not seen the polls in NSW, have you? Labor is heading to a massacre, just a bit better than the previous massacre.
Labor's primary vote in the polls is up 11% since the last election. If they can manage 3% more they might win.
The seats of Ballina, Tweed and Lismore are likely to fall to Labor thanks to Alan Jones and CSG.
Northern RiversThe single most interesting zone in the election is the Northern Rivers region just south of the Queensland border, home to three Nationals-held seats: Ballina (24.6%), Tweed (21.7%) and Lismore (24.3%). Ballina and Lismore have been held safely by the Nationals since time immemorial, but Tweed was held by Labor from 1999 to 2007...
...As unassailable as the margins may appear, it’s universally reckoned that a very different set of rules applies at the coming election compared with 2011. Emphasising the extraordinary nature of the 2011 result,
fully a quarter of the region’s voters switched from the Coalition to the Labor column at the federal election in September 2013 – this in the context of a poor result for Labor not just nationally but locally, with a 6.7% swing to the Nationals unseating Janelle Saffin in Page.The specific issue which might cause voting patterns to snap into line with the federal election this time out is coal seam gas exploration, the local backlash against which has caused the government to suspend exploration licences in sensitive areas and promise tougher regulation all round, while deferring much of the important detail until after the election. Labor is purposefully offering a tougher line...
The biggest danger to the Nationals clearly lies in Ballina, where incumbent Don Page will be taking into retirement the personal vote he has built up over 27 years, which makes the 24.6% margin from 2011 particularly deceptive. The electorate encompasses Byron Bay, and has a large green-left constituency living aside the more traditional regional Nationals-voting base, to the extent that the seat might even present an opportunity for the Greens.
Central CoastIt might be anticipated that the work of the Independent Commission Against Corruption will make this region a washout for the Liberals, who are attempting to defend Wyong (4.6%), The Entrance (11.8%) and Gosford (11.9%). The first two seats are being vacated by ICAC casualties Darren Webber and Chris Spence, while Gosford is being defended by the last Liberal standing in the local region, Chris Holstein.
...Labor has made a pitch for the environmental vote by promising to cancel without compensation the $800 million Wallarah 2 coal mine in Wyong, operated by South Korean company Kores. The Liberals promised the mine would not proceed before the 2011 election, but then allowed it to proceed through planning processes that appear likely to conclude shortly with it being granted conditional approval.
MonaroQuite a lot being written on this seat in south-eastern New South Wales, which appears to be playing out very differently to the aforementioned Nationals seats at the other end of the state. It might have been thought that the seat would be a Labor gimme, and not just because of the slender Nationals margin of 2.0%. Labor up-and-comer Steve Whan is attempting to win back the seat after after losing it to John Barilaro of the Nationals in the 2011 landslide, since which time he has found a place for himself in the Legislative Council, and been rated as a leadership contender after John Robertson’s resignation.
Whan was a notably popular local member, and suffered one of the smallest swings in the state in the course of losing his seat. Furthermore, nearly half of Monaro’s voters live in Queanbeyan, which is essentially a commuter suburb of Canberra. As Mark Coultan of The Australian notes, this gives the electorate the state’s highest proportion of public servants, and a corresponding sensitivity to federal government job cuts. Under similar circumstances at the state election in 1999, Monaro recorded a thumping swing to Labor of 16.0%. Coultan’s report further notes that the electorate is effectively part of the Canberra media market, the news content of which is “all Abbott, all the time” – which, naturally, is bad news for Barilaro...
Sydney’s blue belt...Rick Wallace of The Australian reported on the growing strength of the Greens in the traditional blue-ribbon seats encompassing expensive real estate near the big cities, naturally making note of the party’s success in winning the seat of Prahran at the Victorian election in November, together with its primary vote of over 20% in Hawthorn.
...a modelling exercise derived from Queensland election trends foreshadowed “large swings to the Left in seats thought to be safe”, including Willoughby, North Shore, Vaucluse and Manly (not to mention Warringah, Wentworth and North Sydney federally, respectively held by Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey). As Black sees it, support in these areas is derived from a new strain of Greens voter, “wealthier and more likely to vote on job security than their more earthy peers”.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2015/03/21/new-south-wales-election-minus... Reachtel poll also has Labor capturing the seat of Strathfield in Sydney's west.
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