I lack the energy to offer much in the way of a post-mortem at this late hour, except to say this was a remarkably status quo result. The Coalition dropped around 3% on the statewide primary vote, and Labor and the Greens about 1% apiece, so presumably the Coalition landed somewhere between 53% and 54% on the two-party vote. This is a couple of points better than the polls suggested, making this the first election result in a very long time that surprised on the up side for the Coalition (UPDATE: Thanks to NathanA in comments for jogging my memory about Tasmania last year). To a certain extent, that might be explained in terms of the Newspoll, with its Tuesday to Thursday field work period, only picking up part of a final week shift away from Labor – although it doesn’t explain an exit poll that was in line with the two-party result.
The Coalition went into the election needing to restrict its losses to six to retain its majority, and it is only clear that they have lost three. Two of these losses were to Shooters Fishers and Farmers, who had a rather spectacular night in picking up all three of their target seats, with Barwon and Murray joining their existing seat of Orange (I was suggesting the Nationals were more likely to retain Barwon quite late in my election night commentary, but they actually have a very handy lead there). Labor’s only clear gain is Coogee, which they now look to have in the bag, although by a lower than expected margin. It looks like they will fall short in East Hills and Penrith, but I will keep an eye on those all the same. Independent Mathew Dickerson has come close against the Nationals in Dubbo, but he is slightly behind and independents tend to lose ground in late counting.
The one seat on which I have crunched numbers is Lismore, which is likely but not certain to be lost by the Nationals. The question is whether it will be lost to Labor, who lead the notional two-party candidate, or the Greens, who had an unexpectedly good night despite the drop in their statewide vote, retaining their three existing seats of Balmain, Newtown and Ballina, and being well in the hunt in Lismore to boot. The two-party count has Labor with a lead of 1840, which looks too much for the Nationals to reel in – they should gain about 500 when pre-polls that have thus far been counted only on the primary vote are added, and the 2015 results suggest they will gain a further couple of hundred when absents and postals are added. However, Labor candidate Janelle Saffin holds a lead of just 24.85% to 23.90% over the Greens, and the race to stay ahead at the last exclusion could go either way. If the Greens win, they will certainly get enough preferences from Labor to defeat the Nationals UPDATE: Didn’t have my thinking cap on there – they may very well fail to get enough Labor preferences to do so.
The basic election night count for the Legislative Council accounts for 48.4% of enrolled voters, and only provides specific results for above-the-line votes for seven parties, when an “others” total that lumps together above-the-line votes for all other parties, and below-the-line voters for all and sundry. The only votes identified as informal at this point are those ballot papers that were left entirely blank – less obviously informal votes are presently in the “others” pile. Disregarding that complication, the current numbers show a clear seven quotas for the Coalition, six for Labor, two for the Greens, one apiece for One Nation and Shooters, leaving four to be accounted for.
The Coalition has enough of a surplus to be in the hunt for one of those; Labor probably doesn’t; One Nation look in the hunt for a second seat; the Christian Democrats and Animal Justice are both possibilities. The wild card is that three quotas under “others”, which would maybe a third of a quota’s worth of below-the-line votes for the seven main parties. My very late night feeling is that the Liberal Democrats (i.e. David Leyonhjelm), Australian Conservatives and Keep Sydney Open might all be in contention.
‘Shorten’s Labor will win or lose standing tall. Not on its knees.’
Bullshit.
Losing standing tall, sitting down, bending over is still losing.
If you think you could cope with Morrison still there the morning after
there’s something seriously off with your karma.
You may as well say what half of us are thinking….we’re probably going to lose….go Bill….
My review of the NSW election:
1. Comparisons with Victoria Labor:
– What I find funny in this is that the NSW Liberals had more in common with Vic Labor and NSW Labor with VIC Liberals. It was the first that had and promised future rail lines and significant transport Infrastructure for the cities. It was also the later that had the biggest issues with racism during the campaign. The former was the incumbent that generally worked on their promises and the former also had one big failure in transport (Light Rail in Sydney and Skyrail in VIC which went phenomenally over budget).
– Victoria has a much greater proportion of it’s seats in cities than NSW.
2. People complain that the media and Liberals blew up the Daley comments into something they weren’t and that they were lying to give the Liberals an advantage. To be honest this was two sided. There is no changes that Allianz could be brought to code for $18M only (not saying it needed to be demolished) and the relentless anti metro pieces in the SMH were actually sickening as it makes it harder to get high quality public transport off the ground.
3. Environment. Whilst the MDB and the fish kills etc. rightfully hit the Liberals, what proportion of this is federal responsibility? Also, (regardless of what’s on the Labor website) what were Labor’s plans instead?
4. Transport. Again Liberals had a very clear plan. All Labor could do was say that they didn’t like it and would stop it. The most positive transport plan they had was a promise that they would build the West Metro at least as quickly as the Liberals. Also, the Liberals have the runs on the board with regard to the Pacific Motorway co-funded with the feds.
5. Whilst Daley said they ran a positive campaign, he is wrong. The only cut-through they got was stadiums, how bad trains were, over development and no motorways. His alternatives never cut through. All people could see was a repeat of a do nothing Labor government. This worked in Coogee, however this was ground zero for light rail and it wouldn’t surprise me if this seat has a far less swing to Labor at the next election.
6. The moderates in the Liberals are in control in NSW. They can’t be as easily tarred with the same conservative brush as their federal components. This what affected Daley also with his racist comments. Whilst it didn’t necessarily make huge gains for the Liberals, it may have been very successful at changing the minds of those on the fence and significantly reduced the swings to Labor.
7. I still feel that there will be a bigger swing against the Liberals in NSW federally than what was seen in this election. The politics is chalk and cheese.
Focus on the next election:
– Have a leader with charisma.
– Have a solid and positive transport plan.
– Sell the positive policies and commit. Lock-out changes, drug testing changes, environmental protection, etc.
– Don’t target groups that live in NSW under any circumstances for negative comments.
– Don’t get caught up in the Labor bubble as demonstrated by PB. Don’t diminish negatives on your own team if you think it would be game over if the Liberals do it.
– Don’t promise things you can’t deliver. (Setting housing targets but promising to not overide councils planning decisions is contradictory).
– Remember that NSW is not Victoria or QLD
Andrew, you really do need to think about this more carefully.
The issue is long term, strategic vision for transport. What rail lines will we be building 10-15-20 years from now. NSW Labor gave absolutely no thought to this. It simply me-tooed projects that were already under construction (after having previously opposed Sydney Metro).
And its being idiotic in opposing metro conversion of the Bankstown line. You want to know why this is idiotic, ask.
As for opposing the F6, I agree with Labor on that. But Labor has no policy to compensate. No augmentation of the A6 corridor. No plans to provide faster trains to the Sutherland Shire (which is the root cause of much of the congestion on the A).
As for the Beaches Link, I agree with Labor on that. But Labor has no policy to compensate. No mass transit link to the northern beaches. No alternate routes from the M2 to the M4. This would be expected of any competent opposition – sensible, detailed policy development.
Labor is taking advice from the likes of Eco-Transit. They’re fools.
I’ve no idea what you’re on about in that final paragraph.
“On the contrary , NSW Labor should act immediately to show the electorate a fresh approach.”
Rex….always working for the election of a Coalition Govt….HARD!!
“4. Transport. Again Liberals had a very clear plan. All Labor could do was say that they didn’t like it and would stop it. The most positive transport plan they had was a promise that they would build the West Metro at least as quickly as the Liberals. Also, the Liberals have the runs on the board with regard to the Pacific Motorway co-funded with the feds.”
Incorrect. The Illawarra rail upgrade in lieu of the southern motorway and Bankstown metro is good solid policy.
NSW Labor And Federal Labor committed to build the Badgery’s airport metro to be opened on day one of the airport opening back in June last year.
KJ
Agreed. One quibble though. Daley was saying that he would build Metro West faster. This is the kind of vacuous political promise that fails to inspire. Lots of people might be fooled by it but the reality is throwing money at projects as big and complex as this doesn’t actually speed anything up.
I see Andrew_Earlewood has been sucked into the transport lies that were put out by Labor and the SMH taking advice from the wrong people.
I agree with rail instead of the F6, but it wouldn’t help Bankstown. The Bankstown conversion was the least invasive and the most efficient way of solving the problem at hand. Additional rail lines would not have worked.
zoomster,
Yep. The Victorian Greens are best ignored. A nest of vipers to my eyes.
So kind of, NSW Libs not quite bad enough to lose; NSW Labor not quite good enough to win? Or, NSW Labor still on the nose?
While we should expect some crowing from the Libs – and they did win after all – the win is more or less, status quo. If I were the LNP I would be more concerned about the decay of the NP at the tattered edges. And, despite all, the electorate is not stupid and voters can find something in a local State party which may be missing in the Federal one.
As others have pointed out, the opinion polls have questions to answer at this stage…………..underscoring the political saw which states the only poll that counts is the one on the day of voting.
I hope to goodness Labor, Federally, gets this………
^^It was Labors to lose. And they did.
Andrew, where we need faster rail is to the Sutherland Shire. That’s where all the traffic on the A1/M1 is generated. Much of the traffic from further south actually heads up the A6.
Its a good idea to build a rail bypass to improve rail speeds from Wollongong to Sutherland. However, previous studies of this proposal have been inadequate. In fact I’m one of those proposing a solution – and its a big improvement on what has been proposed before. Even so I’d be very happy if it only cost $3 billion.
In other words, the NSW Labor proposal was far from detailed and costed. Don’t get me wrong, its a good thing to have, but its not been worked out (and they had years to do this) and its not even remotely costed and as I said, the rail line to Sutherland needs to be faster if we really want an alternate strategy to the F6.
Oh, perhaps we should get Federal Labor to change its leader as one or two here have been going on about, for an eternity, it seems? This gambit just worked so well for Labor NSW just a few weeks out from an election – not.
@And its being idiotic in opposing metro conversion of the Bankstown line. You want to know why this is idiotic, ask.”
My best friend was tasked with developing this project. He is now running the BRISBANE cross river train project in Qld. He says it’s a disaster waiting to happen. The “fix” re: platforms will slow down they network, if and when they work (and they are an inherent risk as well) but that’s only the first problem. All the other problems with that line remain.
But go ahead. Explain away.
As for the proposition that there is no compensating policy for the scrapping of the F6 extension: shenanigans to that. A rail tunnel under the national park will shave 20 minutes alone on the commute to SYDNEY. Other efficiencies will see that commute becoming a reliable sub hour journey. That’s a real game changer.
What worked a charm was the bipartisan agreement to not abolish group voting tickets in the upper house.
WA and Vic – the only 2 states still retaining GVTs.
Andrews has been smart enough to co-opt some policies of grassroots movements, including the Greens, who have campaigned and done the hard yards, for example, dying with dignity legislation.
KJ agreed. That was by far the stupidest thing Daley came up with and it shows just how much NSW Labor has failed to seek the advice of transport experts.
I probably agree that I would’ve preferred the full upgrade as originally proposed to straighten platforms and not retrofit etc. but the decision to do a smaller upgrade was made to incur less impact on local residents.
Unless I misunderstand what you say when you talk about the platform “fix”.
“In other words, the NSW Labor proposal was far from detailed and costed. Don’t get me wrong, its a good thing to have, but its not been worked out (and they had years to do this) and its not even remotely costed and as I said, the rail line to Sutherland needs to be faster if we really want an alternate strategy to the F6.”
Correct weight, as far as this analysis goes. The point is that labor in opposition have developed the concept about as far as they can before they get to the treasury benches. In the meantime they have saved money from other projects to make it work. If yesterday’s result was different o would have expected the tunnel boring machines to be in the ground around the 2022-23 timeframe.
It seems the word “hatred” has disappeared from the political lexicon. Only “hate” as a noun seems to be in play.
“The Bankstown conversion was the least invasive and the most efficient way of solving the problem at hand”
This is false. The truth is buried in a cabinet in confidence submission shredding the concept.
Tricot@12:43pm
LNP or Tories in general good at crowing. ALP leaders don’t crowe that much. 🙂
Andrew,
What better project was able to take a rail line out of the city loop and cause less disruption or be undertaken for a cheaper price or both?
Also, and back to my original point, why didn’t Labor promote this hard. None of their proposals would fix this issue.
imacca @ #193 Sunday, March 24th, 2019 – 11:26 am
They can replace Daley now while meeting those goals. They’ve got at least two very good reasons for getting rid of Daley:
1. Racist comments about Asians (which they would have known about on some level for months, but sat on while naively thinking that the conservative media wouldn’t throw it back at them right when it would deal maximum damage)
2. Underperforming in what should have been an easily winnable election, and even earning swings against Labor in some marginal seats.
I’d be surprised if there’s not some correlation between the first thing and the second thing. Nobody would think twice if Daley was removed on that basis. It’s an obvious and uncontroversial reason for letting someone else have a go.
Of course, it works best if Daley resigns voluntarily, as he should.
“What better project was able to take a rail line out of the city loop and cause less disruption or be undertaken for a cheaper price or both?”
Extending the planned western metro line into the airport line to about Turella would free up more trains per hour on the city circle line than decommissioning the Bankstown line.
Alternatively, keeping the Bankstown line as a heavy rail shuttle service between lidcombe (or even looping around Homebush Bay) and Sydenham would also work. There would however need to be some detailed engineering consideration given to how the cross platform change between two terminating services would would, but I understand that two feasible solutions to that were developed only to buried. A third (and probably the real long term solution) involved decommissions the goods line to the immediate south of Sydenham station and extending the metro along that all the way to at least Botany (with the Dulwich Hill light rail getting an additional extension as well). However this was kicked into the long grass because two other projects would need to be committed to (both of which offer real long term solutions though): 1. A dedicated rail freight tunnel between port botany and Enfield via the airport and 2. A parrallel road goods tunnel.
“It was a grim-faced Michael Daley who fronted media at Maroubra on Sunday morning, where he vowed to remain as leader despite the disastrous election result.
“I am the best person to lead the party,” Mr Daley said.
But speculation is mounting he will be challenged for the top job. Under Labor party rules, an election loss automatically triggers a leadership ballot. Kogarah MP Chris Minns, who is fighting to hold onto a seat, wouldn’t rule out a challenge when speaking to the Herald on Sunday.
“My seat is very close and my focus has to be on that,” Mr Minns said. “I certainly won’t rule out being a candidate for the leadership. After three election losses, the party has to reassess what we are offering the people of NSW.”
At Maroubra Beach, Mr Daley said he had not spoken to Mr Minns since the election.
“I have the support of party head office,” Mr Daley said.
“I have the support of party head office,” Mr Daley said.
Andrew..
I’m struggling to parse that. What are you referring to with “fix” and “they”?
Very simple. Sydney’s rail network is fragile because it is being pushed to capacity and because there are numerous interactions between what ought to be physically independent rail lines, but aren’t.
One of the biggest problems (not the only one, but a major one) is the fact that the city circle is shared between the inner west line, Bankstown line and airport line. Every train that comes from Bankstown is a train that cannot operate on these other lines. This also affects reliability and I hope that point is obvious.
There is no other remedy for this problem (of taking Bankstown line trains out of the city circle) that isn’t more expensive (like a tunnel to Central terminus) or just plain unacceptable (like terminating Bankstown line trains at Sydenham. That’s well understood.
What NSW Labor was proposing to do was to continue to direct Bankstown line trains into the city circle. In 2 years, we would have had SMH articles screaming about even more people unable to enter airport line stations because of over-crowding. In other words it was a stupid policy that would have come back to bite Daley on the arse.
The proposals that have been on the table have been all to do with creating a bypass between Thirroul and Waterfall. Which incidentally would have saved about 25 minutes. In other words, a 65 minute trip. You don’t get below an hour without additional tunnel. How do I know? I worked with rail engineers on this exact problem and did the maths. If you add a tunnel between Sutherland and Kogarah for instance, you can get down to 55 minutes. But where’s the funding?
If you really want to take pressure off the A1/M1 and thus absolutely not need an F6, then you need to think about cutting the 58 minute trip to Cronulla down to 40 minutes or less. That wasn’t proposed.
In any case, if you really want a decent 21st century solution to the problem of people getting from Wollongong to the CBD, then you need to start looking at high speed rail. You can get from Wollongong to the CBD in 45 minutes via Campbelltown.
KJ
The federal election is Labor’s to lose………..oh dear, it does have a certain ring to it…
Totally disagree that this was easily winnable for Labor, fact is the coalition government in NSW hasn’t been anywhere as bad as the Federal party.
I had a feeling nothing much would change in this election, big infrastructure projects, braging over the surplus budget, even though it is because they are selling NSW down the drain… you think most have any idea or care for such things.
Until the privatisation agenda really hits NSW, in terms of cost and poor service.. thats when this government will get smashed.
mundo says:
Sunday, March 24, 2019 at 12:33 pm
‘Shorten’s Labor will win or lose standing tall. Not on its knees.’
Bullshit.
Losing standing tall, sitting down, bending over is still losing.
If you think you could cope with Morrison still there the morning after
there’s something seriously off with your karma.
You may as well say what half of us are thinking….we’re probably going to lose….go Bill….
________________________________________
If half of you are thinking that you have no brains whatsoever and, consequently, are incapable of thinking. Labor have a number of selling points for the next election. First and foremost is that they learnt the lessons of the RGR governments and will not go near there again. As opposed to three different PMs in six years on the Coalition side, the removal of Turnbull being perennially inexplicable to all but those who removed him.
Everyone in the Parliamentary Labor Party, including Albanese, knows that Shorten going now will turn a near certainty into a huge fight that they could well lose or, at best, cobble together with a minority government.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge Salesman of the Week prize winner is…………………. come on down Fry the Planet. Also nominated for Least Believable Lie of the Year award.
My budget will drive up worker wages: Josh Frydenberg
by Shane Wright, David Crowe and Eryk Bagshaw
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/my-budget-will-drive-up-worker-wages-josh-frydenberg-20190321-p516bn.html
Pegasus @ #223 Sunday, March 24th, 2019 – 1:03 pm
You’d expect Bill shorten to tap Daley on the shoulder in the next few days.
The last thing federal Labor needs is a bitter war for the NSW Labor leadership.
Another mentioned by Daley, Mckay and Bergen (on today’s ABC news).
That Daley is on job for 134 days. So?
Malcolm Fraser called 1983 Federal election after Bob Hawke was elected LOTO to capitalise on Hawke being new to the job.
Hawke was LOTO for less than 50 days before he went on to win the election.
Nicko
Totally disagree that this was easily winnable for Labor, fact is the coalition government in NSW hasn’t been anywhere as bad as the Federal party.
________________________________
My general feeling leading into this election is that, while the gap was really big, there was less distance between labor and the Coalition in NSW than in any other State or the Commonwealth. Possibly only the NT is closer. Berejiklian had not promoted baseball bat sales, except among some serious enclaves (Coogee, for example) and Daley simply did not inspire enough confidence that he would be better.
There are no lessons for Federal Labor from the NSW election other than the fact that its strategy, which was the opposite of NSW Labor’s, is the right one.
imacca@12:38pn
Yes. Always. His KPI is of the chart after NSW LNP win. 🙂
So I can understand the brexit and the Trump voters and why they did it, wrong wrong wrong, but you can understand how they would think it was worth a roll.
This I cannot understand. This is a very poor reflection on the voters of NSW. What the hell kind of stupid do you all have in the water in NSW?
mundo@1:05pm
You won’t believe that ALP will win next Federal election do you?
In the past Fake Newspoll almost gave you a heart attack. You just don’t believe people will throw out this LNP government (no matter how low they go) especially if Shorten is LOTO.
WeWantPaul @ #233 Sunday, March 24th, 2019 – 1:11 pm
The minor party and Independent vote share went up for a reason.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-24/nsw-election-exposes-divide-between-city-and-rural-voters/10934168
But desperation is the same reason that drove Trump and brexit voters that I get. Foolish, self defeating but I can see the desperation and what drives it. It is the LNP / National voters that I don’t get at all. Unless NSW is a whole lot wealthier on average than I thought, this result is insane.
Andrew..
There is an EcoTransit idiocy. What they’re planning is a southern extension of Sydney Metro through the airport and down along the western Shore of Botany Bay and eventually to Miranda (or some such). It fails in several ways..
1. If all you’re trying to do is avoid metro conversion of the Bankstown line, its a far more costly solution.
2. It doesn’t help the inner west line because the Bankstown line competes with the inner west line fro slots on the city circle
3. It doesn’t deal with the inherent fragility of a complex system nor the user-unfriendliness of having erratic timetables on the city circle where you get lots of people over-crowding platforms because some people are waiting for the next train or the train after that. Like it or not, the system is too complex and keeping the Bankstown line in the city circle is unacceptable to a modern rail network.
4. The EcoTransit idea takes the route through mush. Best way to describe it. The first km or so west of the shore of Botany Bay (the stuff that Brighton-le-sands sits on) is mush. Sediment. Silt. Its expensive to tunnel through.
5. The EcoTransit idea is also very expensive because in practical terms you either have to plow through the area on which the XPT service depot sits, and you end up with expensive and unsightly viaducts, or you back up to the tunnel portal and run a new tunnel dive and abandon all the work done for the metro platforms at Sydenham. More cost. Like most EcoTransit ideas, the engineering is just plain stupid and uncosted.
6. Even to the extent that you displace some users from the airport itself, this is not the problem. The problem is actually the rapid build of usage from Macarthur and the rapid build of usage from stations like Mascot, for which EcoTransit has no solution.
In other words, if your answer is stupid, chances are your question is stupid. All of this is to avoid metro conversion of the Bansktown line, because.. well because.
As for Turella, yeah like, where are the airport line trains going to go?
Yeah, right, that will be popular.
Yeah.. right. You’d have to reconstruct the Sydenham metro platforms and cause a lot more disruption in the process to a newly operational metro.
All I can say to this is again.. If the solution looks wrong, chances are the problem you’re trying to solve is wrong.
The simplest and most cost effective solution is to metro convert the Bankstown line.
https://www.smh.com.au/nsw-election-2019/labor-leadership-candidate-says-party-has-to-reassess-what-we-are-offering-the-people-of-nsw-20190324-p5170j.html
WWP@1:11pm
Why can’t LNP win not happen when Brexit and Trump happen?
You must be drinking a lot of coolaid from PB.
I don’t care for conspiracy theories Andrew. Its evident to anyone reasonably well educated in rail that metro conversion of the Bankstown line involves a lot less engineering effort than any other solution to the same problem.
Andrew, the airport solution is worse for a number of reasons:
– it’s more expensive as you are More than likely having to feed a tunnel into an existing tunnel due to the arrangement of Central station’s tracks.
– it takes less trains or of the loop meaning a short term solution.
– it’s delayed as it relies on being timed with a yet to be commenced project rather than an already under construction project. Time that is not available.
– The impact on the airport line will be just as, if not greater than Bankstown. Airport passengers for example will be less likely to deal with bus replacements than regular commuters.
– I agree that the T8 line needs work, but to split it like that doesn’t look at the line strategically.
– A Liverpool extension from Bankstown is now proposed with rolling stock that can accommodate more seats per hour than the double deckers sets, have a smoother ride and has an even greater overall capacity and frequency. Could you imagine if they needed to change trains at Sydenham? This is such a short term solution.
Oh, and if your complaining about issues in upgrading stations along the Bankstown line? Why would these issues suddenly not appear if upgrading stations on the airport line?
WWP@1:20pm
NSW is a whole wealthier (propertywise) than other states. It has the lowest unemployment.
Sydney has a fair proportion Asian voters.
For no good reason, someone here with not an iota of class introduces the Premier’s sexual preference. And quick as a flash her sycophant in the west repeats the allegation.
“Not guilty your honour” will be the contention, as usual.
Disgraceful. Hope the moderator drops in for a look.
Also, a cabinet in confidence submission. From who? I have seen plenty of reports shredding the Bankstown Metro and they all have significant factual errors. If this submission had any weight, that information would be out in the public by people who know their way around a rail line.
ALP transport plan?
The ALP have not had a transport plan in NSW for almost 40 years.
During the bob carr 16 years government, the only transport infrastructure that was build was the disastrous cross city tunnel and the equally disastrous lane cove tunnel. Both of which led to court cases and bankruptcy. Both of which also have very large tolls on them and do nothing to solve congestion. If anything the closed roads made the congestion in Sydney worse.
The population of Sydney grew by almost 1 mil people from 3.8mil to 4.7mil during the last ALp Gov.
If the ALp did nothing then why do you think they have a plan to do something now.
WeWantPaul @ #237 Sunday, March 24th, 2019 – 1:20 pm
then again this tweet makes a valid point…
https://www.theage.com.au/national/road-warriors-shorten-and-albanese-take-a-drive-through-the-marginals-20190324-p51709.html
Latham has landed an 8 year gig in the upper house. He must be laughing