Toongabbie – NSW 2011

1. This electorate has proven to be interesting already, with two Left-leaning Labor factions facing off to run a Candidate. I think Rees isn’t going anywhere, if Susai Benjamin decided to run as an independent I think that he would pick some of the Labor leakage that would otherwise be going to the Greens but outside of the Labor party, he isn’t that well known, or at least I’v never heard of him so its a bit hard to say what will happen to the third party vote if he decides to run.

2. If Rees runs he will win.

3. Dont count on it DB. On poll figures Toongabbie is no longer a ‘safe’ Labor seat. Know of 2 electoral areas where disgust at Labor Govt is strong. Haven’t seen Rees out and about. Mate rang his office on an issue and told unavailable.

4. Nathan Rees is the best local candidate we have had in a long time. Fred , if Rees is unavailable it is because he is busy working for his constituents. Did your mate leave his contact details.

5. Stu, I hear you mate but I feel there maybe some resentment that may make it very close for Mr Rees

6. Hey hey everyone, First time long time.
   Quick intro for me. I tend to be a very moderate Liberal Voter but I do believe in fairness towards everyone: i.e. everyone equally cops shite from myself. Hope it will be somewhat entertaining but neway.
   For this election, its important to note if votes from Labor are lost, where they will go i.e. if they are more likely to go to the Coalition or the Greens.
   I agree with some of the comments. I think Nathan Rees won’t suffer as big a swing against him as other seats, on the back of a sympathy vote but I do believe that any votes he does lose will go straight across to the Coalition. With Rees leaning towards the left, I would imagine that he would see a preference flow from the Greens of about 40% (with about 50% exhausting).
   Total Votes from 07 = 43564
   Estimated Exhaustion from Greens = 1500
   So you are looking at around 42000 votes up for grabs, 21000 to hit that 50% of votes in play
   You would imagine AAFI and CDP will almost completely preference the Coalition, with Unity exhausting. So if Kristy Lloyd wants to win this seat, she would need to find an extra 5-6000 votes directly from the ALP (assuming that the swing). With that, this might be the seat where the ALP will be hoping that votes they lose to the Greens will come back.

7. My prediction: Labor retain (just), 10-14% swing to Liberals.

8. I’m hoping people can see this Labour rabble can’t tell the truth can’t look you in the eye and tax tax tax, and revenue raise all the time. No infurstructure in 16 yrs.
   Normal business sense tells you if you spend and build and expand then you increase your turnover and income and workers ( nsw population) will be better and happier.
   Get ride of all labour now. 18% swing is achivable.

9. Does anybody have the figures on how much the South Asian population in this electorate grew since 2007?

10. I’m thinking Rees retains this seat. There’s a lot of strong campaigning in Kings Langley, Toongabbie and Seven Hills, but literally none in Wentworthville. The Liberal candidate has been putting up a decent campaign, but much like Blacktown, there are areas (Wentworthville, Pendle Hill) that are far too rusted-on to Labor to change.

    Certainly, I’ve seen the strongest Labor campaign throughout Sydney in this electorate, so far. Rees has very creative signs, which demonstrate that Labor are desperate to keep him on board. A swing of around 7% is not impossible, but a victory here would be a big upset, and would be a one-termer for the Liberals.

11. crazedmongoose – agree on the Labor hold here.

12. Given that Labor should hold here, what do you think the odds of Rees having a shadow cabinet position post-election are? I’d say he has a fair chance.

13. Rees would hold. Although if Indian community decides to run a candidate then it can eat into Labor vote. I don’t think they will run a candidate but you never know until 12 p.m. tomorrow.

14. My prediction coming true. Mark Sharma is claiming that an Indian is running as Independent in Toongabbie. With 15% Indian population present there, poor Nathan Rees is in trouble! http://twitter.com/vos2135/status/45655172831129600

15. Christ, I actually KNOW an Ashok Kumar, he’s a barrister. I used to work in a law firm which gave a lot of cases to him. Hope this isn’t the same guy.

    Still, desperate attempt to derail Nathan’s massive Indian support. Between the young labor volunteers we’ve doorknocked probably well over 150 Indian households in this electorate and we still haven’t found one Liberal voter (they’re all Labor or still undecided). Each weekend streams of Indian volunteers come to the office to help. Just two weeks ago Nathan was blessed at a local Sikh temple.

    I don’t see this changing the situation too much. Still calling a Labor hold. Will feel the mood of the electorate again this weekend.

16. crazedmongoose – I know Ashok too. He is an insolvency law barrister. I don’t think it would be the same bloke though. I’d doubt he would have the time frankly plus I thought he lived in the Eastern Suburbs???

17. This Ashok Kumar is listed on the NSWEC website as being from wentworthville, so I doubt that.

    In related news, there are two more candidates listed:

    Michele Read, an independent
    Peter Johnson, for the shooters and fishers party.

    http://candidates.elections.nsw.gov.au/default.aspx

18. I can inform you that Nathan Rees has drawn last for the ballot paper. Peter Johnson (SAF) drew first, with Kirsty Lloyd drawing 2nd.

19. My guess is that Kumar’s a Labor stooge. The email address hardly sounds like someone really serious about taking the seat or votes from Rees.

    Heard some news from a source of mine who saw Rees at the Hillsbus depot at Seven Hills. Rees apparently said that the prospects of retaining Toongabbie were ‘touch and go’. Still favour Labor at this stage to hold.

20. My guess is the exact opposite, that Kumar is a Liberal stooge.

    Rees has a massive lead on the South Asian vote whilst Kirsty’s made absolutely no inroads from what I see. Why would Rees need to distract from that?

21. I’m thinking of the sandbagging approach that worked so well for Labor in SA. Kumar looks like a stooge in some way, shape or form. More likely to take votes from Lloyd rather than Rees, as far as I can see. We all know that this is one of the ‘priority’ seats for the ALP, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Kumar and Michele Read, for that matter, were stooges of the ALP.

22. Did you not just read my above post?

    I have not seen any signs that Lloyd has made any inroads on the South Asian community.

    Nathan’s got a good lead on the South Asian community.

    There’s OPV.

    Why would Nathan risk it by introducing a third candidate?

23. PS. Michelle Read is also not a Labor stooge.

24. Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification.

25. Michele Read is an Ex-Liberal Independent. I do believe that Ashok is a left-leaning Independent.

    This seat has now become a lottery. With 7 candidates running, you are going to see a pretty solid dilution of votes and preferences could become absolutely critical at this election. I would predict that the CDP will lose a reasonable chunk of their vote (in favour of the Shooters and the Fishers) as they were ticketed 1st on the ballot sheet in 2007. I think that Ashok could well take a lot of the South-Asian vote away from Rees. The question will then be a matter of preferencing. According to Anthony Green, the average exhaustion rate for Independents was at 54%.

    You also have to consider the 2,550 votes up for grabs, with the Unity Party and AAFI not running in this seat. This seat is officially a coin-flip!

26. Thanks for the clarification Hawkeye. We’ve been scratching our heads for a few weeks about who Michele Read is.

    I’m still going to call this for Labor because I think there’ll be a significant enough difference in primary between Nathan and Kirsty. (I mean I haven’t see Ashok campaign enough to see him with a chance)

    But I agree it’s a bit more tenuous now. Waiting for those all important preference announcements from the third parties now.

27. Ashok was only announced in the last couple of days before Preselection closed, which is why he hasn’t been running. The rumour is that they (a group within the local Indian community) were pushing Susai Benjamin to run against Rees but he decided against it, wanting to stay loyal to the ALP brand.

    I will disagree with you Mongoose, for the simple reason that the flow-on effect of the Primary Vote swing will mean that this seat will be a coin-flip. Let’s face it. The polls are currently saying 65-35 in favour of the Coalition (which is an 17% 2PP swing in favour of the Coalition) but there will be seats where you won’t get nearly a uniform 17% swing to the Coalition and that will be in seats that are already very heavily favoured Liberal (christ, a 17% swing in Pittwater would put it up at nearly 100% Liberal Voters and I know the kooks on Scotland Island always buck the trend). So the rest of that swing is going to have to come from somewhere else. We saw in the Federal Election that the biggest swings in NSW came in what are normally safe Labor Seats but that have now dropped into the marginal category (and I points directly at Banks and Kingsford-Smith). Along with Greenway, these are seats that are traditionally Labor but are in trouble at a Federal Level. I think a similar thing will happen. The Labor Pimary Vote will collapse but if Nathan does hold on, it will be because of the Greens Preferences (what little there is).

    My apologies for the essay…

28. Whether Kumar is a stooge is anybody’s guess but I found this video online which throws some light to all this. In this Susai Benjamin and a group called Council of Indian Aussies is basically saying that they will run a candidate to reduce labor votes in Toongabbie. I searched for Ashok Kumar and found that a profile on a social networking site matches with a man shown in this video

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/02/25/3149496.htm Ashok Kumar will cut into Labor vote and pave way for the other candidate. CIA’s website http://www.cia.org.au says at the bottom that it was incorporated in December 2010 – Just 3 months before State Elections – Incredible co-incidence.

29. Reese said yesterday, that the Carbon tax is killing him in this area of the state, the internal polls are showing he is way behind

    He was a premier who would have got something done, it is a shame if he loses

30. The info I am getting from polling done this week is that the carbon tax is a real killer out in the suburban electorate. Rees has had a 6% swing against him in the last week. We need more time for a trend but he is in real trouble and so is Robertson.

31. The info I’m getting is relatively similar to DB. Things have taken a bad turn. Mind you, if true, the so-called CIA negative campaign could actually help Rees. I don’t think that the Indians and Sri Lankans in the electorate will necessarily fall for the vindictiveness. I’m only speaking from personal working experience in the electorate saying that.

32. “I don’t think that the Indians and Sri Lankans in the electorate will necessarily fall for the vindictiveness. I’m only speaking from personal working experience in the electorate saying that.”

    Agreed. I think it’s high time the people gave ethnic voters some more credit.

33. Rees is getting Green preferences, may well be out of trouble now…

34. Morgieb

    In the last election when Green gave preferences, 50% still exhausted about 35% went to the ALP and 15% to the Liberals, since the Green vote was about 7%, and won’t go up, Greens preference is going to mean very little

35. Rees slightly ahead here on polling, however, he was a good 6-7% before the carbon tax announcement and it has narrowed considerably.

36. I would just like to add to dovif and also suggest that people take a look at the potential preferences from the other parties. The Coalition didn’t get a good pick up of preferences from the CDP and this will be critical to counter-act any preference flow from the Greens. I’m curious to see what happens to Kirsty’s vote in this election, considering the CDP and a Shooters and Fishers Candidate.

37. Hello guys

    Someone has sent your link to me. A lot of questions have been asked about Council of Indian Australians [I am its President] and others. I have the answers for many of these questions. I can answer many of your questions but can’t do it right now [as going to work].
    You might like to see http://www.yadusingh.wordpress.com for some info in the meanwhile.

    With regards

    Yadu Singh

38. You know what? I agree Hawkeye. I just convinced three voters today who were voting Christian Democrats 1 to vote Labor 2.

    And there are a considerable amount of people who vote Greens 1 and Liberals 2.

    This is a place where the traditional left-right paradigm does not apply. The Christian Democrat family I was talking to, what was their biggest concern? They’re afraid of declining morals in society, hence the vote to CDP – and further privatizations.

39. Nathan Rees is going somewhat against the trend and leads in weekend polling.

40. Yes, that’s the mood I got on the ground. We are the little campaign that could. 🙂

41. crazedmongoose – I thought your internal polling was putting Rees behind? We have it as ALP marginally ahead on primaries over the Liberal candidate.

42. With all due respect to Mr Singh, a good sub-editor is needed for that website. I lost track of what he was writing about halfway through. From what I could understand, it seems as though that they are trying to do for the Indian community what the Unity Party tried to do for the Asians. I doubt they will have any real election impact other than their nearest and dearest.

43. I feel Nath will end up a trivia question – Which MP was a minister, Premier and backbencher in one term of parliament before losing his seat?

    Stay strong Nath – dont cry on election night.

44. I’ll put on my Labor hat and support Nathan Rees – good bloke!

45. This is a bridge too far for the Liberals. Last I saw Kirsty Lloyd was still concentrating her campaign in upper/middle class areas such as Kings Langley, Seven Hills and Constitution Hill. There’s less than two weeks left. If she isn’t willing to slum it out in the other 60% of the electorate which are all squarely battlers I don’t see how she is going to get over the line.

46. People in the electorate making a big fuss of the CIA today, while I was at Wentworthville. Given that I have seen NOBODY from either side in Wentworthville, it’s a worry. Rees and Lloyd need to get down there before election day. Still calling a Rees hold.

47. DLH: Man really? That’s a shame we missed you, because we spent two weekends doorknocking and campaigning in Wentworthville. It’s my favorite part of the electorate by far (mainly cos I grew up there).

48. That’s perfectly alright. No doubt, Rees and your mob will be there on a weekday morning at Wenty Station in the next week. It’s a great part of the world. True working-class people. A bit like Liverpool, that way, I think.

49. To me it’s really the kind of suburb that represents what Kim Beazley talked about when he said Labor used to be the “cream of the working class”.

    I mean if you compare Wentworthville to say, Blacktown or Lalor Park, they’re all working class sure, but the feeling I got when I lived there, and still get now, is that the former is a suburb of working class people getting by, raising families, and really making a life for themselves despite difficulties. In contrast to the latter where it seems like every fifth family is broken down or dysfunctional. Broken car on lawn, garbage strewn on walkways, and as one old lady in Lalor Park so aptly said “louts on the streets”.

    Something else Wentworthville managed better than a lot of working class suburbs, from what I remembered and saw, is multiculturalism. My neighbourhood growing up was probably well over 60-70% migrants, but there were much less ghettos forming, there was no overt domination by one ethnicity driving out all the others (though I heard later that there’s some problem with the African migrants?), I mean our neighbours from Eastern Europe who barely spoke english would come over in the evening and ask my parents, who are Chinese and barely spoke english as well back then and ask to borrow a cup of rice. I can’t see that happening with a lot of places regardless of SES status. And certainly, when my parents got richer and we started moving to more upper middle class suburbs, that was the case. Five Dock, where I live right now, is still okay in terms of community, but Baulkham Hills, where we lived for seven years after Wentworthville, was just the absolutely worst. Seven years and I didn’t know my neighbours’ names, nor did I care. The only time the community came together was the ban the building of that mosque. ugh.

50. I have not seen anything that would suggest that Rees is not going to win. Any alternative views?

    Looks like he will be able to swim enough against the tide enough to avoid getting caught in the Lib net.

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