Tomorrow's NSW state election (26 March) - any predictions?

[Cunctator]

All the polls are predicting a bloodbath for the incumbent Labor government, with suggestions that it will be reduced from 50 to as few as 15 seats in the Legislative Assembly. I suspect that the swing won't be as large as that, although I'll be happy to be proved wrong. My prediction is:
Labor 25
Coalition 61
Greens 1
Independents 6

Predictions? Guesses?

[Northern Piper]

don't know anything about the election - what are the issues? why is Labour in trouble? just long-in-the-tooth/overstayed their welcome? or some scandal or other?

[penultima thule]

Issues are 16 years old government that ran out of energy, ideas and talent 8 years ago.

Have just come back from polling, placing Fred Nile last as usual.

There is nothing to connect the local Labor to his party or leader. His posters are black & yellow, proclaiming him as "One of Us", rather than one of them. Keneally posters are all shining teeth in standard issue blue and red.

I think that Labor will win less than 20, Greens might get 3. When some predictors suggest Labor might lose swathes of the Hunter (traditional blue collar, union town block) it might get pretty ugly.

I think in terms of swing this will be in the league of the 1978 Wranslide.

Farrell has two factors against a record landslide win. Firstly giving a very green, unexperienced party (none have been in government) a stupendous margin will likely see lots of loose cannons and a kids in lollyshop mentality. Secondly, the really unctous, reprehensible bastards that we so badly want to take the wire brush to all buggered off and retired. What Labor have standing now are sacrificial lambs and probably won't be preselected next time when Labor might have a snowballs chance.

[Cunctator]

As penultima thule says, the key issue is that Labor has been in power way too long (16 years) and is clearly showing it. The last four year term has been a series of stuff-ups and scandals, from a bunch of politicians who have obviously run out of puff, and are now absolutely loathed (not to put it too strongly) by a significant proportion of the voters. The outcome is felt to be such a foregone conclusion that one of the bookies paid out Coalition winning bets last week, several days before the election.

[don't ask]

What an exercise in futility. To get rid of Labor we are going to elect a party that couldn't beat these duds last time. Whoever we get will be crap.

[penultima thule]

Electoral carnage ensues.
Statewide swing somewhere around 16% or above two party preferred.

Labor loses Hunter region seats that they've held since pre WWII, in one instance since 1890.
Libs winning strong labor seats on the primary vote would have thought to be fanciful, even earlier this evening.

But the big point is that The Greens aren't picking up votes or seats.
I thought there'd be heartland seats that really couldn't bear to vote Liberal, and gone Green or independent, but the minor parties have lost support.

Tebbutt should hold Marrickville, Balmain could go one of three ways.
Bob Brown will be crowing as usual, but the Greens haven't done well.

[Giles]

My prediction is that in Newcastle, where the Liberals came 5th on first preferences in 2007, the Liberals will take the seat. That's a result that I would have thought inconceivable until recently: it's a Labor heartland seat that can go independent, but should never go to the Liberals. But it shows just how badly Labor is doing this time.

[Cunctator]

We watched the carnage unfold last night in between toasting my nephew at his 18th birthday party. He had just voted for the first time.

So, the polls were right and were not overstating the anti-government swing. A veritable bloodbath indeed! I'm certainly not sorry that Labor has been swept away.

[Northern Piper]

Is there a seat count yet from the election, or are there still votes being counted? is it a preferential ballot system?

[BigT]

I predict that whichever party wins the New South Wales election, the news will unfortunately be perfectly safe for work.

[penultima thule]

There are a handful of 9 seats still in doubt, votes are still counting in all seats with distribution of preferences.

The Virtual tallyroom URL is:
http://vtr.elections.nsw.gov.au/la_landing.htm

New Legislative Assembly
LAB: 19
LIB/NAT: 67
Other: 2
In doubt: 5
Total: 93

Old Legislative Assembly
LAB: 50
LIB/NAT: 37
Other: 6
Total: 93

NSW uses exhausting preferential voting.

If there are say five candidates, in preferential voting, you number all five so that your vote will eventually be allocated to one of the two final candidates i.e. it always counts in the final tally.

In exhausting you could number just 1,2 or 3 and if your last preference is eliminated, your vote no longer counts.

In most cases this only occurs if you don't have a LAB or LIB candidate numbered.

[penultima thule]

It was an evening of political exorcism.

Normally you'd regard a seat held by under 5% as marginal, anything over 10% as rusted on safe.

Repeated you'd see LAB seats with a margin of 15% simply blown away. Some LAB seats with over 20% margin either fell or were in doubt for much of the evening.

Extraordinary.

[Cunctator]

Is there a seat count yet from the election, or are there still votes being counted?I don't think there's been an update on the official results since last night's (Sunday's) numbers given by penultima thule.Is it a preferential ballot system?Here are some details of the voting systems:

Legislative Assembly (lower house) (http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/voting/counting_the_votes/Legislative_Assembly): 93 single member electorates. All up for re-election, using an optional preferential voting system.

Legislative Council (upper house) (http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/voting/counting_the_votes/Legislative_Council): 42 members, elected on a state-wide basis, half of whom were up for re-election, using an STV-style proportional representation voting system.

[Princhester]

Ha and it looks like Pawwwlueeeun might get an upper house seat. Remember when you Cockroaches laughed at us Canetoads and our backward, hayseed, racist attitudes? Not so funny now, is it?

[penultima thule]

You're right there .... just a further unpalatable truth of how far the jewel in the Commonwealth has fallen. :P

Bloody Greens, can't even swing a seat in a proportional election.
If there was any plus from this, she'll get up Fred Nile's nostrils nicely.

BTW, as NSW is now bottom tier, can we get all that cash allocated north of the Tweed as vertical fiscal inbalance back, please?

[Princhester]

If there was any plus from this, she'll get up Fred Nile's nostrils nicely.

Please explain? I thought they might see eye to eye to at least some extent.

[Cunctator]

Ha and it looks like Pawwwlueeeun might get an upper house seat.Antony Green thinks it's unlikely. (http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/03/legislative-council-update.html) However, the vagaries of the Legislative Council count mean that almost anything's possible.

[penultima thule]

Please explain? I thought they might see eye to eye to at least some extent.
Yes, they may on some issues, but Pauline is in it for the money, Fred's in it for a crusade.

[Cunctator]

Ha and it looks like Pawwwlueeeun might get an upper house seat. Remember when you Cockroaches laughed at us Canetoads and our backward, hayseed, racist attitudes? Not so funny now, is it?Antony Green thinks it's unlikely. (http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/03/legislative-council-update.html) However, the vagaries of the Legislative Council count mean that almost anything's possible.The final distribution of preferences for the Legislative Council has now taken place and Pauline Hanson has not been elected (http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/hanson-fails-to-win-seat-in-nsw-20110412-1dbuy.html). Although she was well ahead on primary votes, the Coalition and Greens received sufficient preferences to take the last two spots.

Final Legislative Council numbers:

Coalition 19
Labor 14
Greens 5
Christian Democrats 2
Shooters and Fishers 2

[Askance]

Whew. Talk about dodging a bullet. And it must hurt her to be beaten by a Green!

[penultima thule]

Apologies for reviving a zombie thread, but some vampires just won't die even after the stake and silver bullet have been used.

Hanson to challenge NSW vote count (http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/hanson-to-challenge-nsw-vote-count-20110504-1e7y5.html)

She (Hanson) has now confirmed she will lodge a challenge in the NSW Supreme Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, on Thursday.

Ms Hanson in April claimed the preferences weren't distributed fairly and raised concerns about the preference system used by the NSW Electoral Commission.

Nationals candidate Sarah Johnston, who took the 21st and last spot up for grabs in the NSW Legislative Council, was just 1306 votes ahead of the former federal MP.

Before preferences, Ms Hanson led the Nationals by 7540 votes and the Greens - which took the 20th spot - by 15,470.

The apparently uncounted votes (about 1,200) aren't sufficient to get her across the line on first preferences, but there might be others found and the bizantine preference flows between minor and micro parties might alter the order of elimination and consequently the result.

I really hope not.

[penultima thule]

Gahhh, zombies, please just kill off the dammed zombies

Hanson took her challenge to the Court of Disputed Returns. After a delay when they couldn't produce their key witness, one Michael Rattner, the claim was dismissed when it was discovered that Rattner wasn't a source, or have access to a source within the NSW Electoral Commission but a fraudster/prankster.

Hanson challenge based on a confidence trick (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/hanson-to-avoid-massive-legal-bill-for-nsw-election/story-fn59niix-1226076687496)

But just to make the sweet victory for the greater public good taste astringent, the court has determined Pauline should not be required to pay the costs of the challenge, something around $100k.

So this publically funded electoral hydra still lives on.