt from last Saturday & continue to put the “Bad Blood” in the senior positions.

    From the remaining 19 lower house members (excluding Robbo), there is enough talent & a fresh face that can lead NSW Labor for the next 4 years & help build trust & respect to the NSW voters in time for the next state election.

    If they ALP cannot see this, then they better be prepared for a lengthy time sitting in opposition. (Sad to write this being a Labor supporter)

  24. Crazedmongoose, did you get a chance to read my response to the questions you asked me on Wednesday? I would be keen to read your response

  25. BALMAIN
    Sydney Inner West
    Last Updated: Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:26:25
    Roll: 51,888
    Votes Counted: 90.0%
    Booths Counted Primary Vote: 24/24
    Booths Counted 2CP: 24/24
    ABC Predicted Final Result: GRN GAIN: 5.9% swing to GRN Party % Vote
    GRN 52.1
    LIB 47.9

    Verity Firth ALP 13,763 30.2% -9.0
    Maire Sheehan IND 1,375 3.0% +3.0
    James Falk LIB 14,839 32.6% +8.8
    Leeanne Gesling CDP 424 0.9% +0.9
    Jane Ward IND 680 1.5% -1.6
    Nicholas Folkes IND 287 0.6% +0.6
    Jamie Parker GRN 13,986 30.7% +1.2
    Jon Shapiro IND 223 0.5% +0.5
    Informal 1,146 2.7
    Total Votes 46,723 90.05

    Progressive Count After Preferences Candidate Party Votes % Vote Swing
    Jamie Parker GRN 18,642 52.1 +5.9%
    James Falk LIB 17,106 47.9 -5.9%

  26. Agree that Robertson is a poor choice – he might win back some traditional Labor voters from working class backgrounds, but I doubt his appeal will extend beyond that.
    What’s required is someone in the Bob Carr mode – Daley might have been worth a try perhaps?
    Robbo also better promote to the front bench Dr Andrew McDonald, who performed the best of all Western Sydney Labor MPs/candidates(in terms of the swing against him in Macquarie Fields being less than in corresponding electorates).

  27. Nup, Robbo’s a good choice. Get rid of your worst first. Opposition Leaders generally only last a couple of years.

  28. John Robertson will only take back the red-blooded trade workers who voted for the Coalition for the first (and probably the last) time. He doesn’t have the appeal to win the swinging voters. I think he will get to the next election, on the back of the support of the Terrigals (what’s left of them) but realistically, there isn’t much leadership talent left in the party. Carmel Tebbutt doesn’t want it. I don’t think Michael Daley is leadership material and although Dr Andrew McDonald is a good MP, I doubt they will hand the leadership back to the ALP Left, for fear of a repeat of what Nathan Rees tried to do.

  29. Robbo may not be intellectually or on a policy level near the Keating old guards, but he has his strengths.

    He is charismatic, a great speaker, likable.

    He has humble and genuine roots, in an age of predictable professional political careers (student politics officerbearer-union operative-party operative/policy adviser-preselection) he is a true blue collar tradie and the type of person to take Labor back to it’s roots.

    He will help us win back the working class who we’ve lost touch with, and as the public face against privatization and an old style tradie/unionist he can help us win back the heartland.

    I agree though that he isn’t board appeal enough or exceptional enough in terms of policy to win it all back, but at this point, winning back the heartland in four years will already be an accomplishment. And as DB said, there isn’t a great deal of chance he will actually be premier.

  30. The next fed election will be a fun one with all of these new Liberals in the west. For the first time in history, the Libs might actually be resourced well enough to take the fight to the ALP in seats like Banks, Barton and Greenway.

  32. In contrast to Crazedmongoose’s assessment of the 2015 election as “winning back the heartland” for Labor, 2015 will be the Greens’ time to shine. The public will be frustrated with the Liberals but not ready to re-elect Labor. The Liberals will win again and Labor will win a large amount of their vote back – perhaps 10% – but not enough to win.

    3 LC candidates should be a shoo-in, with a 4th quite likely. The Greens will take to the battleground of Sydney, Coogee, Heffron, Marrickville and Blue Mountains, and put up the strongest fights these electorates have ever seen. Balmain – well – it’ll be a dirty fight but should be kept.

  33. Grayndler’s now closer than Melbourne was. It’s unlikely the Liberals will preference the Greens though, it’s now a cause célèbre for them to put the boot in the Greens. I think it’s unlikely any further federal lower house seats will be winnable for the near future.

  34. morgeib – yes, got that wrong. I think it was only because existing members challenged. You are correct on Reid. Mind you, I picked 21 and only got a few wrong in the end.

    Sorry deconst – I can’t agree and see that as pie in the sky stuff. This was their best opportunity. They will continue to be runner up in many electorates. I believe about 50% of the Greens LA increase was on the North Shore, which is quite useless to them really except that they may get upper house votes. They will never win North Shore seats. The ALP would do that before the Greens despite what happened this time.

    I reckon the Greens will lose votes at the next Federal election by around 1% too. Gillard is killing them and they have no decent response. Gillard is enforcing the two party system and the disillusioned will come back to the ALP over time. Now if the Greens could somehow earn economic credibility, things might change. But I can’t see it happening.

    Longer term the ALP and co-alition will squeeze their vote (North shore to the Libs and other parts to Labor). And when Bob Brown retires, they will be in their hardest period because they don’t have a natural leader to take his place. Frankly, Sarah H-Y and Christine Milne are the joke of federal parliament. If that’s their best replacement for Bobby, then they are destined for the bin.

    The best opportunities for the Greens will be in Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania. In most other places, they will always be irrelevant under CVP. And you can’t rule from the Senate.

  35. Man, listening to the Greens for the past few years, you’d think every election would be their rise to indispensable power.

    Sorry deconst. I thought this election would be the rise of the Greens, but if you guys can’t get a big bump out of the complete collapse of a centre left to left vote, I don’t see how the next time is going to be any better.

  36. Best thing Julia can do is as follows

    1) Drop the Carbon Tax (review when the major Carbon omitting countries commit to setting a Carbon Tax, as Australia is not leaders in Carbon ommision we should follow once the Carbon Ommission leading countries implement a Carbon Tax)
    2) Tell Bob Bye, Bye
    3) Review on the NBN (Look for more cost effective solution)

    If Federal Labor continues the way it is going, we will see another whitewash as like we saw in 1996 when Keating lost power.

    I am sure there are many ALP supporters who are in agreeance with some of it not all of my points.

  37. Agreed on 3) definitely not on 1) (and don’t we lose government if we do 2)?)

    I’m sorry Lopo, I know policies like the carbon tax hurts the heartland and a lot of true believers, but this is a necessary step. Every Labor campaigner and party member I talked to in 2010 agreed with me: this is the most demoralizing campaign we’ve ever had to fight. No action on climate change, bending over on the mining tax, run away from multicultural roots, make political punching bags out of boat people (less than the Libs were doing but still), no allowing social progressives to speak out on gay marriage, poll driven glossy policies of no substance…all for the return of a barely breathing government.

    If we carry on like this we may win a few elections, but we’ll lose about two future generations of kids growing up who ever thought of supporting us, because they, though most of them don’t vote, they would have saw through their TV and papers that we were too afraid, too afraid to do anything hard, too afraid to do anything right.

    It is the view from the bottom of my heart, and the view of almost every Labor party member I know, that a price on carbon is necessary. It’s not popular or easy, but that’s not what the Labor Party is known for. We ended protective tariffs under Hawke, we floated the dollar under Keating, we introduced postwar migration under Chifley, none of those things were popular, none of those things were easy. People expect the ALP, the true ALP, not this current poll driven media managed incarnation, to make the hard and necessary reforms. The only thing I’m sorry for in this whole carbon tax thing is that it’s not going to be an ETS straight away, and that through a series of unforeseen events, Gillard ended up misleading the people.

    I don’t want to go back to that, to feeling like we’re the party that does nothing but wait for the Liberals to stuff up with something like work-choices and then hammering them for it. We barely won the 2010 elections, and we almost lost our soul.

  38. When did the Greens say that they were definitely going to win all of those seats? What I remember was that the party always said how hard it would be to win those seats.

    Voters strongly flowed to the Liberals this time, while the Greens are seen as being close to Labor due to the federal agreement.

    People have predicted ‘this was the best opportunity for the Greens, things will never be so good for them’ many times, it’s always been wrong. The rise of the Greens has always been slow and steady, not about surges at single elections.

    2015 will come at a time when Labor has been structurally weakened by their massively reduced parliamentary delegation. We don’t know what will happen there, but the structural factors that have aided the rise of the Greens and the problems for the Labor Party in holding onto it’s left aren’t about to go away.

  39. @Crazedmongoose

    Trust me, we introduce a Carbon Tax & dont expect to win the next election! When majority of voters are against it you can expect that they vote against you. You cannot say one thing before an election then do the opposite, that goes for all politicians on all sides of politics.

    We want to stop Carbon omissions then

    1) Stop producing Coal
    2) Introduce Nuclear Power

    CO2 is part of life, get China & India to introduce a Carbon Tax, then we can follow & introduce a Carbon Tax. Don’t get me wrong I am all for being environmentally friendly, but all measures should be looked at that are cost effective & are the best for today, tomorrow & the future, what that is, I have no idea, but I do know that a Carbon Tax will not stop Carbon ommissions, we will continue to burn coal to run our electricity, this will not slow us down, we will also continue to sell coal to overseas countries & they will continue to ommit CO2.

    Carbon reduction needs to be done world wide not a one off.

    Mate, I respect all people’s opinions & I respect yours, on this topic we will agree to disagree.

    I will still vote Labor (live in a blue ribbon Liberal Seat) & will support the party the best & most effective way I can

  40. If Julia Gillard broke off her relationship with the Greens, I doubt the government would stay in power for long.

    Gillard could drop the carbon tax, but it would make it impossible for her to pass legislation through the Senate and would see the continuing loss of ALP party membership and vote to the Greens.

    As far as the NBN is concerned, it seems like a vital piece of infrastructure with the potential to be very popular. The government just needs the courage to implement the policy, and then it will likely be popular, like the GST was. The same is probably true for a carbon tax.

  41. The danger that the Greens run if they become too mainstream is that they will run the risk of what happened to the Australian Democrats. I think they have found their niche. I agree with Ben in that they will continue to chip away at the left-wing voters but they won’t move too much further. I doubt they will emulate the Liberal Democrats in England (which, to me, resemble the Australian Democrats more) but the big loser from this will be the ALP, just as the big loser from the Australian Democrats (and One Nation) was the Liberal Party.

  42. DB, just on this:

    Frankly, Sarah H-Y and Christine Milne are the joke of federal parliament. If that’s their best replacement for Bobby, then they are destined for the bin.

    Two words: Scott Ludlam. 😉

    Milne’s on the way out for the same reason Bob Brown is… she’s one of the founders from Tassie in the 80’s who’s coming to the end of her career (she ain’t young). Sarah Hanson-Young is a bit of a noob, which doesn’t necessarily count against her… she could be a great spokesperson for the Greens one day, she just ain’t quite there yet. (We were all noobs once, eh.) I’m certainly biased because I get the chance to vote for the guy next election, but Scott Ludlam would make a good leader of the Greens once Bob Brown moves on. It’d be historically nice, too… the two states that kick-started the Greens (Tassie and WA, via Bob Brown and Jo Vallentine) having the first two leaders of the party. Sorry east coast, you gotta wait a while. 🙂

  43. Verity Firth (ALP) ended up 201 votes behind Parker (GRN) after minor preferences distributed; final round Falk (Lib) vs Parker. Sad for Verity.

  44. Oh Ben, this federal government’s got some big big problems. Wilkie is threatening to withdraw support if a bill on the Poker Machine card is not introduced into parliament by the end of the month. Gillard doesn’t want it because it will affect her supporter electorates. Windsor has said he will not support such a proposal because his ‘consistuents’ would not be in favour of it. Pity he doesn’t take the same approach on the Carbon Dioxide tax. Somehow, I don’t think his constituents would be greatly in favour of it. Windsor says he might support it but the Carbon Tax won’t be in realistically until July 2012. Gillard can’t stop telling us how ‘radical’ the Greens are. Swan keeps talking about bad the Liberals are but people are starting to giggle behind his back. It is becoming abundantly clear that the Greens and ALP can’t stand each other. The Left is erupting at every level including Tasmania.

    The only bright note is that O’Farrell is releasing 10,000 land lots which might actually assist people in buying a home. He has only been in a week. Still refuses to converse with Kerry O’Brien however.

    All Abbott has to do is to continue riding his bike. What a week in politics!

    Regarding the Greens, there is a point where their vote will max out. It might be 15%. It could be 18%. Who know’s I could be totally wrong and it might end up being 20%. They may end up even getting 8 lower house seats in Federal parliament. But if they end up getting 20% in the Senate at a particular point in time, the ALP could never hope to get more than 31%. In other words, the Greens can only cannabalise votes from the ALP, not the co-alition. So rightfully, one has to wonder, when will the Greens merge with the ALP?

  45. DB, you don’t really believe that. As much as Tony Abbott and his cheerleaders in the press like to push that line, I can’t believe that someone who posts as intelligently as you could actually think that the Greens or Labor would or could contemplate such a thing.

  47. To be honest, the banning of poker machines is going to kill off the clubs industry. Having a close connection with Clubs NSW, there are some clubs that almost rely completely on poker machine revenue. The pokie tax introduced by the ALP stung them hard enough as it was but banning them will kill them off completely. Along with that, has Andrew Wilkie considered the amount of community support that a lot of these clubs give?

    In terms of the Greens, the only other seats that I would give them a chance of winning in the near future are:

    *Melbourne Ports
    *Grayndler
    *Sydney
    To be honest, as long as Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek are in those seats, they won’t win them as they do have a strong personal vote.

  48. The Liberal vote is way too high in Melbourne Ports for the Greens to be a challenger in the forseeable future.

  49. Why is the electoral commission still publishing TCP between Liberal and Labor for all the seats where the Greens came second? It’s giving some pretty distorted margins in some of those seats (e.g. Ballina).

  50. I believe they are obliged to complete a Coalition v Labor 2PP count for statistical purposes, then I presume we get the proper 2CP count when they actually do the full distribution of prefs. Because those were all seats where the Coalition won on primaries I guess there’s no reason for them to have recounted them sooner. Note that in seats where preferences were needed and they originally counted between the wrong candidates – Wollongong and Newcastle – they did recount them earlier in the week.

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