I thought I’d jot down some thoughts on the results in today’s by-elections, primarily in Penrith and to a lesser extent in Hawkesbury.
Make no mistake, this was a massive result for the Liberal Party and a colossal disaster for the ALP. It’s always possible they could have done worse, but this still remains the largest swing in a NSW by-election in modern history. A by-election has seen a two-party swing of over 20% only twice before, both in the current Parliamentary term. The ALP suffered a 23.1% swing in Ryde in 2008 and a 21.8% swing in Cabramatta the same day. It appears that the swing in Penrith stands at 25.5%.
If this was repeated at a state election, it would be colossally devastating. Based on the pendulum, Antony Green calculated that a 25% swing would reduce the ALP to 11 seats, but it could be even more devastating if the party were to start losing seats to Greens and independents.
I don’t think anyone expects the result to be so bad, but it indicates that the ALP is in extremely serious trouble in 2011. It could be much worse than the landslide defeat of 1988. It seems unlikely that Barry O’Farrell will have any trouble at all in constructing the majority he needs.
The Coalition now holds 37 seats (up from 35 in 2007). They need ten more to win a majority. You can easily construct that using obvious seats including the three Labor seats on the Central Coast, the marginal south-west seats of Camden and Wollondilly, the southern seats of Miranda and Menai, and a number of others around the state. This is even before you consider the freak results which could be possible in such a landslide election.
It also demonstrates that the ALP has pretty much lost the ability to influence its own fate. Despite electing a likeable leader who has done a fairly good job under the circumstances, the party was absolutely massacred on the ground. The Labor vote halved, to the point where the Labor vote is much closer in numbers to the Greens vote than to the Liberal vote, in a typical Western Sydney seat.
From my limited experience on the ground, it seems that the ALP even managed to avoid its regular cock-ups in candidate selection by choosing a decent guy with strong local links. It didn’t matter. One quarter of Penrith voters walked away from the ALP, and weren’t listening to what they had to say.
The ALP will thrash around and try and pull out an improved result, but it won’t do any good. No change of leadership or policy will have an effect, the voters of NSW have given up on the current government.
The result was also very good for the Greens. The Greens vote more than doubled from 5.6% in 2007 to 12.6%. The Greens recorded swings in all booths. Nearly all booths had swings of over 5%, and in the four Mountains booths, the only booths where the Greens polled over 10% in 2007, the Greens gained swings of over 10%, polling a total of over 20% in all four booths, and in all four booths outpolling the ALP.
Also today, the Greens performed strongly in the by-election for a seat on Hawkesbury City Council, polling 23%, up from 10% in 2008. While the Liberal Party gained the seat, giving them control of the council, it shows a general trend towards large swings towards the Greens. This appears to confirm what the polls have been telling us: there has been a move towards the Greens. Two by-elections in Western Sydney don’t give us the full picture, but they do suggest that there is something real behind the recent polls.
It is also interesting to ponder the implications for the Greens in their winnable seats at the next state election. The Greens should be able to benefit from the general anti-Labor anger in Balmain and Marrickville that has lifted up the Liberals in Penrith.
In addition, the results in Penrith suggest a pattern in how Greens swings are distributed. The Greens vote grew the most in the strongest areas. The Greens more than doubled their vote in all but four booths across Penrith. The biggest swings were seen in the booths in Blaxland, Glenbrook and Lapstone, in the lower Blue Mountains. This gives further evidence that swings to the Greens don’t play out uniformly.
It kind of makes sense. If the Greens vote goes up from 10% to 13%, then it doesn’t intuitively follow that the Greens vote in Campbelltown would increase from 5% to 8% and the Balmain vote by the same margin. If the increase in the Greens vote is strongest amongst left-leaning Labor voters, it makes sense that the swing would be concentrated in the inner city and other strong Greens areas. A swing of 7% in such a tough area as Penrith suggests the Greens will perform well in their better areas.
More directly, the result shows the potential for the Greens in the Blue Mountains. The Greens pushed Labor into third place in the four booths in the seat of Penrith contained in Blue Mountains local government area. My understanding (without doing any deeper research) is that the Greens perform more strongly in the upper mountains, areas contained within the state seat of Blue Mountains. It certainly shows that the Blue Mountains will be a three-cornered contest. Although, to be fair, the Liberals are so far out in front that, as Antony Green said earlier tonight, the contest will be more about whether Labor or Greens come second. If Labor falls into third place in Blue Mountains (and possibly in Coogee, where the vote levels are similar), the Greens will then be positioned to be the main opposition to sitting Liberal MPs in 2015.
Thanks for the analysis Ben.
Do you see some NSW LA seats going to the Greens based on these results?
Indeed the results in the mountains are positive for what could happen in the state election. And you are correct about,roughly, abouthaving better results the further up the mountain. I honestly think that it is a real chance to turn green in the future. However, history suggests that the seat changes with a change in government.
In the UK, another hugely unpopular Labour government managed to claw back enough votes (polling / by-elections) to avoid a whitewash. Will Labour lose in NSW, of course, but by how much I think is quite unpredictable.
I would expect the Liberal vote to go up in places like Heffron, Balmain and Marrickville, albeit, if the ALP primary vote is that low in Penrith it would be hard for the ALP to retain a large number of seats.
If you look at the primary vote swings in the individual booths, the pattern Ben points to is quite clear. In the Penrith LGA booths, most of the swing away from Labor appears to be going straight to the Libs, however in those four mountains booths a much greater share went to the Greens, indeed at Lapstone the Greens vote increased by more than the Liberal vote did.
This might suggest that rather than voters, fed up with the present government, going straight to the Coalition, they may be just as likely to swing to the Greens or independents in some areas next March. Whilst the Liberals may do well in areas with a socially-conservative voter base, we might expect that the anti-Labor swing could flow much more strongly to the Greens in areas with a more socially-progressive voter base. This might indicate seats like Coogee and Blue Mountains could certainly be on our radar screens.
The further interesting thing about Blue Mountains is what the 2008 council election results show. The Greens topped the vote in the two westernmost wards, but furthermore, in 1st ward, both the ALP and Liberals failed to win a seat, the other two seats went to progressive-leaning independents, indicating plenty of voters that aren’t welded to the two major parties.
Good analysis Ben. The Mountains does bode well for the Greens. As you noted, the swing to the Greens was in the mountains, a higher education area, which is good news for the Greens Balmain and Marrickville campaign.
It was a terrible result for Labor, but pretty well in line with my expectations. It was a by-election, it was in an outer suburban seat and the by-election was because the former local MP had lied to ICAC. There are plenty of reasons to be angry there.
However, the 2011 election will not resemble this result at all. Labor’s vote halved in Penrith. This won’t happen statewide. I’m still expecting Labor’s vote at the general to fall from 39 to about 30-2, the Libs to climb to about 40-42, the Greens to poll about 12-15, with a substantial independent vote, especially in the Hunter and Illawarra. While this is a terrible result for Labor, don’t expect Western Sydney to swing in this way in the general election. Labor’s vote will fall about 25%, but that is still more than enough to hold onto the likes of Blacktown, Mount Druitt, Canterbury, Heffron, Maroubra etc. Having said that, I have no doubt that the Libs will set their sights on anything under 15%.
As imaginative nickname said, like in the UK, the NSW Gov may be unpopular, but there is such a level of unchangeable Labor support in select seats that the drubbing may not be as bad as some predict. Personally, I reckon that if an election were held today that Labor would win about 30-33 seats, the Libs 50-53, the Greens two and a substantial and probably increased number of indi’s. Whether Labor considers one third of all seats a good result, under the circumstances, I’m not sure.
In regard to your live post, I’d be surprised if Keneally spoke angrily to the 14yo. With all due respect to him, if a serious political conversation is being held with the Premier, that isn’t really the place for a 14yo. I don’t agree with Keneally on plenty of things, but I have ran into her several times (I live in Heffron) and always found her to be thoughtful and kind.
I should clarify that when I said Labor’s vote will fall by about 25% that I was referring the their primary vote.
In relation to the Blue Mountains – hypothetically speaking, this seat is a real shot for the Greens. They had 16% of the vote in 2007, while the Liberals had 28% and Labor 41%. Assuming (I’m about to make a lot of assumptions but anyway…) that Labor’s vote halves as it did in the Penrith mountain booths, this brings Labor’s vote down to 20%. Now assuming that because this is a progressive seat, half of the swing goes to the Liberals and half to the Greens, then the Liberal vote rises to 38% and the Greens to 26% (this is being generous considering Ben’s point about the Greens swing being larger than the Liberal swing in the mountain booths). Now assuming that Labor preferences the Greens over the Liberals and allowing for a high rate of preference exhaustion (say 25%? It was 16% in 2007) then the Green vote would rise to 41% on the back of Labor preferences. Please correct my meagre maths if its wrong, but that sounds So perhaps, I’m just being optimistic but that sounds like a Greens victory to me!
Another scenario – if the rate exhaustion more closely resembles that of Penrith (e.g. 50%), Labor preferences would bring the Greens to around 36% of the vote, making the Blue Mountains an incredibly competitive seat for them in 2015 – unless of course Labor recovers, which is always possible, as is the chance of the Labor winning Ku-Ring-Gai in 2011(*tongue in cheek*)
To me, the one thing that is certain (perhaps this is my optimism speaking) is that the Greens vote will increase substantially in the Blue Mountains. If the Greens can win 14% in a Western Sydney seat like Penrith (granted it was a by-election/protest vote hybrid election) then it looks like they’ll do very well in it’s “heartland” seats. Another seat I’ll be interested to see the Green vote in will be Ballina on the North Coast, where the Greens vote was 19% (though the Nationals polled over 50% of the primary vote)
Correction, Greens – 12% in Penrith… oops
I think the connection between a strong local council presence and a transit to votes in the State is clear, it is way nearly all independents arrive in Parliament, as popular local Mayors!
In Kiama we are experiencing the same swing away from the ALP, but the same frustrations where disappointed ALP voters are turning to the Libs. Penrith voters didn’t want to vote Lib, they didn’t see any alternative. The Greens need to spend ten times the money on winnable lower house seats, even if means money is raised by a local group and passed onto a winnable seat. I think we could win Kiama. The main reason we won’t is money. $50,000 extra in the right seat could make history, a double balance of power in NSW.
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