NSW State Election Contests: The Wash

It's taken some time but all the results are finally in. Time to review the contests I previewed.

The Legislative Council

After what ended up coming down to what Green's candidate Jeremy Buckingham described as a 'neck and redneck battle' the final results are in. Thankfully Pauline Hanson, despite getting a surprising portion of the first preference vote didn't win a seat. The results were:

Liberal/Nationals - 11
Labor - 5
The Greens - 3
Shooters and Fishers - 1
Christian Democrats - 1

This was in line with what the polls predicted with the Greens performing well enough on preferences to pick up an additional seat and the CDP taking back the Family First seat that was the result of Gordon Moyes defection.

Pauline Hanson picked up 2.4% of the primary vote and came very close to winning. This performance surprised many, but if you examine her last tilt at the LC the combined Hanson/One Nation percentage of the vote was 3.4%. Although her personal support appears to have picked up since 2003 (where it was 1.9%) it's likely these were stolen from those who voted for One Nation at the time.

John Hatton unfortunately didn't pick up many votes, receiving a similar number to the Fishing Party, Family First and the No Parking Meters Party. Most of his votes exhausted so he didn't help elect anyone really.


The Side Contests

Marrickville - Labor retained by the skin of it's teeth - an 0.9% margin. It was always going to be close. If the Greens can continue to swing towards them, with an impressive 35.9% of the primary vote, they'll probably take it at the next election.

Balmain - In rare 3-way contest the Greens did manage to take Balmain (though with a lower primary vote than in Marrickville - 30.7%) and hold it with a 3.5% margin against the Liberal Party.

Wollongong - Despite a massive swing against it (24.3%) Labor managed to hang on against the Independent Gordon Bradbery with a margin of just 1%.

Sydney - Clover Moore managed to retain Sydney - except where she held it before with a 16.6% margin against Labor she now holds it with a 3.1% margin against the Liberal Party.

Lake Macquarie - Greg Piper easily retained the seat, although as in Sydney the 2PP vote is now against the Liberals.

Newcastle - In what was probably the best Labor performance in the State the sitting member Jodi McKay lost only 0.6% of the primary vote, however the Independent challenger was decimated delivering the seat to the Liberal Party


Dubbo, Tamworth and Port Macquarie - All fell to the Nationals which wasn't a surprise

Hornsby - Independent Nick Berman put in a good show but not good enough to beat the Liberal candidate.

As a side note it was interesting to see the number of safe Liberal seats where the Greens out-polled Labor on first preferences. This happened in at least Davidson, Hornsby, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Manly, North Shore, Pittwater, Vaucluse, Wakehurst and Willoughby. The two candidate preferred vote for many of these seats is going to need to be reviewed - in some cases these seats may become Liberal vs Green (depending on exhaustion of preferences).

The Swing

It was almost certainly historic and we know what the results are on the primary vote (roughly - there's still votes to be counted). But it's going to be another couple of weeks before we know the final swing. Watch this space.