Summary
Voters in New South Wales have returned a Coalition government for a third term for the first time in almost half a century. The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, defied expectations by hanging on to government in what had been billed as a too-close-to call election. However, it’s still unclear whether she will govern in a minority.
- In what appears to be a disastrous result for NSW Labor, the party had yet to pick up a single seat from the government on Saturday night. However, it appears likely to win Coogee, and East Hills and Lismore are still in play.
- Despite that, the opposition leader, Michael Daley, said he was proud of the result and intended to stay on as leader.
- In her victory speech, Berejiklian said she would work closely with minority parties, “whether or not my government is a majority or minority government”.
- She said she was proud to be the premier in “a state in which someone with a long surname – and a woman – can be the premier of NSW”.
- Minor parties including the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, One Nation and the Greens all polled strongly. The Shooters appear to have picked up an extra two lower-house seats while Mark Latham will be elected to the upper house for One Nation.
- Seven seats still remain undecided on Saturday night – the government needs to retain four to govern in a majority.
- The upper house also appears uncertain with significant counting still to come. By Saturday night the Coalition has 7.3 quotas, with Labor on 6.2 quotas. The Greens were just over two quotas, with One Nation on 1.4 quotas and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers on 1.3 quotas.
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We’re now calling Penrith as a hold for the Coalition, which leaves eight seats still undecided.
Five of them – Barwon, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Lismore and Upper Hunter – belong to the Nationals. The other three – Coogee, East Hills and Wollondilly – are Liberal party seats.
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Let’s have a quick look at the upper house. We’ve got less than 20% of the vote counted, so it’s quite early, but we do have a sense of how the bigger parties are performing.
The Coalition is sitting on 7.3 quotas, with Labor on 6.2 quotas. The Greens are just over two quotas, with One Nation on 1.4 quotas and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers on 1.3 quotas. That adds up to 17 out of 21 seats decided on primary votes, assuming the percentages don’t change dramatically.
Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic party is on 0.45 quotas while Animal Justice is on 0.37 quotas.
But there’s over 13% of the vote in the “others” pile. This includes all below-the-line votes, above-the-line votes for other groups, and informal votes with markings on the paper.
We don’t have a sense of the primary vote for Keep Sydney Open, Sustainable Australia, Liberal Democratic party or Jeremy Buckingham.
We do get a little bit of a sense by looking at the lower house primary votes. Sustainable Australia, which ran in 58 out of 93 seats, are on 1.5% of the vote. Keep Sydney Open are running in 42 out of 93 seats and have polled 1.3% so far. It seems entirely possible that either party could poll over 2% and have a chance at winning one of the final upper house seats.
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The federal opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has released a statement congratulating Gladys Berejiklian on her re-election.
“On behalf of the Australian Labor party, I congratulate Gladys Berejiklian and her colleagues on their victory,” he says.
“I salute Michael Daley and his team for the positive, passionate campaign they conducted. They were asked to achieve the near impossible in just a few months. In that time, they have created a policy platform that speaks to what’s important to the people of New South Wales. They are well placed for the future.
“I also want to thank all the Labor volunteers and supporters who gave their time and energy to the cause. The true believers always do our party proud.
“I wish Premier Berejiklian and her government well.
“In a matter of weeks, all Australians will be asked to make a choice about their future. My Labor team is offering unity, stability and a fair go for all Australians.”
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“I will continue to – my team and I – will continue to work our guts out to make sure this state and its people continue to ensure that we have the best opportunities on this planet,” she says.
“That we continue to provide a strong budget for the projects, infrastructure and services they need to take the pressure off families. Ladies and gentlemen, people of New South Wales, thank you so much. I look forward to working into the future. Thank you.”
And that’s all from the premier.
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Berejiklian makes reference to the fact she is the first woman elected as NSW premier.
“I’m incredibly proud of the wonderful place in which we live,” she says.
“And what is most important to me is that, no matter what your background – where you live, what your circumstances – everybody in this state has the chance to be their best.
“A state in which someone with a long surname – and a woman – can be the premier of NSW.”
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Berejiklian says to Scott Morrison in the crowd: “We will do everything we can to support your government in it’s re-election.”
Berejiklian: “For the first time in nearly half a century the people of NSW have seen fit to give us a third term in government.”
She says the Liberal party has not conceded a single seat in the election. “In fact I’m proud to say in some of our seats we’ve had a swing to the government.”
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Berejiklian: “Whether or not my government is a majority or minority government, we will work closely with the three minority parties in the New South Wales government which is so important for NSW.”
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Chants of “Gladys, Gladys, Gladys” as she begins her speech. “A short time ago I took a phone call from the leader of the opposition Mr Daley who conceded that the next government in NSW would be a Berejiklian-Barilaro government.”
Gladys Berejiklian is making her way to the podium.
An ebullient prime minister Scott Morrison congratulated the premier on her win, taking to the stage in Sydney to declare “how good is Gladys Berejiklian?”
“In two months from now we’ll back here celebrating another Liberal-National government returned to office,” he said.
The premier is expected to speak any moment now.
Over on the ABC, the NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, has some issues with Daley’s concession speech:
I do want to respectfully disagree with some of the comments Michael Daley made in his concession speech. I don’t think he ran a positive campaign. I think he ran a very negative campaign based around cancelling a football stadium, cancelling infrastructure projects right across the state ... He pit community against community. He picked winners. There was a lot of class warfare.
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And after some thank yous, Daley departs. Just waiting to hear from the re-elected premier, Gladys Berejiklian.
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Daley: “Although the result is unclear in final terms tonight, our role is not unclear. From opposition, we will continue to make it a contest of ideas.”
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Daley says he sought to run “a positive campaign in an era of politics where all too often negativity reigns”. He says he is concerned “it really hasn’t been all that great a night for the major parties”.
“Being someone who believes in the political stability that the two-party system does and has delivered to Australia and New South Wales is that it really hasn’t been all that great a night for the major parties,” he says.
“And we do have more work to do if we’re not going to see a continual erosion of public confidence in the political system.”
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Daley says he intends to remain leader of the NSW Labor party.
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Daley: We have a long and proud history in the Labor party. Sometimes we win them sometime we lose them. Whilst, of course, I’m disappointed in the result tonight, I am so proud of your efforts.
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Labor leader Michael Daley concedes to Coalition.
Michael Daley is speaking in Coogee. He says he has called the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, to concede.
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They have just turned the TV off here at Labor headquarters and the band has started up. I think it’s the Eagles, circa 1977.
The Coalition looks more and more confident of holding on to a majority government, although there are still a number of Nationals seats in play.
“We want to govern in our own right,” the treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, says on the ABC. “It looks like we’re close to that.”
At the same time we’re updating our election calculator to call Kogarah, The Entrance and Strathfield all holds for Labor. That means there’s no existing Labor seats outstanding. It looked like the Labor MP in Kogarah, leadership aspirant Chris Minns, might have been in trouble but he is set to hold on.
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Greens to hold Ballina and Murray to go to Shooters party
We have just called Ballina for the Greens with an increased majority, and Murray for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. It’s remarkable to say this but Murray is the only seat that has changed hands so far tonight.
We have 14 seats we haven’t yet called.
There are three particularly complex seats where we don’t have a preference count. The Greens are leading Labor by about 4% in Lismore, but the two-candidate-preferred count is Labor vs Nationals (which Labor is winning for what it’s worth) and ex-Greens independent Sally Townley is leading Labor by about 1% in Coffs Harbour. Local mayor Judy Hannan is on 20% of the primary vote in Wollondilly, well ahead of Labor. In all, three cases these challengers are trailing the Coalition on the primary vote, and we won’t have a two-candidate-preferred count tonight.
We then have 11 other seats where the count is too early or close to call, and we’ll just have to keep tracking those throughout this evening, gradually calling them as more votes pile up. This includes the Labor seats of Kogarah, Rockdale, Strathfield and the Entrance, as well as the Coalition seats of Barwon, Coogee, Dubbo, East Hills, Penrith, Tweed and Upper Hunter.
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The shadow treasurer, Ryan Park, who has been re-elected, says Labor’s result is “not as good as what we would have liked”.
“There’s no point sugar coating it, that’s the truth,” he said. He says Labor will “look at what worked well [and] what we could have done better”.
He says Daley has done an “outstanding job”.
“He came into the job late [and] I think everyone needs to remember this needed a Herculean effort to get over the line,” he says. “Tonight hasn’t been the night we would have liked or the Labor party would have liked.”
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Over on the ABC, Labor’s Jodi McKay isn’t laying the boot into Michael Daley despite what looks like a poor result for Labor.
“I think Michael’s done a remarkable job,” she said.
“He’s had 130 days only to prepare for this. We came out of what was a really difficult situation when Luke left. But I think that Michael has worked really hard. If you consider that you’ve got that dead period as well leading up to Christmas, up to Australia Day, I mean, I think he has performed very, very strongly.
“In saying that, last week we had a bad week. We had two incidents there which I think all of us wish hadn’t happened.”
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Channel Nine and Seven have now both joined the ABC in calling the election for the Coalition.
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Labor takes solace from Coogee numbers
Lots of cheering here when the results for Coogee flashed up. It looks like Marjorie O’Neill will get up, so they picked the right venue.
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John Howard has arrived at the Sofitel but not at the party yet. He’s expected to go congratulate the Premier first #NSWvotes #nswpol
— Sarah Gerathy (@sarahgerathy) March 23, 2019
The mood here at Selina’s has changed from expectation to resignation. People are getting on with the business of drinking and catching up with friends after a long day on the hustings. No one is watching the screen anymore.
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The Nationals look shaky in a number of regional electorates where they are competing with minor parties, but so far we haven’t been able to call a single seat gain for Labor.
Labor has failed to gain any of the seats in the range of 6.6% to 9.7%: Oatley, Goulburn, Holsworthy, Heathcote, Bega, Kiama, Myall Lakes, Seven Hills, Terrigal, South Coast, Mulgoa and Clarence. There are also six seats on margins of 3.2% or less. All six of these seats are still in play, while we’re still watching Penrith.
On the numbers alone, the outer Sydney seat of East Hills should have been the easiest seat for Labor to pick up tonight.
The suburban electorate, where development has been a key issue, was formerly a Labor stronghold but was won by the Liberals in the 2011 landslide, and retained in 2015 only on the slimmest of margins – just 0.4%.
Labor is ahead on the early count – picking up a 1.5% swing so far – but it’s still too close to call, another worrying sign for Labor.
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Just putting this here. The state seat of Manly, previously held by the former premier Mike Baird, overlaps closely with Tony Abbott’s federal seat of Warringah.
*waves to Tony* pic.twitter.com/qMD36OiqF2
— Tim Beshara (@Tim_Beshara) March 23, 2019
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Michael Daley, the opposition leader, has seen a swing against him in his own seat of Maroubra. He will still hold the seat, but there’s a 9.7% swing against him on first preferences and 3.8% on two-party.
Independent Noel D’Souza, a former Labor mayor of Randwick, is polling 13.2% of the vote.
Things aren’t going as planned for Labor.
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Let’s look at the seats in the 6%-10% margin. The Coalition has retained Oatley, Holsworthy, Heathcote, Kiama, Terrigal, South Coast and Mulgoa. I’m still watching Penrith, Goulburn, Bega, Myall Lakes and Seven Hills but a number of these seats are leaning to the government.
While it’s not clear whether the government will retain their majority, it now seems impossible for Labor to win a majority and very unlikely that Labor will be in a position to form a minority government.
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ABC calls election for Coalition.
The ABC’s Antony Green has called the election for the Coalition. He says the Berejiklian government will be returned either in its own right or as a minority government.
“It looks like the Berejiklian government has been returned,” Green says. “On the numbers I’m looking at at the moment, it’s probably in the majority as well. But as I’ve said, I’ve had some difficulty with some of these seats, so I’m inclined to be cautious as to whether it’s a majority or minority.”
At Liberal Party HQ, our reporter Josephine Tovey says a big cheer went up as he called it.
“Good on you Gladys” someone shouts.
The Premier @gladysb ‘s sister has turned up at Liberal HQ wearing the wildest disco silver suit I’ve ever seen . Can we expect similar bold fashion from the Premier? #nswvotes #nswpol pic.twitter.com/I9rjuafwrg
— Sarah Gerathy (@sarahgerathy) March 23, 2019
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The ABC are calling the Nationals seat of Upper Hunter as a Labor party gain.
“At the moment we’re predicting Labor will win that seat, and Melanie Dagg – the deputy mayor of Cessnock – will be the new member for Upper Hunter. That’s the only seat at the moment we’re actually giving away to the Labor party,” Antony Green says.
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The Liberal party faithful have begun gathering in the ballroom of the Sofitel in the Sydney CBD, and the mood is hopeful.
Sky and the ABC are playing on duel screens but the sound is obscured by some nondescript rock blaring from the speakers. Young volunteers still in their party polo shirts are sipping drinks alongside well-heeled guests, including the premier’s sister Mary Berejiklian, who is spectacularly attired in a gold and black shimmering jumpsuit.
Mary, clearly not the family’s shrinking violet, made headlines during the campaign after she mounted a spirited defence of her sister against online trolls, memorably telling one to go “grow some pubes”.
The premier herself has not been seen and is believed to be watching from a room upstairs.
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Good night for the Greens, and the Shooters party
The Greens and the Shooters both appear to be having a good night, although a number of seats are still too early to call.
The Greens have retained Balmain, with Jamie Parker picking up a big swing towards him.
Ballina and Lismore are more complicated. The Nationals’ primary vote is under 40% in both seats, with the Greens ahead of Labor, and should benefit from Labor preferences.
We don’t have the right preference count in Lismore as the local booth workers are doing a preference distribution between Nationals and Labor.
The Shooters are looking good in Murray, where they are leading on primary votes and two-candidate-preferred votes, but it’s still too early with a lot of booths to report.
The Shooters also have a shot at Barwon, where they are outpolling Labor. Labor’s vote will probably pick up when Broken Hill reports, so the Shooters aren’t guaranteed of a top-two finish, and they are currently trailing the Nationals off a handful of booths that have reported the two-candidate-preferred count.
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On the ABC Antony Green says under normal circumstances he’d be calling the election for the Coalition, but he has “doubts” about some of the numbers he’s seeing.
“I’ve got 11% counted [and] under normal circumstances, I would be saying, ‘now the Berejiklian’s been re-elected’ but I have had my doubts about some of the numbers, so I’m going to hold off.”
He says the count is “the slowest I’ve ever seen”.
Stuart Ayres’ seat of Penrith is a key one for Labor. Ayres is the minister for sport and the brains behind the government’s controversial stadiums policy. Labor has based their campaign around opposition to the plan, so his fate will be an interesting indicator.
He holds the seat on a 6.2% margin, and with about 4.5% of the vote counted there looks to be a small swing against him.
At the beginning of the campaign the Labor seat of Port Stephens in the Hunter was seen by the government as one possible gain.
Based on the early count it doesn’t look that way. With 10% of the vote counted, Labor’s Kate Washington has almost 49% of the vote, and is winning booths on the eastern side of the electorate where the Liberal party typically does better.
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Prue Car, Labor’s shadow minister for Tafe, says on Channel Nine that the party’s result in Seven Hills is “disappointing”.
At one point the seat had been on Labor’s hit list but on the early count it doesn’t look likely to move away from the government.
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The Labor party in Coogee have put on a band at their venue, which means no one can hear the commentary from Antony Green. So far they’ve not played anything written after 1980.
The atmosphere is tense. Maybe we should have gone to the Shooters Fishers and Farmers party. They look like they will have something to celebrate. Orange looks like it will return SFF’s Phil Donato on early numbers.
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Let’s zoom out to look at the bigger picture. Labor doesn’t appear to be making progress in the not-quite-so-marginal seats they would need to win to form government. They appear to be losing ground in Monaro and Holsworthy, and don’t look good in Heathcote or Oatley either. This points towards a smaller seat loss for the Coalition, which might be enough to deprive them of a majority but would still give them a chance at government.
Interesting count going on in the Labor-held seat of Granville.
With 4.3% of the vote counted, Labor MP Julia Finn is looking at a swing against her of about 1.2%. She’s still ahead but it’s probably closer than Labor expected. And remember if they were to win a majority they’d need a uniform swing of 8.7% towards them.
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Tonight could take a little longer.
It was around about now that Antony called Victoria. What’s keeping him?
— Barrie Cassidy (@barriecassidy) March 23, 2019
The Coalition appears to have gained swings in the marginal seats of Monaro and Holsworthy: they are both seats Labor would be hoping to win if they were on track for government.
We have now called 23 seats, but none of them are big surprises. We’ve called Newtown for the Greens, Orange for the Shooters, 14 Coalition seats and 7 Labor seats.
Holding on to Nationals seats is crucial for the Coalition’s chances of hanging on to government. Going off early indications, they may be in some trouble.
While party leader John Barilaro looks good in Monaro, their seat in Lismore looks like it is in trouble. They are also in a fight against the Shooters in Murray and Barwon, and a swing against them in Upper Hunter.
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We have two booths in so far in Ballina, with a big swing to sitting Greens MP Tamara Smith, a small swing to Labor and a solid swing against the Nats, plus a big vote for Sustainable Australia.
The Greens have also gained a swing in Lismore, with the Nationals and Labor losing ground. So far this is good news for the Greens on the north coast.
Chris Minns, the Kogarah MP, looks like he’s seeing a huge swing against him in the count in that seat. It’s only based on a few booths, but right now he’s looking at a 13.5% two-party swing against him.
He’s asked on Channel Seven what happens if that trend continues as the count continues:
“It wipes me out,” he says.
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Senior Liberal minister Andrew Constance appears to be in some trouble in Bega with less than 40% off three booths, with almost 47% going to Labor and the Greens.
We’re calling Orange as a hold for the Shooters and the Northern Tablelands for the Nationals.
We have results from two booths in Orange, where Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP Phil Donato is running for re-election after winning a byelection in 2016. The SFF vote is up from 22% to 54% at Bedgerabong and from 41% to 57% at Spring Hill.
This is far too early but it’s an early sign that the Shooters may be on track to retain their first seat.
The results for the Shooters haven’t been as good in Cootamundra, where they lost ground in Coolac and only gained a 2% swing at Wallendbeen.
They also lost ground in Caragabal and failed to make progress on Quandialla.
Cootamundra is probably the Shooters’ fourth best chance for a seat but it looks to be slipping away.
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Chris Minns, the shadow minister for water and Kogarah MP, has admitted the feeling on the booths in his electorate was “rough” today and he isn’t sure whether he will hold on to his seat.
Held with a margin of 6.9%, it should have been a safe hold for Labor, but the seat has a high proportion of Australians of Asian descent, and Michael Daley’s comments about “Asians with PhDs” taking jobs look to have hurt the partly badly there.
“I think it’s been a tough week in Kogarah [there is] no doubt about it,” he said on Channel Seven.
“The feeling on the booths was pretty rough to be honest [and] at the moment I have absolutely no idea. I think it has made an issue in the seat [but] it’s impossible to know down to the number whether the backlash will be big enough to claim the seat for the government. I genuinely don’t know.”
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We have our first booth from the seat of Murray, where the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers came within 3.3% of winning at a 2017 byelection. This is from the tiny booth of Murrami, where the Shooters polled 43.5% at the byelection. They have gained an 11% swing but that’s off only 77 primary votes.
It will still be some time before we have real figures but this is a good early sign for the minor party.
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Dominic Perrottet isn’t ready to give up on Coogee yet.
“I’m not going to call that seat,” he says on the ABC.
“[There are ] some significant challenges in the seat of Coogee [but] Bruce Notley-Smith has been a fantastic member and great servant for that electorate over the last eight years and I hope he’s re-elected tonight.”
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Former premier Bob Carr was at Randwick public school handing out how-to-vote cards for Marjorie O’Neill, the Labor candidate for Coogee who’s expected to pick up the seat from incumbent Bruce Notley-Smith.
Carr, who lives nearby, said millennials and young voters would “reject” the current Liberal government.
“There’s a rejection of Premier Berejiklian’s dogmatism when it comes to pill-testing, live music events and lockout laws,” he said.
But Carr said Labor would still need large swings across Sydney – not just in Coogee.
“A marked swing against the government seems likely, with the election hanging on whether there is a swing in city marginals beyond Coogee and East Hills. These two seats would fall with modest swings, but Labor needs to win city seats that would fall with margins of six to eight percent.”
Independent MP Alex Greenwich, who could be the kingmaker in a hung parliament, has said climate change and affordable housing will determine who he backs to form government.
The member for Sydney said he wasn’t that impressed with either Liberal or Labor at the moment, and held his cards close to his chest when asked this morning.
But he was clear on his two priorities. “NSW needs a full transition from coal to renewables and neither party has been able to provide that,” he said. “We have a housing affordability crisis in NSW, homelessness is increasing at twice the national average.”
When pressed, he said he supported Labor’s “encouraging” target for renewables and its decision to save the Sirius building, and he praised the Liberal government’s target to cut homelessness by 50%.
The NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, has also admitted things haven’t been great for the government.
“There have been challenges,” he said on the ABC. “We haven’t got everything right over the last eight years and some of those decisions over the last four. Sydney is under construction and is inconvenienced with those projects and no doubt many major projects have not opened but overall we believe that New South Wales is a better place today than it was eight years ago.
“But hopefully today the voters will reward us for that work.”
McKay has also commented on this irregularities at a booth in Sydney.
“This is something the Liberal party will have to answer,” she said. “So the returning officer I believe let them in and they had five hours or so actually working with votes, so I understand that there are three boxes of votes which could determine the result of my seat which have been quarantined and may not be counted tonight.”
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There will be a change to the way the New South Wales legislative council is counted tonight, reducing how much information we will have at the end of the night.
Electoral commission staff in local polling booths will only be calculating total votes cast above-the-line for seven groups: Labor, Liberal/Nationals, Greens, Animal Justice, Christian Democratic party, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and One Nation.
That’s the six parties currently holding seats in the parliament plus One Nation.
Votes cast below the line or cast above the line for other parties will instead be piled up, along with potential informal votes as “others”, and will be counted later. So this means we won’t have a clear sense of whether Keep Sydney Open, Sustainable Australia, David Leyonhjelm or Jeremy Buckingham have a chance until later this week.
But we never get voting figures from the upper house until much later in the night, and that won’t change.
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We haven’t even seen any results and already Labor’s shadow transport minister, Jodi McKay, seems to be managing expectations on the ABC panel.
“I think 13 seats was always going to be difficult but I think we’ve had a really successful campaign,” she said. “The last week obviously didn’t go according to plan but Michael’s only been leader for 130 days.
“So it was always going to be tough but we think we’ve done enough, and we hope that we form government. We are in it to win it.”
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Polls have closed in NSW.
Bit more detail on that Nine Galaxy poll. Interesting that stadiums ranked so low.
The NSW education minister, Rob Stokes, is on Nine tonight. He’s hearing from Liberal party volunteers that climate change, not the government’s beleaguered Sydney light rail project, was the biggest issue for voters.
“Certainly the messages that I’m getting are that environmental issues played very big and that the light rail was less of an issue for voters,” he said.
Nine Galaxy exit poll on issues influencing votes:
— Bevan Shields (@BevanShields) March 23, 2019
Heath and hospitals: 43%
Education: 35%
Roads and congestion: 23%
Rail: 23%
Economy: 20%
Power prices: 18%
Federal factors: 15%
Stadiums: 12%#nswpol #auspol
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Less than 10 minutes until polls close.
All set to go. pic.twitter.com/siPjlBOqQG
— Antony Green (@AntonyGreenABC) March 23, 2019
Almost 1.3 million vote early
Almost 1.3 million people have voted early this year – a quarter of the state’s 5.3 million total enrolment.
More than 1 million people voted early in person, and 200,000 have voted online, the NSW Electoral Commission said this morning. And this is despite widespread issues yesterday with the iVote portal. The commission confirmed that the registration process – but not voting – went offline yesterday.
Some people are still experiencing issues, though the commission said this morning it had been fixed.
This means that there will be a big job for the counting staff at pre-poll centres tonight.
Watch out for when the pre-polls report because they can cause a sudden shift in the tallies, particularly as people who voted early might have made up their mind before Labor leader Michael Daley’s horror week.
Postals don’t get counted until after tonight and they can can trickle in for up 13 days after polling day. The NSW Electoral Commission has so far received 50,656 postal votes – about 1% of the total number of enrolled voters.
cooooooooooooooooooooooooool pic.twitter.com/GxfizHKrq0
— Ａ．Ｈ． Ｃａｙｌｅｙ 🥚 (@ahcayley) March 23, 2019
#ivote #NSWVotes2019
— Stephen Wright (@stephendayle) March 23, 2019
Working well 🙄
Does this really surprise anyone?
What the fine penalty 🤔 pic.twitter.com/zqYEYinOTf
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An unknown number of votes in the marginal seat of Strathfield have been “quarantined” by the electoral commission after it was discovered a Liberal volunteer was allowed to work inside the booth, ticking off names and handing out ballots.
Sky News reported that a paid Liberal volunteer was accidentally directed to work inside the booth at St James church in Croydon.
Strathfield is currently held by Labor MP Jodi McKay on only a 1.8% margin – and the affected votes will be counted separately, and could be challenged in the event of a close vote.
According to Sky News, the volunteer showed a text – which identified her as a Liberal volunteer – to electoral commission workers, who then directed her inside the booth and set her to work as if she worked for the commission.
She was there until 12.30pm, reporter James O’Doherty said.
The electoral commission confirmed that “a person who was not employed by the NSW electoral commission” was issuing ballot papers due to “an administrative error”.
“The NSW Electoral Commission will count these ballot papers separately and their status will be determined in due course. The number of votes involved will be determined during counting, which starts after 6pm tonight.”
Exit polls good news for government
A Galaxy exit poll of marginal seats for Channel Nine looks like good news for the government. The two-party preferred result is 50-50 – the norm for this election – but the breakdown suggests the Coalition might just hang on.
In marginal seats in western Sydney, the Galaxy poll found a swing of 2.7% to Labor, enough for it to pick up about two seats. The swing was larger in regional New South Wales, as expected, at 3.5%. That would see the Coalition lose four seats.
That makes six the “magic number” – as Nine’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann, called it – for the government to lose its majority. But, importantly, it would put the Coalition in the driver’s seat to form a minority government.
This election, in one tweet.
#Galaxy Exit Poll NSW State 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 50 (-4.3 since 2015) ALP 50 (+4.3) #nswvotes #auspol
— GhostWhoVotes (@GhostWhoVotes) March 23, 2019
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A great thread of topical election stall foods here. From an Allianz Stadium pavlova you can demolish yourself to Darling River bed brownies.
The Camdenville Public School P&C election cake stall does it again! Today’s choices include a Gladys Berry-lick-your-chin half demolished stadium pavlova #NSWElection2019 pic.twitter.com/b8GMUYFh71
— Ruth McCausland (@druthmcc) March 22, 2019
And of course the very popular egg boy cupcakes.
The egg boy cupcakes just turned up #NSWElection2019 pic.twitter.com/UwUNMNH44V
— Ruth McCausland (@druthmcc) March 22, 2019
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The big guns are out in Coogee. The eastern suburbs seat – Liberal for the past eight years – is expected to swing to Labor tonight. They’re so confident, it’s where the Labor election party is being held.
High-profile former politicians were out at the booths on Saturday morning. Former premier Bob Carr was there (my colleague Kate Lyons has more on this), and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull made an appearance, fighting a rearguard action for the current member, Bruce Notley-Smith.
“So important to re-elect the Berejiklian government and Bruce Notley-Smith,” Turnbull said in a short video. Coogee overlaps significantly with Turnbull’s former federal seat of Wentworth.
An exit-poll conducted by Lonergan for the Nature Conservation Council and Greenpeace suggests Labor is on its way to winning the seat back after losing it in 2011. The poll, of 1,481 voters at 14 booths, had Labor at 41% of the primary vote, the Liberals at 31% and the Greens at 15%.
In 2015, the Liberals polled 46.6% first preference versus 32.5% to Labor.
The exit poll found 35% of voters ranked climate change and environment as the No 1 issue that determined their vote, ahead of the economy (25%) and health (12%).
Just an exit poll, of course, but there’s no doubting Labor’s confidence there. Their candidate, Marjorie O’Neill, began campaigning in the electorate nearly a year ago and managed to commandeer just about every telegraph pole in the seat for her corflutes. If people don’t know her name, they must have been walking around blindfolded.
At the polling booths today there was a sense of optimism among the Labor volunteers and a corresponding pessimism among the Liberals over Notley-Smith, a two-term MP. He has struggled to explain his party’s position that there is no need for a second public high school in the eastern suburbs because there is room at JJ Cahill high at Mascot.
Instead he’s been highlighting his support of the gay community with rainbow coloured posters, advertising “Notley-Smith for equality”.
It's been an honour to represent the people of Coogee for the past eight years. At the last election, I made promises to you and since then, with your help, we have achieved great results for our community. Vote 1 - Bruce Notley-Smith. Thanks for your support @TurnbullMalcolm pic.twitter.com/UPW6CTE8iq
— Bruce Notley-Smith (@bnotleysmith) March 22, 2019
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Breakfast is the most important meal of election day. And, surprisingly, in a campaign that was decidedly lacking in spark, both major party leaders have today scoffed some eye-catching meals.
The Labor leader, Michael Daley, started the day with something dubbed his “lucky pie”.
Before he cast his vote, Opposition leader Michael Daley’s first Election Day commitment was for what he calls his lucky pie - “just a plain pie, no sauce” https://t.co/qgjJHdvj1d #nswvotes pic.twitter.com/ZcLRTndzkt
— The Sydney Morning Herald (@smh) March 22, 2019
The sauceless-ness of Daley’s pie drew comment on social media, as it joined the now-rich canon of politicians eating pies weirdly.
The holy pie-fecta pic.twitter.com/d0AYZvJEE6
— Tal Waterhouse (@iiTalW) March 23, 2019
Meanwhile, the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, opted for the more traditional sausage sizzle. You’ll note the big emphasis on “this time with bread”. Why? Because last year, during the 2017 Manly and North Shore byelections, she ate one without bread, just wrapped in a napkin.
Can confirm the Premier didn’t pass up the chance to get a #democracysausage, this time with bread and all the trimmings in the ultra marginal seat of East Hills. The verdict? “Delicious” #nswpol #NSWVotes @10NewsFirstSyd @10Daily pic.twitter.com/dv4rA2C9QZ
— Catalina Florez (@florezcata) March 23, 2019
BATTLE OF THE SAUSAGE SIZZLE @GladysB vs @Luke_FoleyNSW . Gladys = sans bread... wrong or right? #nswpol pic.twitter.com/plKUosNEXC
— Sarah Gerathy (@sarahgerathy) April 8, 2017
The premier also bought a box of cupcakes at her local polling booth.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, who is apparently one of those people who can’t resist a pair of barbecue tongs, was out in Miranda earlier today.
Pix: Nswelection19 Scott Morrison Electioneering https://t.co/SPIDsyWyv7 pic.twitter.com/YNOztjEYSl
— AAP_Photos (@aap_photos) March 23, 2019
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In some ways the equation in this election is simple. There are 93 seats in the lower house in NSW. The Coalition currently holds 52, so if it loses fewer than six seats it will retain government.
Labor needs to pick up 13 seats to form government in its own right, so anything in between will mean a hung parliament. Things are complicated though by the number of three-cornered contests, particularly in regional and rural parts of the state, and NSW’s idiosyncratic optional preferencing system.
There are a number of marginal seats that will decide what happens and Anne Davies has broken them down in detail for us.
It’s election day in New South Wales!
Knife-edge, cliffhanger, nail-biter; every conceivable cliche for an election that’s too close to call has been trotted out during this campaign, so chances are it’s going to be a long night.
The Coalition led by the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, is seeking to be the first conservative government in NSW to be returned for a third term in almost half a century, and got a small election eve boost with a Newspoll showing them ahead 51-49 on a two-party preferred basis.
Labor, meanwhile, is hoping a horror final week by the opposition leader, Michael Daley, to what had otherwise been a disciplined campaign focused on the mantra of “schools before stadiums” won’t have hurt their electoral chances too much.
All signs point to minority government but this is NSW state politics, where police ministers dance on tables and nothing is as it seems. So settle in, we’ll be here all night to bring you the results (or lack thereof).
My colleague Naaman Zhou has spent the day out on the hustings gorging himself on processed meats and feeling the pulse of the electorate, while Josephine Tovey has ironed a crease into her best pair of chinos and is headed for the Liberal party do in the city.
Anne Davies is with Labor in Coogee, she’ll be able to tell us how Daley is faring outside the shadow of Allianz Stadium for the first time in eight weeks.
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