Willoughby by-election, 2022

LJ Davidson – no, I should have said “combined Primary vote”- I am not looking at the result after preferences. Your point is taken though that this inflates the margin. Although across Willoughby state electorate the federal margin would have been pretty close to the North Sydney TPP average – maybe 1-2 % higher (so 10-11% margin rather than 9.3%) so the fact that at State is was 21% – is pretty much that 10% variance seen in the PV.

Sorry You An, most of LJ Davidson’s points aren’t supported by the facts in North Sydney in 2019.

When you sum ALP, Greens and a ex-Green, ex-Democrat IND, the PRIMARY vote was 43%. Throw in Sustainable Australia if you want (now before you all start, they are in a ruling majority on North Sydney Council with the progressive Councillors) and its 45%. The TPP margin result was only 40.3%. The left LOST votes due to preferences, not gained them, due to 17% of Greens voters (13.6% total) putting Liberals ahead of Labor.

There is NO inflating of the left vote in North Sydney due to preferences.

Sorry not sure which of the above @ High Street I am responding to.
RE: the inflation of preferences- the original wording you said was that the Left vote in Willoughby/North Sydney was 10-12% lower in State than Federal; they may have lost votes in some instances but their (Greens/Labor) combined vote was still higher before and specifically after preference flow due to the different voting systems
The premise I was arguing was that OPV is a greater indicator of the true vote because candidates aren’t propped up necessarily after First Preference.
Of the combined 25 Polling centres listed on the NSWEC for the 2019 state election in Willougby; Enrolled electorate of 54,508
https://map.elections.nsw.gov.au/Map.aspx?mode=PP&ID=SG1901-090
North Sydney has an enrolment of 109,218
https://results.aec.gov.au/24310/Website/HouseDivisionPage-24310-137.htm

So this is not a perfect comparison but I think can obtusely show the impact of compulsory preferencing.

There were 8 candidates for Willougby and 7 candidates for North Sydney- so if this were CPV she would’ve had a diminished 2PP vote, that’s the first point
Both Berejikilian and Zimmerman won on First Preferences alone.
However, if you look at the final 2PP:
– Gladys (starting with 57% 1stP) only obtained 1,850 extra flow-on votes after preferences, 14% increase in share (ending up with 71% total 2PP)
– Trent (starting with 52% 1stP) only obtained 7,079 extra flow-on after preferences, 7.3% increase in share (ending up with 59.3% total 2PP)
Compared to the Labor candidates:
– Justin Reiss (starting with 14.4% 1stP) in Willougby obtained an extra 5,010 flow-on votes after preferences, 14.6% increase in share (ending up with 29% total 2PP)
– Brett Stone (starting with 25.1% 1stP) in North Sydney obtained an extra 15,149 flow-on votes after preferences, 15.6% increase in share (ending up with 40.7% total 2PP)

So where voters don’t have to preference the 2PP adjustment is about the same for both but where they do it greatly benefits poorer performing 1stPref parties.
6,830 voters (Total 2PP= 41,027 deduct that from the total 1st Pref for all candidates= 48,791 less another 934 informal) exhausted their ballots in Willougby which roughly comes to 14-15% of the entire eligible electorate.
Compare that to North Sydney where there were 4,077 informal votes. Let’s say half of that were because of not numbering every candidate (being declared informal by AEC) that comes to 2,038.5 effective exhausted votes or 2% of the entire eligible electorate.
You remove that barrier of mandatory assignment and that exhaustion rate will increase exponentially.

Also what’s North Sydney Council got to do with the state seat of Willoughby? Most of North Sydney Council overlaps with the state seat of North Shore, so whilst there are some similarities they are 2 different seats, and Willougby Council would be more comparative to Willoughby State. There’s only 2 maybe 3 suburbs from NSC in Willougby, the same for Lane Cove Council.
I’m only doing a comparative analysis of the state seat of Willougby’s booths with that of the same booths in North Sydney.
The point is if given the choice, voters would rather not preference to demonstrate their true intention at the ballot box, and that CPV forces an artificially competitive total.

LJ Davidson,

I agree the OPV can muck around the percentages because the final margin is based on those votes that aren’t excluded from the final TCP count.

However, your originally said:

“I’d imagine the Greens/Left vote has become more inflated at a Federal level across many inner city seats because voters are forced into having to put a number against one of their candidates otherwise their vote doesn’t count.” I suppose the questions that need to be asked are 1) “inflated relative to what?” and 2) are you talking Primary vote or after preferences. Your comment said Green/left, so I took it as being primary vote.

If you mean inflated relative to state results under OPV (which is only a relevant comparison in NSW) then yes, the fact 100% of Green voters are compelled to preference someone and 83% preference ALP, then the result would be closer than if they didn’t preference to that extent – and maybe it was a lower preference rate in the State – I haven’t bothered to check. Because I deem it irrelevant. The fact remains 43% of voters in North Sydney and a fraction less in the Willoughby part of North Sydney, gave their first preference to ALP, Green, or a ex-Green IND in 2019, when about 10% less did so in the corresponding state election and neither of those numbers have anything to do with preferences.

If you want to have a debate about whether OPV is a better indication of the will of the people, I disagree, but lets go back 100 years and have a debate.

My point about North Sydney Council was that before people said the SAP are a bunch of racist loons, they are in a progressive alliance of a majority of 6 on North Sydney Council – that is all. But I disagree North Sydney Council results are irrelevant to Willoughby State. A clear majority of the St. Leonards Ward of North Sydney Council covers the southern end of the Willoughby electorate – that was the stronger of the two wards for ALP and progressive IND across North Sydney.

I think you will find that Cammaray and Cremorne are in Willoughby and North Sydney Council. So this seat does take the north side of North Sydney Council, making it fairly relevant

Happy to concede the North Sydney Council borders in Willoughby, again I was working on the largesse of Willoughby Council making up the bulk of the state electorate.

re: the % decrease, actually the 1st Prefs are about the same for the left bloc of votes in Willoughby and North Sydney
Willoughby 2019= 41.4%
North Sydney 2019= 43.1%

Looking at North Shore State Electorate, the other half of the North Sydney electorate, if you include Carolyn Corrigan in that bloc the vote was even higher at 1st Pref at 49.1%. I did not include SAP, and there were also 9 candidates contesting that seat, and the sitting member was/is quite unpopular.
Wilson only received an additional 1,656 in 2nd preferences at 2PP, whereas Corrigan
Wilson won significantly on plurality and 8,648 votes were exhausted or 18% of all votes cast.

Zimmerman’s vote as an aggregate to both is actually on par and not really substantially worse. There might be some personal disdain for him and as you pointed out earlier the popularity of Gladys
But I don’t think it is a significant drop based on the % at a 1st Pref level .
Also putting into perspective, voters were still dealing with an unknown quantity in Morrison who had been in the job for less than a year. Gladys was Premier and had been in the job 2 years, and Daley will go down as one of the worst opposition leaders in Australian political history.

Voter exhaustion in both state seats, also shows that whilst their may be noticeable anti-incumbent/government/liberal vote in all 3 seats it depends a lot on the number of candidates.
In other words, would the vote be as large if there were fewer candidates, and given the exhaustion of votes in both state seats there seems to be no cohesive sentiment that ties all these 1st Preferences together (other than the standard Labor/Green swap).

Interestingly, the Labor/Green vote only makes up around 23-25% in both of the state seats at a 1st Pref level but does go as high as 38% in North Sydney. However, there were far less candidates federally and begrudgingly the anti-Liberal vote would cast their ballot for Labor or Liberal rather than risk having their ballot cast informally. Gladys vs Trent at first pref share is only 5%, and Zimmerman also had a 0.5% swing to him at 1st Pref, compared to Gladys who had -6.5% swing against at 1st Pref.
2PP Zimmerman’s total hardly benefitted at all from preferences, whereas Brett Stone’s went up 15.6% or 15,149 votes (Trent got half of this). Compared to Gladys because of forced preferences, it does make it seem he performed a lot worse than he did (looking at final 2PP).

The demographics of the area I think would adjust with a member who is fairly non-controversial
For the SAP it is very hard for them to shake the racist loon label, when I remember prior to the 2019 election they had a few volunteers at Central station saying “stop immigration!” as international students walked passed. But understandably, the North Shore/Sydney isn’t really known for its diverse make-up.
Whilst the left vote may slightly creeping upward in this area, diversity certainly isn’t. Which is fitting because the Socialist Left faction of the ALP in NSW is almost exclusively white when I was a member of the party, compared to the Centre Unity faction which was extremely diverse in its ethnic makeup. The left faction also dominates most of the branches in the North Shore and Eastern Suburbs.

And a good chunk of Crows Nest

Just a quick reply LJ

Lane Cove state electorate contributes more to North Sydney than North Shore does – I think I leant that from William’s preview in 2016 and the boundaries haven’t changed much since. So North Shore is a long way from the other half.

It is almost impossible to compare poll to poll across years and electorates – so perhaps we should both stop trying. There was significant IND vote in Willoughby, North Shore and Lane Cove in 2019, but very small in North Sydney, and that was an ex-Green candidate, so can pretty safely be added to the left vote (it is in my 43%) whereas dangerous to assume it for the state electorates – probably pulled from both majors fairly evenly.

Zimmerman went up 0.5% on PV as you say, but an IND who pulled 12% in 2016 was missing in 2019 and not really replaced by another. The ALP went up 8% on PV!

Zimmerman’s problem without a strong IND in the race who gets excluded, is that he really doesn’t have right wing minors to get preferences from. CDP seems to be slowly declining and UAP and PHON get no traction round these parts. ALP will always get that 80%+ from GRN whilst ever there is full preferential voting.

Zimmerman might not have this problem this year, but he looks like trading it for an even worse one – being reduced into the low 40’s on PV and hoping whoever gets excluded last (3rd place) don’t have a >70% preference flow to the 2nd place getter. “Put the Liberals” last might be the catch cry of every other candidate.

I’d recommend people reconsider their assessment that the Willoughby electorate isn’t diverse. About 10% of the electorate speaks Mandarin at home – a much higher rate than other NSW electorates…

@ hughie compared to rural and regional seats like Northern Tablelands, Cootamundra and Cessnock, sure Willoughby is diverse but in the prism of Metropolitan Sydney it is not even in the top 20. And by diverse this means more than just one minority group, although even with the Mandarin example it is still a fairly homogenous seat.
Even if you move 2-3 seats west looking at seats like Ryde, Epping, Parramatta, Seven Hills makes Willoughby look like a seat like Murray in comparison.
There’s nothing wrong with the demographics of Willoughby, it just is a horses for courses argument and obviously the messaging/candidate will need to be different to the ones run in the above seats.

One factor with this electorate is that there is a strong mortgage belt area (people paying off apartments) and overcrowding of schools with limited public facilities. In some areas around Chatswood and St Leonards it could be treated as a sand-belt electorate.

I wonder how much will this have on this by-election, Maybe the former member had a strong personal vote. Regardless however, I think Labor has no chance unless in a landslide or interest rates rise quickly. Something to consider.

”Word seems to be that GGG is not running.”

Well nominations have not closed yet correct? I suspect she will.

There is however, some talk LABOR will not field a Candidate.

That might change things, as I feel sure their references would lean to a nominal Lib, now disgruntled, as she was factioned out of nomination, who could well be in the balance of power cross bench.

Glen, if Gail Gidney does run as independent and Labor stands aside from the contest, that would be more favourable for her, because there would be fewer exhausted preferences and create a more direct two candidate contest between her and Tim James.

Well all this talk of GGG will she or not (she has until Thursday to nominate) one that snuck up under the radar is the Sustainable Australia Party. Their leader William Bourke is running here. For those interested on his campaign:
https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/willoughby2022

What’s interesting is Sustainable gained two seats at the recent 2021 North Sydney Council elections with William touting his now Deputy Mayor role. (He has just been elected to it, which apparently will be for one year with it rotating to Labor who are in a loose voting block with the new Mayor and her elected running mate.) Sustainable polled 1.63% at the 2019 State Election with 10.7% & 13.1% their vote in the two respective wards in the North Sydney Council election. [Sustainable currently has one MLC in the Victorian Upper House as a side point.]

As for impact, I don’t expect much. But if GGG or no one else nominates (I assume Greens will), would be quite a walk-over but nevertheless a boost to Sustainable. Further reading suggests Sustainable will be contesting all the other by-elections too. Just thought I’d post that little tidbit 🙂 I have this as Liberal retain without GGG and if GGG runs, toss-up.

Also I would agree with Hughie that if Gail runs as an independent, all she does is upset the balance of the local Liberal Party branch, whose members may not see her in a good light. It is probably better for her to stay silent and just try running for preselection in another local contest next time, just like Tim James did when he lost to Felicity Wilson.

Yoh An Tee. If Labor runs and hands out a how to vote that recommends preferences to GGG, or anyone, that helps that candidate. There’s actually less exhausted ballots if Labor recommends a preference

YAT is on the money here. GGG is still very popular with the local branch members and with other factional leaders backing her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes next in line to run for a seat. Felicity Wilson was very lucky to hold onto preselection last time around, after her Stat Dec was found to be false with regards to her address. It would certainly split the Moderate faction of the Liberal Party in NSW.

P_O said what I believe for a prediction (Stop taking my words :P): If GGG doesn’t run as an independent, Tim James wins this in a canter. If she does run, it will be very tight.

The NSWEC banned the handing out of physical HTVs at the Local Government Elections. As the pandemic hasn’t really slowed in NSW, I’m assuming this ban is still in place.
I don’t think the average voter will be in a rush to download these from their local candidate’s website, as many probably don’t even know there is a by-election.
Also HTVs are very different at a state level, with the major parties usually just putting “Just vote 1” on any election paraphernalia. Exhaustion rates will be extremely high this by-election, people are just wanting to get in an out of the place and many are over it, having just come off a Local Government election.
Voter apathy is an even larger factor than voter anger, especially at by-elections.
I’m also hearing the iVote wet the bed at the Council elections, and the NSWEC is providing an alternative of postal votes (not sure if people are properly informed of this though)

FYI – Labor are not running in Willoughby.

On Friday I received a request by e-mail for a donation from Labor. E-mail included:

The Perrottet Government has confirmed that the 2022 state by-elections will take place on February 12th.

It’s a big day for NSW Labor. We’ll be contesting three of the by-elections and asking voters to send a message to Perrottet about his failure to protect our state from the global pandemic……

These contests will be tough. Strathfield is a marginal seat that Labor only holds by 5%. Bega and Monaro are safe Liberal and National seats that have been taken for granted for far too long.

So no Labor in Willoughby….

I know GGG reasonably well – almost certainly better than anyone else who posts here. I do not expect her to run, but I do not expect her to play a visible part in Tim’s campaign, either.

I repeat: the moderate faction of the NSW Liberals are in deep, deep shock about the effect of switching to a plebiscite based preselection in an area they assumed they would control until the end of time because of their past success in securing selection for their candidates.

The only people any faction can rely on now are their own operatives, and we have returned to the days of when a strong speech could win you endorsement.

If all Liberal campaigners will have to do on the day is to stand on a booth, wear a t shirt and point to a “Just Vote 1” corflute sign that has a link to a QR code where enthusiasts and oddbods can download an HTV, then the race is over before it begins, probably. On the other hand, it may make it easier for the independent Tink/Penn “Voices” forces to be seen to put up a strong presence at the booths because they will need fewer people, and so make it seem like a more competitive race.

@lJ Davidson, the ban on handing out or more appropriately the inability to hand out how to votes within 100m of the polling booth does not apply at the state by-elections. The Government supported an amendment from the opposition to a bill providing for COVID-19 regulations for the state by-elections last year that meant they couldn’t create a regulation to move political campaigners further than 6m away from the booth.

Also just noting that GGG has not nominated so I would say that the liberals should win.

The Libs have a mere 42 point margin. This could come down to the wire

@Furtive Lawngnome What sort of wire are we talking about? 😉

When are the candidates actually announced? Nominations closed yesterday and early voting starts Monday

@Redistributed ABC Elections has the candidates and ballot order up.

This seat had more interest than I was expecting, with 6 candidates nominating in ballot order:
SUS, IND (Penn), LDP, GRN, LIB, RSN

No surprises on SUS (Bourke) and IND (Penn) running, with Penn running on the same issues. GRN (Saville) was expected to run but they’re using their candidate for 2022 Fed Election in North Sydney here, suspect more profile raising then anything else, but good tactical move. LDP (Gunning) running makes sense and try to get some voter confusion, pulling above LIB (James) in ballot order draw. But comparing to Ku-ring-gai (2.16%) and North Shore [Gunning was the candidate] (1.64%) at the 2019 Election, don’t see them getting a big vote here. The biggest surprise is Reason (Hackett) standing a candidate here. Reason being the successor to the Sex Party. As an aside: Penn is the only candidate to contest from 2019.

So really LIB retain with the main shoot out being for second place between Saville and Penn.

Candidates in ballot paper order are now on NSW Elections website.
https://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/Elections/State-government-elections/Willoughby-By-election/nominated-candidates

Liberal candidate doesn’t even live in the electorate. Classic. ???

Doesn’t he live like a street away though? Not really the same as Keneally!

@Wreathy See my comment on the Mackellar thread.

Having Penn, a Green and a Reason candidate all run against the Libs will probably mean more than enough preference leakage to ensure James wins.

With no GGG, the Libs could field my cat and it would win.

Sad. Some Lib taking head of TV last m=night was LAUDING all the women being nominated. What a joke. This from a party with about 25% of women in Federal versus near 50% for Labor.

Oh well, she must have had her reasons.

With no GGG, and no Labor, the Libs could field my cat. and it would win in a landslide. 🙂

Sad. Some Lib talking head on TV last night was cynically LAUDING all the fine women candidates being nominated. What a joke. This from a party with about 25% of women in Federal Parliament versus near 50% for Labor.

Oh well, she must have had her reasons. Shame this Tim James nobody, and totally unknown in the electorate, (he does not even live in) was parachuted in ahead of Gidney, to give him an instant seat to appease the Factional Gods.

Seriously, Glen, give the debate around Tim James living outside the electorate a rest. He lives JUST outside the electorate, at worst, has a decent enough connection with the area and, tbh, the comments being made about female representation is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

As for this election, with no Labor and AJP running, I see most of their votes breaking to the Greens, while Reason will likely struggle, given the lack of brand awareness in NSW. Given the propensity for voters in the electorate to Just Vote 1, even allowing for a drop in FP Votes and Personal Votes in the seat, I would think that Tim James should be able to get through even with a drop of 15% in Primary Votes. Funnily enough, I get the feeling that Tim will do best towards the South of the Willoughby Border, where he will have a better name recognition and that would compensate for any loss of personal vote for Gladys towards the centre of the seat.

BTW, to answer your comments, no I don’t live immediately in the seat but I do live in a seat very close by and have worked in the area as well so I have a pretty reasonable grasp of the seat itself.

He wasn’t parachuted, the local branch members voted for him in a plebiscite.

The Liberal Democrats, through Sam Gunning, will probably put on a good showing in this Willoughby By-Election. They are the true Liberals and people are crying out for a party who will respect their rights and call things how they are.
Their focus is on fiscal responsibility to fix the Covid debt and getting rid of Covid restrictions that have damaged so many people’s lives and businesses.
That’s sufficient for me.

Well placed Libs expect a big swing against here, but for Tim James to be comfortably returned.

jumbo Castlecrag
Yeah they have potential, if they can learn how to stop talking about themselves. I’ll be working a booth for them on Saturday. maybe i’ll see you there
cheers wd

WD- Willoughby Park Booth??

High Street
Sorry i will know where at 730 am on Saturday. there are 20 booths so who can tell . Please call me on 0419365419 if you feel inclined. i’ll shout you a beer or whatever after 4.
cheers wd

At the Chatswood High School polling place. The Liberal Democrats how-to-vote and corflutes have no printer listed name, and the how-to-vote has a candidate’s name (Penny Hackett) misspelt.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ3Va9kNqfj/?utm_medium=copy_link

Gail Giles-Gidney obviously still bitter she lost preselection and obviously is not campaigning for Tim James.

Not conceding this yet, Tim James leads but only narrowly on the TPP count 51.6% – 48.4% as of 20:13PM NSW time. Still could see a Larissa Penn victory via preferences. No way James win on 42% primary. where is he getting the preferences to get to 51% from? Unless he is winning 30-40% or more preferences he isn’t going to win this and I can see almost every voter who isn’t voting James #1 will put him below everyone else.

”20%+ Margin will be very hard for any independent to overcome, let alone a split field.”

They almost have.

As I predicted parachuting in some unknown face, Tim James, who does not even live i the Willougbhy Electorate, rather than preselecting GGG, has near lost them this ‘safest’ of seats’ – as I predicted.

Had Labour stood a candidate they have lost it badly.

Daniel, NSW uses optional preferential voting with about 30-40% of first preferences that exhaust before reaching the top 2 candidates. This means the lead candidate can win with fewer votes.

Upper Hunter is a good example, the lead National candidate won with <40% first preference votes I believe.

it was widely reported on ”Willougbhy Living’ that systematic theft and removal of Larissa Penn election posters and signage had taken place.

In an educated electorate like Willoughy, it just may be that co-ordinated Brown Shirt type dirty and grubby tactics were not appreciated? Pretty obvious she was only a threat to one party.

Bega is lost for sure, and if Penn does a Dark Horse and gets Willoughby, things get very interesting with numbers in the house.

I hope Mr Parrothead was good at Math at School. 🙂

Glen, I think the Coalition is still fine even if they lose both Bega and Willoughby. They had 46 seats before (plus 2 guaranteed independents as they are Liberals who stood aside pending investigations), now they would drop to 44. The 2 stood aside Liberals are almost certain to back the Coalition, and there are also 3 SFF MP’s who are also likely to side with the Coalition.

Even if the two disgraced Liberal MP’s (John Sidoti, Drummoyne and Gareth Ward, Kiama) are forced to resign, then the Coalition would still have 47 votes if they have 44 + 3 SFF MP’s. Labor would have to aggressively court the SFF if they wish to take over and win a motion of no confidence.

Daniel – it’s OPV. The maths doesn’t work the same way as in compulsory preferential, where a LNP candidate would indeed struggle against and IND with a 42% PV – especially in an urban seat with no right wing minor/micro party vote.

The relations of lnp.and sff are horrible. But Labor aren’t looking to take over now.If the liberals ended with less than 46 seats. Then it would be a hung parliament.
..which the coalition don’t manage well

Mick, if you are correct about the SFF having quite poor relations with the Coalition, then they can’t afford to lose more than one seat currently. The rest of the crossbench are mostly Greens and left leaning independents, although one of them (Greg Piper) could be courted by the Coalition if they struggle to get the SFF on side.