Ballina – NSW 2015

NAT 24.6%

Incumbent MP
Don Page, since 1988.

Geography
Northern NSW. Ballina covers all of Ballina Shire and Byron Shire. The main towns in the seat are Byron, Lennox Head, Byron Bay and Mullumbimby.

Map of Ballina's 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Ballina’s 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
Ballina expanded slightly, taking in the western fringe of Byron Shire which was previously included in Lismore, including Federal, Goonengerry and Wilsons Creek. These changes cut the Nationals margin against Labor from 25.2% to 24.6%, and against the Greens from 17.8% to 16.9%.

History
The seat of Ballina in its current form has existed since 1988, and in that time it has always been held by the same National Party MP. Another seat named Ballina existed from 1894 to 1904.

Ballina was created in 1988, when the pre-existing seat of Byron was broken up between Ballina and Murwillumbah.

Ballina was won by Don Page, a grandson of former Country Party Prime Minister Earle Page. He served as deputy leader of the NSW National Party from 2003 to 2007, and still holds the seat.

Candidates
Sitting Nationals MP Don Page is not running for re-election.

Assessment
Ballina appears to have a large margin for the Nationals, but could be vulnerable to either Labor or the Greens. While the Greens came second in 2011, a resurgent ALP could easily overtake the Greens. The Greens campaign will be set back further by Jeff Johnson running as an independent. Johnson was elected as a Greens councillor in Ballina in 2008 and re-elected in 2012, and resigned from the Greens recently to run as an independent. Under an optional preferential voting system, Johnson’s candidacy will likely make it harder for the Greens to stay ahead of Labor and harder for either Greens or Labor to beat the Nationals.

2011 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Don Page Nationals 24,054 57.0 +2.6 56.5
Simon Richardson Greens 9,159 21.7 +2.3 22.4
Toby Warnes Labor 5,033 11.9 -11.2 11.9
Karin Kolbe Independent 2,296 5.4 +5.4 5.2
Bruce Kemp Christian Democrats 847 2.0 +2.0 2.0
Nathan Willis Family First 835 2.0 +2.0 1.9
Others 0.2

2011 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Redist
Don Page Nationals 25,816 67.8 66.9
Simon Richardson Greens 12,268 32.2 33.1

2011 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Don Page Nationals 26,672 75.2 +10.7 74.6
Toby Warnes Labor 8,814 24.8 -10.7 25.4
Polling places in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election. Ballina in orange, Ballina Surrounds in green, Byron in blue. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election. Ballina in orange, Ballina Surrounds in green, Byron in blue. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Ballina have been split into three parts. Polling places in Byron shire have been grouped together, while those in Ballina shire were split between those in the town of Ballina and those in surrounding areas.

The story was very different in Byron compared to Ballina. In Byron, the Nationals narrowly outpolled the Greens – 40.5% to 36.7%, with Labor on 12%.

In Ballina and Ballina Surrounds, the Nationals won 63-64% of the primary vote. The Greens and Labor both polled in the teens in those regions, with the Greens slightly stronger in Ballina Surrounds and Labor stronger in Ballina itself.

Voter group NAT % GRN % ALP % Total votes % of votes
Byron 40.5 36.7 12.0 13,042 29.6
Ballina Surrounds 63.2 16.5 11.2 9,891 22.4
Ballina 64.3 12.9 13.8 8,728 19.8
Other votes 62.3 18.7 11.0 12,412 28.2
Nationals primary votes in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election.
Nationals primary votes in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election.
Greens primary votes in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election.
Greens primary votes in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election.
Labor primary votes in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election.
Labor primary votes in Ballina at the 2011 NSW state election.

24 COMMENTS

  1. The most interesting electorate in this election IMO. Genuine 3-way race.

    It’s actually pretty safe for Labor on federal figures, does that say something about Don Page or the Labor party up there?

  2. My prediction: Likely National hold, given Jeff Johnson (ex-Green)’s presence in the race making it harder for both Labor and the Greens.

    morgieb – Aside from the different tiers of government and the differences between NSW Labor and Federal Labor, there’s also CPV, which means those Green votes would go to Labor rather than exhaust.

  3. Ben, if you were doing a map of 2cp margins between the Nats and Greens, what colours would you use? (And is that headache-inducer one of the reasons you haven’t done it? 😛 )

  4. I would probably use blue for the Nationals.

    Thankfully that issue hasn’t arisen in any of the three Nat vs Grn seats because they didn’t do a Nat vs Grn count at the booth level.

  5. Another reason for the large difference between federal and state voting is that Labor has never put significant resources into this seat in state elections. That’s different this time – they’ve put in significant resources, and started out with a community preselection which was contested by two high-profile candidates.

    Interestingly this seat had one of the lowest primary vote swings to the Coalition in 2011, which was probably a reflection of how inflated the margin already was.

    Another fun fact here is that the losing preselection contenders for all three parties were the three councillors who represent Ballina B-Ward. All three of whom were also long-serving members of their respective parties, defeated by relative newcomers to their party.

    Beavis is relying heavily on the endorsement of the outgoing Don Page to boost his candidacy. He’ll certainly fall well short of Page’s vote. The losing Nats preselection contender, Sharon Cadwallader, had been initially tipped to run as an independent, and someone even conducted polling in the electorate testing support for such a candidacy, but nothng has apparently come of it.

    Labor’s candidate Paul Spooner is quite well-known and well-regarded in the Byron Shire, but I tend to think gaining votes in the Ballina end of the electorate is going to be more important. In that respect Labor may have done better if Keith Williams had won the preselection.

    Tamara Smith is relatively unknown, whereas Spooner is generally well-regarded amongst Greens supporters in the Byron Shire. In a shire where local government politics has relatively high public exposure, Spooner is also very well placed to make much of his progressive voting record in contrast to the Greens’ problems on council, which most significanlty saw the defection of one councillor elected on the Greens ticket to the conservative forces following disagreements with her party on several iconic local Greens policies, thus giving the conservatives a majority on ciouncil for the first time since 1995. Given that I would’ve expected the potential of some swing from the Greens to Labor in the Byron half of the electorate, but it’s not clear to what extent the Byron Greens’ local government issues are going to impact on state voting.

    I understand the parties’ polling before Johnson entered the race had Labor and the Greens on level-pegging, and within striking distance of winning assuming a reasonable preference flow. Under that scenario I thought Labor would probably get over the line, but it was certainly shaping up as very close on all counts.

    No idea what the polling is showing since Johnson announced, but I think it’s probably still a very interesting 3-way contest.

  6. Thanks for your points Nick – fascinating stuff.

    While the Greens do well in Lismore, and particular the Channon/Nimbin etc hinterland, I’m not sure if they’re strong enough in Lismore itself, particularly against Isaac Smith, who as you note is the most high-profile candidate they’ve had for a while (an old lecturer of mine).

    I assumed that Smith was running for the exposure, ahead of going for preselection for Page, but he may just be in with a shot.

    Also worth noting for Sydneysiders, that the Labor/Green relationship on the Far North Coast, perhaps particularly in Lismore, is far less antagonistic than, say, in Sydney’s Eastern or inner-western suburbs. (The re-election of Jenny Dowell reflects this, though Nick would know more about that than I).

    I’ll certainly keep an eye out on these three seats come March 28.

  7. This is all true but I think you meant to post this on the Lismore profile rather than Ballina.

    Typically yes the Greens support doesn’t extend into the more typically suburban areas like Goonellabah and Bray Park (Murwillumbah), but the anti-CSG campaign has resonated quite a lot with these suburban voters as well as a regional issue, and if nothing deeper there will at least be a big anti-Thomas George protest vote, even if it isn’t long term support for the Greens.

    Isaac was a bit quiet for a while but has ramped up his campaign in the last few weeks.

  10. Some very strong Greens support here too, but similar to Lismore, it is all concentrated in one section of the electorate. If the Greens are to be a genuine chance, they’d need to make serious inroads in the south of the electorate.

    73% for the Greens in one of the booths, though.

  11. Remarkably the bookies are offering $1.60 her for the Nats and $2.25 for Labor. Out of interest, I asked for a quote for the Greens and an independent and was given $9 and $21.

    Nick – any chance Johnson could win as an independent?

    It would make sense that he would drain quite a bit of the Green vote, and from there anything could happen.

  12. Well there’s usually a tendency to over-estimate the level of support that councillors have when they run for state parliament. Has Johnson’s vote at council elections been equivalent to the base Greens vote, and would thus predominantly stick with the endorsed Greens candidate, or is there evidence of a personal vote that would go with him?

    I think there is a very solid ‘base’ Greens vote in this electorate, especially the Byron end, that would be more than enough to stop Johnson overtaking them. The Greens have their vulnerabilities, and in some respects both Johnson and Spooner are well-placed to exploit them, but in other respects they aren’t, nor is Johnson presumably likely to run the kind of campaign that would significantly exploit those vulnerabilities.

    I think I’ve already said much more than I should given I personally know many of the people involved in this campaign and have had past working relationships with them.

  20. The ALP would need a 60-70% preference surge from the Greens to take the seat and with 50-60% of Greens Votes traditionally exhausting, I think the Nats are still in front here, albiet by a couple of percentage points.

  21. No, when the Greens have directed preferences, particularly in this part of the state, the rate of preference flow has been quite high. In Lismore 2007, the last time it happened, 65% of Greens preferences flowed to Labor. A similar number, if not higher, is quite plausible in an election where Greens voters will feel more motivated to preference by a ‘put the Nationals last’ campaign.

    It would’ve been much assisted if there’d been a ‘parallel campaign’ in these seats with anti-CSG groups or other organisations handing out material at polling booths reinforcing that preferencing message, as clearly had some beneficial impact in Queensland, but alas it amazingly is apparently not happening.

  22. Firstly, one needs to be careful when comparing many regional seats and their voting patterns.

    Secondly, anybody that has been the member for 27 years (even allowing for the many demographics that have affected the North Coast and especially those seats which are located along the coastline) would have built up a significant personal vote.

    Thirdly, in 2015, there surely has to be a correction on the extraordinary vote that was acheived in 2011.

    For the ALP to win this seat, the first thing that NEEDS to happen is for the ALP to overtake the Greens and then to get the preferences from 5 other candidates and can this happen?

    Given those observations, you would have to think that Kris Beavis will be the most likely winner in this Seat, especially given that the ALP has to increase its vote from 12% on the primary vote.

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