Category: New South Wales Politics

NSW by-elections: Epping, Hornsby, Pittwater

Two long-anticipated state by-elections in New South Wales set to be joined by a rather less expected third.

There are now three state by-elections looming for blue-ribbon Liberal seats in Sydney, that latest arising after Pittwater MP Rory Amon promptly resigned from parliament after being charged with child sex offences on Friday. Michael Koziol of the Sydney Morning Herald reports it is “likely to be scheduled alongside other by-elections on October 19”, and that “most Liberals were resigned to losing the seat” – presumably to teal independent Jacqui Scruby, who came within 0.7% of winning the seat when Amon succeeded Rob Stokes at the 2023 election.

Megan Gorrey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Stokes has thrown his support behind Northern Beaches deputy mayor Georgia Ryburn, who was touted in a report last week as a possible challenger to teal independent Sophie Scamps in the federal seat of Mackellar, though she has not publicly identified herself as a contender in either case. Another name to have emerged is Michael Gencher, a council colleague of Ryburn’s and fellow victim of the party’s nominations fiasco. Others are familiar from the contest to succeed Stokes before the last election: Natasha Maclaren-Jones, an upper house member who withdrew as it became apparent she lacked sufficient support; and Claire Longley, EY consultant and daughter of former member Jim Longley, who was refused an exemption from a party rule barring nominees who had not been financial members for six months. (UPDATE: The Manly Daily reports Ryburn, Longley, Gencher and another Northern Beaches councillor, Bianca Crvelin, have nominated for Liberal preselection, while the Sydney Morning Herald reports Jacqui Scruby has confirmed she will run again).

As noted in a previous post, the other two by-elections will be held to replace Dominic Perrottet in Epping, where the Liberals have preselected Monica Tudehope, former policy director to Perrottet and daughter of Damien Tudehope, a former member for the seat who now leads the party in the Legislatve Council; and Matt Kean in Hornsby, where the new Liberal candidate is Corrs Chambers Westgarth lawyer James Wallace. Labor reduced the margins at the 2022 election to 4.8% in Epping with a 6.5% swing, and to 8.0% in Hornsby with an 8.8% swing.

New South Wales: Resolve Strategic poll, Hornsby and Epping by-elections, Liberal council candidates fiasco

Good news for the Liberals from a New South Wales state poll, amid very bad news for its council elections campaign.

The bi-monthly Resolve Strategic poll of state voting intention in New South Wales, produced from a combined sample of 1000 from its last two national polls, is a remarkably weak set of numbers for Labor, showing them on 30% of the primary vote – down two points on the last poll and seven on the 2023 election. The Coalition is up three on both to 38%, with the Greens 12%, up by one on the last poll and at least two on the election result. The pollster does not provide two-party preferred, but I would very roughly estimate 51-49 to the Coalition based on these primary votes. Chris Minns leads Mark Speakman 38-13, unchanged from last time.

I would normally be skeptical about such a result for a first-term government with no obvious reason to be listing so badly, and suspect that the Sydney Morning Herald might feel the same way, as its report leads with a finding that 56% support the government’s proposal to prevent “no grounds” evictions with 23% opposed. However, the only other state poll this year from a pollster other than Resolve Strategic, a RedBridge Group poll conducted from two waves in February and May, likewise suggested a close result on two-party preferred, though with substantially higher primary votes for the major parties (especially Labor).

Clarity could perhaps be provided by two looming by-elections should Labor choose to contest them, on which I have no information. These are for the seats of Hornsby and Epping, which are respectively being vacated by the erstwhile leader and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean. The date for both has been set at October 19, the same date as the Australian Capital Territory’s election and a week before Queensland’s. A Liberal preselection for Epping on Saturday was won by Monica Tudehope, daughter of Damien Tudehope, who held the seat from 2015 to 2019 and is now the leader of the Liberals in the Legislative Council. Monica Tudehope is a former policy director to Perrottet and unsuccessful contestant for last year’s preselection to fill the Senate vacancy created by the retirement of Marise Payne, which was won by Dave Sharma. Tricia Rivera of The Australian reports Tudehope was an easy first-round winner in the party ballot with 89 out of 115 votes.

The Liberal candidate in Hornsby will be Corrs Chambers Westgarth lawyer James Wallace, who won a preselection vote a fortnight ago after receiving forceful endorsement from Matt Kean and equally vehement opposition from many at the conservative end of the party. The latter included Tony Abbott, who endorsed Hornsby deputy mayor Michael Hutchence and accused Kean, newly appointed chair of the Climate Change Authority, of having “left the parliament to take a job with the Labor party”. Linda Silmalis of the Daily Telegraph reports Wallace won in the first round of a preselection ballot with 123 votes to 36 for Hutchence and 28 for a third candidate.

The other big electoral news out of the state is the Liberal Party’s failures to meet last week’s noon Wednesday nominations deadline for the September 14 council elections, estimated to have involved around 140 candidates across 18 council areas. Ben Raue at the Tally Room analyses the implications, finding the blunder has excluded the Liberals from at least 50 winnable seats across 16 councils. A request from the Liberal Party for an extension has been denied by acting Electoral Commissioner Matthew Phillips, who “was not satisfied that it is possible to lawfully extend the nomination period in line with the request and, even if it were, it would not be appropriate to do so given the very significant ramifications it would have for the conduct of the elections”. The party now says it will pursue action in the Supreme Court. The blunder resulted in the party’s state executive sacking Richard Shields as its state director on Friday, with Sky News reporting the party “had to scramble to get an interim acting state director in place so that the Epping by-election preselection could take place on Saturday”.

Weekend miscellany: NSW by-elections, Fatima Payman polling, electoral reform, preselections (open thread)

A second NSW state by-election looms in a traditionally safe Liberal seat; a mixed bag of polling concerning Fatima Payman; and the government gears up for long-delayed electoral law reforms.

Newspoll should be along from The Australian this evening if it follows its usual three-weekly pattern, and we’re also about due for a Freshwater Strategy poll overnight from the Financial Review. For the time being, there’s the following electorally relevant news from the past week:

• Former New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet announced his resignation from parliament on Friday to take up a position as US head of corporate and external relations for BHP. This will necessitate a by-election for his safe northern Sydney seat of Epping, presumably to be held concurrently with that for former Treasurer Matt Kean’s nearby seat of Hornsby.

• Nine Newspapers reports further numbers from last week’s Resolve Strategic poll showing 41% believe Fatima Payman should relinquish her seat to a new Labor Senator, compared with 29% who support her course of remaining as an independent. However, 54% believe Labor should allow caucus members more freedom to vote in parliament as they wish, with only 16% holding the contrary view.

• It has been widely reported that the government will introduce a package of electoral reform legislation next month, although Michelle Grattan of The Conversation reports it will not include the blockbuster proposal to increase the number of territory Senators, which has failed to find support, and is unlikely to be in place in time for the next election. What will be featured are truth-in-advertising laws on the South Australian model; a reduction of the threshold for public disclosure of donations from the current $16,900 to $1000, together with much stricter time frames for disclosure, reducing to daily at the business end of the campaign period; and a system of spending caps limiting the amount that can be spent on campaigning in any given electorate to $1 million. The latter is most obviously targeted at Clive Palmer, but teal independents have complained of their potential to hinder crowd-funded campaigns against major party incumbents, with Monique Ryan and Allegra Spender’s respective campaign spends in Kooyong and Wentworth at the 2022 election each having exceed $2 million.

Federal preselection news:

• Warren Entsch has confirmed he will not recontest the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, which he has held as a Liberal for all but one term since 1996. The Australian reports Labor’s candidate is Matt Smith, former professional basketballer turned Together Union organiser, who was preselected unopposed last week.

• Deloitte director Madonna Jarrett will again be Labor’s candidate for the seat of Brisbane, which Stephen Bates won for the Greens from the Liberal National Party in 2022.

• Jack Dietsch of The West Australian reports that Liberal preselection contests loom for the Labor-held Perth seats of Swan and Hasluck, both of which were won by Labor in 2022, with respective margins of 9.6% AND 10.7% under the proposed new boundaries. The candidates in Swan are Nick Marvin, former chief executive of the Perth Wildcats basketball and Western Force rugby league clubs; Matthew Evans, an army veteran who now works for Mineral Resources; and Mic Fels, a grains farmer. The candidates in Hasluck are Philip Couper, a contracts and procurement consultant and former adviser to state One Nation MLC Colin Ticknell; David Goode, a Gosnells councillor; and Ashutosh Kumar, a credit assessor at Westpac. Pearce, which was gained in 2022 and has a margin of 9.1% on the proposed new boundaries, and Cowan, which Anne Aly has held for Labor since 2016 with a new margin of 9.7%, have each attracted one candidate: respectively, Jan Norberger, who held the state seat of Joondalup from 2013 to 2017, and Felicia Adeniyi, manager at St Luke’s GP Medical.

• Jack Dietsch of The West Australian reports Labor has preselected the top three candidates for its Western Australian Senate ticket: Ellie Whiteaker, the party’s state secretary, who is aligned to the Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; Varun Ghosh, a Right-aligned former barrister who filled the vacancy created by Pat Dodson’s retirement in February; and Deep Singh, a staffer to Cowan MP Anne Aly aligned with the Left faction United Workers Union. The party’s two members elected in 2019 to terms that will expire in the middle of next year were the aforementioned Pat Dodson and Left-aligned Louise Pratt, who announced in February that she would not seek re-election.

Northern Tablelands by-election live

Live coverage of the count for the New South Wales state by-election for Northern Tablelands.

Click here for full display of Northern Tablelands by-election results.

6.50pm. There being nothing to discuss as regards the result, a technical point worth observing is that the New South Wales Electoral Commission uniquely publishes full ballot paper data, which enables a meaningful Nationals-versus-Greens based on comparison with the general election, despite the Greens having finished third behind Labor. This currently records a swing against the Nationals of around 2%.

6.31pm. Six booths in on the primary, three on TCP, and my system is well and truly calling it. Shooters still second, but these are rural booths.

6.23pm. There are two booths in, with the Nationals as expected on around three-quarters of the primary vote. Only 216, but my system is projecting that Shooters rather than Greens will finish second.

6.10pm. Polls have closed for the New South Wales state by-election for New England region seat of Northern Tablelands, which shows no sign of being anything other than a walkover for Nationals candidate Brendan Moylan in his bid to succeed Adam Marshall. His competition consists of Shooters Fishers and Farmers, the Greens and two independents. You can follow the results through the above link, including swing and probability calculations and detailed results tables and maps. The New South Wales Electoral Commission is conducting a two-candidate count between the Nationals and Greens – the above display is geared for Nationals versus Shooters, which I’m presently scrambling to fix.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 32, Coalition 35, Greens 11 in New South Wales

Another poll suggests Labor has gone backwards in New South Wales since last year’s election win, plus updates on two looming state by-elections.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Resolve Monitor display of Resolve Strategic polling has been updated with the latest bi-monthly state voting intention results for New South Wales, which have Labor down a point from March-April to 32%, the Coalition down one to 35%, the Greens down one to 11%, independents up one to 15% and others up two to 7%. This suggests a Labor lead of around 52-48 on two-party preferred, which is slightly wider than the 50.5-49.5 I estimated from the recent RedBridge Group state poll, but still a swing to the Coalition of upwards of 2% from the March 2023 election. Chris Minns holds a 38-13 lead over Mark Speakman as preferred premier, out from 37-16, with an already hefty uncommitted component out from 47% to 49%. The poll was compiled from two sets of Resolve Strategic’s monthly national surveys, with a sample of 1000.

UPDATE: The Sydney Morning Herald now has a report on the poll, which further relates that 50% support the government’s policy of higher density housing around train stations with 31% opposed.

In other New South Wales state electoral news, two by-elections are looming, one imminently, the other on a date to be determined. The former is for the New England region seat of Northern Tablelands, to be held on Saturday following the retirement of Nationals member Adam Marshall. Marshall was elected four times from 2013 to 2023 with primary vote shares of between 63.3% and 73.5%. With his designated Nationals successor Brendan Moylan facing only low-key competition among a field of five, there is little reason to expect much different this time. If you’re still interested to learn more after that sales pitch, you are directed to my guide to the by-election, and are invited to follow my coverage of the count on Saturday night, which I can relate that no other media outlet is bothering with.

The second by-election is that resulting from Tuesday’s announcement by former Treasurer Matt Kean that he will call time on his state parliamentary career, resulting in a vacancy in his blue-ribbon northern Sydney seat of Hornsby. This follows suggestions last week that Kean might challenge Paul Fletcher for preselection in Bradfield, where the teal threat has seemingly intensified following last week’s publication of proposed new electoral boundaries. However, Kean has scotched the idea, with Paul Sakkal of Sydney Morning Herald reporting Liberal sources saying he would only pursue the seat if Fletcher retired. James O’Doherty of the Daily Telegraph reports two names have been suggested as Kean’s successor in Hornsby: deputy Liberal leader Natalie Ward, who failed in a bid to move from the upper house to the lower before last year’s election by seeking preselection in Davidson, and James Wallace, Corrs Chambers Westgarth lawyer and moderate factional ally of Kean. However, both are said not to be planning on contesting.

Polls: Roy Morgan and RedBridge NSW state (open thread)

Rather surprising federal and New South Wales state poll results, plus the latest on a seemingly uneventful state by-election to be held the Saturday after next.

Two disturbances to an otherwise quiet week on the polling front:

• The usual weekly Roy Morgan poll is something of an outlier in recording a 53.5-46.5 lead for Labor, out from 52-48 last week and 51.5-48.5 in favour of the Coalition the week before. Despite this, Labor’s primary vote is actually down half a point to 30.5%, with the Coalition down one to 35%, the Greens up one-and-a-half to 15.5% and One Nation up one to 5.5%. We are also told that state breakdowns had Labor ahead 56-44 in New South Wales and 57.5% in Victoria and the Coalition ahead 53-47 in Queensland, which would respectively among to swings of 4.6%, 2.7% and 1.0% to Labor. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1687.

• As reported in the Daily Telegraph, RedBridge Group has a third state poll combining survey waves from February and May to follow on from its earlier results for Victoria and Queensland, this time for New South Wales from a sample of 1376. The result is perhaps surprisingly bleak for Chris Minns’ Labor government, which is credited with a two-partly lead of just 50.5-49.5, compared with its 54.3-45.7 winning margin at the March 2023 election. The primary votes are Labor 35%, compared with 37.0% at the election, Coalition 40%, compared with 35.4%, and Greens 11%, compared with 9.7%. Despite this, 40% separately rate the government’s performance as good or very good compared with 20% for poor and 32% for neither, while “the Liberal-National opposition led by Mark Speakman” scores 19% positive, 21% negative and 41% neither.

Staying in New South Wales, a by-election for the safe Nationals seat of Northern Tablelands will be held on June 22. The Nationals candidate is Brendan Moylan, a Moree solicitor who outgoing member Adam Marshall says was “overwhelmingly” preselected in a vote of around 200 local party members. Labor is not fielding a candidate, with Moylan’s competition consisting of Shooters Fishers and Farmers, the Greens and two independents.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 33, Coalition 36, Greens 12 in NSW

The second New South Wales state poll for the year suggests Labor is still in front, but has gone backwards from the result that failed to win it a majority last March.

The bi-monthly Resolve Strategic poll has not been reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, but the results appear on the Political Monitor poll display feature of the paper’s website. It finds both major parties down since the previous poll, in which the Coalition opened up a primary vote for the first time since the March 2023 election, with Labor down a point to 33% and the Coalition down two to 36%. The Greens are steady on 12%, with the generic independent category up two to 14% and others steady on 5%. This suggests a two-party preferred lead to Labor of around 52-48, compared with an election result of 54.3-45.7. Chris Minns is credited with a 37-16 lead over Mark Speakman as preferred premier, out from 35-16 last time. The result was derived from the national Resolve Strategic polls conducted March 21 to 24 and April 17 to 21, from a sample of 1000.

In other New South Wales state politics news, a by-election looms for a date yet to be determined in the rural seat of Northern Tablelands following the resignation of Nationals MP Adam Marshall, who cited the “demanding and all-consuming role”. However, the Sydney Morning Herald notes suggestions the 39-year-old Marshall may be planning to succeed Barnaby Joyce in the corresponding federal seat of New England.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 34, Coalition 38, Greens 12 in NSW

The first New South Wales poll for the year records a surprise surge in support for the Coalition.

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday published a New South Wales state poll from Resolve Strategic, which even more than last week’s federal result was a lot less strong for Labor than the pollster’s past form. A Coalition that has been struggling through its first year in opposition is credited with a six-point spike on the primary vote since November to 38%, while Labor is down three to 34%. The Greens are down a point to 12%, a generic independents category is steady on 12%, and “others” is down two to 5%. This suggests a two-party result of around 51.5-48.5 in Labor’s favour, compared with 54.3-45.7 at the election last March.

A preferred premier question continues to produce a high undecided result, although it has narrowed to the extent Chris Minns’ lead over Liberal leader Mark Speakman is out from 35-13 to 35-16. The accompanying report says the sample for the poll was 1035, but is silent on the question of field work dates. It thus leaves unanswered the question of whether the interruption of New Year has prompted a change to the pollster’s normal practice of combining state results from the past two monthly national surveys, last week’s poll having been the first since early December.

Page 1 of 43
1 2 … 43