Incumbent Senators
| Term expires 2011 |
Term expires 2014 |
| John Faulkner (ALP) | Mark Arbib (ALP) |
| Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (LIB) |
Doug Cameron (ALP) |
| Michael Forshaw (ALP) | Helen Coonan (LIB) |
| Bill Heffernan (LIB) | Marise Payne (LIB) |
| Steve Hutchins (ALP) |
Ursula Stephens (ALP) |
| Fiona Nash (NAT) |
John Williams (NAT) |
History
Dating back to 1951, when the Senate for the first time was entirely made up of Senators elected by proportional representation, Senate representation from New South Wales has been relatively stable. Up until 1958 the numbers remained steady with 5 ALP senators, 4 Liberal senators and 1 Country Party senator. 1958 saw the Country Party win a seat off the ALP, giving the Coalition a 6-4 majority amongst NSW senators. The ALP gained two seats in 1961, giving them a 6-4 majority. The Country Party recovered a second seat in 1964, restoring an even balance of ALP and Coalition senators. In 1970, the sitting Country Party senator was defeated, as was the Country Party senator who had filled a casual vacancy, meaning that the party lost both its seats, while the Democratic Labor Party won a NSW senate seat for the only time. The result produced a 6-4 majority for the ALP over the right-wing parties.
The 1974 double dissolution restored the 5-4-1 balance between the Labor, Liberal and Country Party, which was maintained in 1975. 1977 saw the ALP lose one of its five senate seats to the Australian Democrats. This 4-4-1-1 balance was maintained in 1980. The 1983 double dissolution saw the Liberal Party lose a seat to the ALP, seeing five ALP senators, three Liberals, and one senator each for the Democrats and National Country Party. This result produced a 6-4 majority for parties of the left for the first time 1970. The ALP and Democrats collectively maintained a majority in the NSW senate delegation for the entirety of the Labor government.
The 1984 election saw the Senate’s size increased, with New South Wales gaining an eleventh and twelfth senator. The Democrats and the National Country Party each maintained a single senator whilst the ALP gained a sixth and the Liberals a fourth. The 1987 double dissolution saw the ALP lose its sixth senator to the Nuclear Disarmament Party. The 1990 election saw the ALP and Democrats each gain a senator, at the expense of the Liberals and NDP, producing a result of 6 ALP, 3 Liberals, 2 Democrats, 1 National. This gave the ALP and Democrats an 8-4 majority. In 1993 the Democrats lost a seat, with the Nationals gaining a second senator in NSW for the first time since 1970.
In 1996, the ALP lost a senate seat to the Liberals, producing an even split between the ALP and Democrats and the Coalition. The left gained a majority again, however, in 1998, when the Nationals lost a senator to the Democrats. In 2001, Democrat Vickie Bourne was defeated by Greens candidate Kerry Nettle, maintaining a 7-5 left-right split. The last Democrat, Aden Ridgeway, was defeated in 2004, replaced by Nationals candidate Fiona Nash, restoring a 6-6 split between the ALP and Greens and the Coalition. The 2007 election saw the ALP win a sixth senate seat at the expense of the Greens. This was the first election since 1975 to result with NSW having no minor party senators, with a 6-6 split between the ALP and the Coalition.
The following charts demonstrate the numbers of Senators after each election since 1951. I have included senators who were continuing in the case of half-senate elections, rather than simply showing the senators who had been elected at that election. The second chart shows the number of senators elected for each of two ‘blocks’ of left-wing parties and right-wing parties. While this is a flawed concept, and some will argue about my classifications, I have grouped together the ALP, Democrats, Greens and NDP as the ‘left’ and the Coalition and DLP as the ‘right’ to show overall shifts. It demonstrates that the right only gained a majority once, in 1958, while the ALP gained a majority twice under the Menzies and Gorton governments, maintained it under the entire Hawke/Keating government, and managed to maintain it for a majority of the Howard government. Indeed, the Coalition only managed to achieve 50% of NSW senate seats at the 1996 election and since the 2004 election.
2007 result
| Group | Votes | % | Swing | Quota |
| Labor | 1,764,040 | 42.07 | +5.70 | 2.9448 |
| Liberal/Nationals | 1,649,014 | 39.33 | -4.79 | 2.7528 |
| The Greens | 353,286 | 8.46 | +1.09 | 0.5898 |
| Christian Democratic Party | 82,560 | 1.97 | -0.64 | 0.1378 |
| Democratic Labor Party | 52,977 | 1.26 | +1.26 | 0.0884 |
| Shooters/Fishing and Lifestyle | 45,932 | 1.10 | +1.10 | 0.0767 |
| Pauline | 39,807 | 0.95 | +0.95 | 0.0665 |
| Climate Change Coalition | 37,271 | 0.89 | +0.89 | 0.0622 |
| Democrats | 37,193 | 0.89 | -1.31 | 0.0621 |
| The Fishing Party | 27,089 | 0.65 | +0.11 | 0.0452 |
| Family First | 25,321 | 0.60 | +0.04 | 0.0423 |
| Others | 124,676 | 2.97 | 0.2081 |
The ALP and the Coalition each won two seats on primary votes, putting the third ALP candidate, the third Coalition candidate and Greens Senator Kerry Nettle in a race for the last two positions. After all candidates apart from Marise Payne (Coalition #3), Ursula Stephens (ALP #3), Kerry Nettle (Greens #1) and Paul Green (CDP #1) excluded, the count was as follows:
- Stephens – 0.9532 quotas
- Payne – 0.8213
- Nettle – 0.7620
- Green – 0.4626
After CDP preferences were distributed, the final was as follows:
- Payne – 1.1226
- Stephens – 1.1088
- Nettle – 0.7673
Thus Payne and Stephens were elected.
Candidates
The ALP ticket is reported to consist of:
- Senator John Faulkner, Minister for Defence and veteran Senator.
- Former NSW ALP General Secretary Matt Thistlethwaite
- Senator Steve Hutchins.
ALP had originally promised a Senate spot to Graeme Wedderburn in exchange for him returning to run Nathan Rees’ office as Premier. Following Rees losing the premiership Wedderburn was replaced by Thistlethwaite in order to remove Thistlethwaite from his role running the organisational wing of the NSW Labor Party.
The Liberal-National coalition is running:
- Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (LIB)
- Senator Bill Heffernan (LIB)
- Senator Fiona Nash (NAT)
The Greens have preselected a member of the NSW Legislative Council, Lee Rhiannon. The Socialist Alliance have preselected Rachel Evans, an active figure in Community Action Against Homophobia. The Christian Democratic Party are again standing Paul Green, the Mayor of Shoalhaven.
Political situation
The Greens are still a long way away from winning a seat on primary votes, and no other minor party has much of a chance of winning a seat short of a significant shift. This means that any change in the Senate delegation depends on swings between the major parties.
The Greens previously gained preferences from both the Coalition and the ALP ahead of each other. This means that a swing from Labor to Coalition or vice versa sufficient to give the Greens plus a major party four quotas would result in the Greens winning a seat.
A 1.57% swing from the ALP to the Coalition would be sufficient for the Greens to win a seat off the ALP. A 1.77% swing from the Coalition to the ALP would result in the Greens winning a seat off the Coalition. Considering recent polls, it seems highly plausible that the Greens could win a seat off the Coalition off ALP preferences, due to an increase in the ALP primary vote.
Do you think that Graeme Wedderburn could taint the ticket for the ALP with his state party lineage?
Wedderburn? The other side of the rort – State MPs are not allowed to jump ship but their staff are??
Isn’t that the whole idea, the hacks always get to fail upwards!
No, no one pays any attention to who the Senate candidates are for the major parties, so (sadly) it won’t affect their vote. Arbib should’ve had at least some tainting effect last time if such was possible.
The Greens will need another 1% swing to have a chance. Yes, I know we might have a chance if the quotas for the majors go up or down. Personally, I don’t like sitting and hoping for things to go my way. Lets focus on how the Greens can get that 1% or more swing. Having a good candidate has put us on a good track.
Just to help Ben, the drop down box for the menu at the top of the page is a little muddled.
I’d be surprised if 1 in 10 people in NSW could name one of their senators – and even then it would probably be Heffernan. I doubt Wedderburn would shift more than 0.1% of the vote either way.
Fierravanti-Wells is a terrible person.
Joel,
I’m assuming there is a swing towards the ALP. So for our primary vote to matter, we would need to gain a 1% swing from the Liberals, since the ultimate aim is to get the ALP+Greens vote up to 4 quotas, so any swings from ALP to Greens won’t actually improve our chance of winning.
Also, the drop-down boxes aren’t meant to be used. Once I have a few more profiles they will be completely useless. It’s just that I haven’t worked out how to block them.
I agree that the Greens should be focusing on building themselves rather than on working the preferences however I also wonder if greater focus should be placed on presenting them as a viable alternative in the lower house. This seems like a transition they’re trying to make but it’s still one of the comments I hear time and time again from both ALP and coalition voters.
Of course the Greens should be working on building their primary vote. But the Greens are a long way off getting a quota in their own right, which means the relative positions of the major parties is central to determining if the Greens can win a seat.
In 2007, Kerry Nettle got a hell of a lot more votes than in 2001, but because of the positions of the major parties missed out. My point on preferences is that it is a much more plausible scenario that the Greens win a seat off the Liberals based on an increased ALP vote.
Just to demonstrate the point Ben is making, after a discussion on this blog a couple of months ago about increasing the number of Senators for each state to 14 (so that 7 would be elected at each half-Senate election), I went and did some estimates using the RGVTs of what the current composition of the Senate might be if the last two elections had seen 7 Senators elected from each state instead of 6.
For 2007 the results for NSW and Victoria were very straightforward with 3 ALP and 3 Coalition seats, plus the Greens getting the last seat as their primary vote plus the ALP surplus added to more than 1 quota, no need to go through the full preference distribution. However, whilst the Greens would get those 2 seats, they would not have won a seat in WA or SA, because prefs from the christian right left-over from electing the fourth Lib in WA, and third Lib in SA, would’ve got the third Labor candidate up ahead of them. The Queensland result was line-ball for the last seat between the Greens and fourth Coalition candidate, would depend on BTLs which are impossible to estimate there. I gave it to the Coalition, but I’d love someone else to crunch those numbers as well and see if they come up with a different result. Tasmania was also relatively simple as 3 ALP, 3 Lib, 1 Green.
For the record whilst I’m at it, my estimate of the 2004 results on this basis are as follows. NSW would’ve gone 3 ALP, 3 Coalition, and Glenn Druery (Liberals for Forests). Victoria came out as 2 ALP, 3 Coalition, 1 Family First and 1 Green. Qld 2 ALP, 3 Lib, 1 Nat, 1 Green. SA 3 ALP, 4 Lib. WA 2 ALP, 4 Lib, 1 Green. Tasmania 3 ALP, 3 Lib, 1 Green. Note with Tasmania that the Libs only fielded 3 candidates, and my estimate assumes they fielded 4, as based on them only fielding 3 the 3rd ALP seat would’ve gone to Family First.
That would mean the current makeup of the (88-seat) Senate, assuming the territories stay the same, would be 35 ALP, 43 Coalition, 7 Greens, plus Xenophon, Fielding and Druery.
Yes the ALP and the Greens both need a positive swing to get to that 4th quota, which is closer to likely than not. However, I think I might have to disagree, only slightly, with you Ben. What needs to happen is that the Greens need take a percentage from the ALP but the ALP need to take more from the Liberals.
Lets face it, Lee can give up right now if we have to get 1% from the Libs. Thats just not where our votes come from.
On a slightly related point, at the last Senate campaign I argued that the Greens needed to focus on the Northern suburbs of Sydney. As far as I know, Kerry did follow this advice and spent some time and money campaigning there. The result was positive, perhaps not fantastic (eg North Sydney). This needs to happen again in my opinion. There are patches of soft ALP votes still in the Northern suburbs.
Although Bradfield is a lower house seat it needs to be seen as a way to convince the many soft ALP voters that the Greens are worth voting for in the future. There are many ALP voters who will vote Green for the first time in this by-election, it may get them into a habit of voting Green in the future, particularly (hopefully) in the Senate.
But this is my point: we will waste time hoping that the ALP will improve their vote. We cannot control that. We just need to focus on expanding our brand and negotiate preferences from like-minded groups (including the ALP).
Joel, it would be nice if we won votes off the ALP, but it won’t make any difference, since we won’t be competing with the ALP candidate and will probably get their preferences.
Joel, I don’t think Ben is suggesting that you don’t work to improve your vote, he’s making a very sound and impartial observation about the way the preference allocations tend to pan out, and that is that unfortunately your fate is ultimately not in your own hands unless you get over a quota, which will still be unlikely in any mainland state next year. Presumably he wasn’t thinking of a straight swap of 1% from Libs to Greens, but more like what you said, the ALP getting the 1% from Libs, and Greens taking it from the ALP.
Oh, sorry Ben, typing whilst you were posting.
AND I obviously didn’t read what you’d written earlier properly. I think you’re right.
It seems we are having a non-argument perhaps due to misinterpretation (due to my poor communication skills?).
Nick C:
a) I know Ben is not suggesting we don’t improve our green vote. I know Ben too well to suggest that!
b) I also know that he is making an observation about preference allocation and that it will determine the outcome of the last two Senate spots. I am not disagreeing with this observation as described.
c) “Presumably he wasn’t thinking of a straight swap of 1% from Libs to Greens” Maybe you’re right, but thats not how I read his comment.
Ben,
The challenge for the Greens in Bradfield will be to convince ALP voters to vote Green in the by-election. This is probably not a hard thing to achieve given that the ALP are not running (/fingers crossed no independent runs). The greater challenge, and a great opportunity for us, is to convince them to stay voting Green at the next general election, particularly in the Senate.
Yeah, sorry Joel, I totally confused myself there. I was thinking you were questioning the other point, and then I misread what both you and Ben wrote.
Tough topic that would seem to require more in-depth discussion. If/when someone finally convinces me to join the Greens I’d be happy to join in a more detailed strategic discussion.
The NSW Senate contest will be interesting. If we look at the statistics of the past 20 yrs we find that so far as the Senate is concerned, NSW is Labor’s strongest state (since 1990, they’ve won 3 seats, in 5 out of 7 times). It is also one of the Coalitions weaker states, but they’ve also managed to win 3 seats, 5 out of 7 times, since 1990. So historically, the Coalition does much better than the ALP in the Senate, across Australia.
The general rule of thumb for Senate elections in the mainland states, is that if the major parties score 40% + they will win three seats. If they score, less than 38%, they normally win only 2 seats, whilst with a vote of 38%>40%, things can go either way (note: there are some exceptions to this eg. ALP won 3 seats in 2004 in NSW of a very low 36.4%, but this outcome is atypical for a Senate election). It’s only in Tasmania, that the Greens can expect to push a quota in their own right, so the election of a Greens candidate in all other states is up in the air.
The Greens will probably need to be polling on or above the 10% mark in NSW to be reasonably confident of being able to win a seat. NSW is probably the hardest state to predict, because Senate seat outcomes tend to fluctuate more than in other states (ie. the Coalition rarely fail to win (at least) 3 seats in Qld & SA and have always won 3 seats in Vic & WA, whereas the ALP only very rarely (or never) win 3 seats in WA, Qld or SA). What further complicates NSW, is the state-issue factor. Normally, a fairly clear dividing line can be drawn between state and federal politics, but in extraordinary cases (and one could argue that the current NSW govt. is an extraordinary case), this division becomes more blurred.
At present (and my assessment may change closer to the election), I reckon that NSW is the third best Senate chance for the Greens after Tasmania and Victoria (and ahead of WA, which will not be easy to defend). I’m calculating the Greens chances in NSW to be right on about 50% at the present time.
Personally, I am not convinced that the poor performance of the NSW state ALP is a great issue for Federal NSW ALP. The only way I think it can is if a state issue of some importance and magnitude (eg a change in leadership) arises during the last days of the federal election campaign. Otherwise, federal issues will dominate. If so, I can see the ALP receiving a small swing.
More importantly, the Greens need that extra 1-2% swing. It is achievable but will require a very effective and targeted campaign.
[Personally, I am not convinced that the poor performance of the NSW state ALP is a great issue for Federal NSW ALP.]
Recent state by state polling has Federal ALP in NSW up since the last election. Given that they got 2.95 quotas last election I’d expect them to get 3 this time, hopefully with a bit of excess that could put the Greens above the third Fib.
The DLP vote in NSW is fairly impressive considering they havent stood in that state for about 30 years.
They’d surely be one of the parties that would attract attention.
Yeah they did well in the ballot draw, drawing ahead of the ALP. Look at the result for the Progressive Labour Party in 2001 for the same effect.
@Nick C
They drew O. Hardly a prime positon. If they had drawn A-D it might have drawn a few thousand votes.
The other factor that discredits that theory is that they polled higher in some of the northern country regions indicating that they may have drawn votes from the Nationals
The DLP’s growth in anyones terms has been a huge success in rebuilding. There is no doubt that many will be watching the next Federal election and how they grow. The growth has been nothing short of spectacular.
Ziggy, can you explain to me why you and Tony have the same email and are posting from the same IP address? Are you the same person? And why are you quoting your own comments to agree with them?
Ah, so it is still funny, but I won’t respond any more anyway.
Because one of the voices in his head was agreeing with him. We may yet here from others.
Ziggy and Tony share a website as well, it too is nothing short of spectacular.
@Ben Raue
I post from two different networks. Tony works in the other division that uses a common router. As we both access occasionally from mobiles via remote you should have a least two different IP’s
@Sam Bauers
Could be we are both members of the DLP ?
@Tony/Ziggy
I think my original theory is more plausible.
Hey ben, in the file
/wp-content/themes/inove/style.cssgo to line 260 where you will find:/* submenu START */
#menus li ul {
display:none;
Change that to:
/* submenu START */
#menus li ul {
display:none !important;
Quick and dirty, but should work.
Ah, thanks Sam, that worked. That was a big headache.
Going on the assumption that Tony is Tony Zeganhagen, convenor of the QLD DLP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Labor_Party), Ziggy seems like a pretty likely nickname.
Also your DLP website doesn’t work.
Been widely reported now, Heffernan gets the second spot. So it sounds like the Nats get the 3rd spot?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/heffernan-drops-a-spot/story-e6frg6nf-1225809982667
Says something about where the NSW Libs are going that the moderate faction won’t elect a Senator this time around.
Hamish, given that there’s two continuing incumbent non-moderate Liberal Senators, wouldn’t it say more about where the NSW Libs were going in 2004?
The right faction have slowly been taking over the NSW Libs for a decade now; it’s a gradual process. The moderate faction is totally shattered these days.
A report that NSW ALP general secretary Matt Thistlethwaite is now probably getting the seat that Weddeburn was in line for.
Forshaw goes, making way for Thistlethwaite.
No real surprise there. Looks like the shoppies got behind Hutchins. Forshaw was in parliament since 1994 without becoming a minister; it’s amazing he wasn’t punted earlier. I wonder where Thistlewaite will have his office.
Forshaw’s been in since 1994? That means he’s contested 3 elections, won, will have served the full terms, AND is also under the old super scheme…he can afford to retire now.
According to his website he filled a casual vacancy in ’94 and then won re-election in ’98 and ’04.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/senator-michael-forshaw-cedes-to-party-boss/story-e6frgczf-1225835818210
“Senator Forshaw, 57, who has served in the upper house since 1994, said last night it had always been his intention to retire at the end of his current term.”
Well, at least he can put a good spin on it.
In news on other minor party candidates, Rachel Evans is running for the Socialist Alliance.
Sydney businessman William Bourke has reportedly started the Stable Population Party, and plans to field Senate candidates in each state.
Does anyone know what Glenn Druery is doing? Is he running in the next election?
2007 was boring without him.
Nick C, it was interesting to see what the results would be if 7 senate position were available. Druery elected.
Where is he now?
If no-one has said so, I believe the coalition agreement on this term has the Nationals (Fiona Nash) 3rd on the ticket. 2007 saw wacka williams for the nats second, Coonan top spot and Marise Payne in the hotseat.
Interesting about Faulkner. A loss for the ALP, the patriarch of the party in a way. I can’t believe he will see out his full term though.
Sad that Green members were SO stupid to endorse Ms Lee R. as their senate candidate. I knew this would be a disaster. Thankuou Senator Brown for your comments re this situation. I wouldnt vote for her and luckily I dont live In NSW! Thank God we have S. H. Young!