I'll post my full thoughts about the election soon. But before I do, there's something I'd like to point out that nobody has noticed.
The huge disparity between the ALP's vote in metropolitan sydney and elsewhere in NSW.
Specifically: the complete collapse of Labor's primary vote in Metropolitan Sydney. Not many seats were lost, but some of the results are truly stunning, and must be sending shockwaves through the ALP's NSW branch.
Yet when you look at the regional seats, Labor's primary vote held up, or even increased.
Macquarie
A good example of the contradiction is the seat of Macquarie, which takes in the Hawkesbury and the blue mountains. Most of it is very regional in the hawkesbury, but the blue mountains is more like outer metropolitan sydney these days - socially progressive with lots of commuters.
The liberal party's vote in this seat actually went nowhere - it stayed exactly the same. But Labor's primary vote fell 5%. Amazingly, none of it went to the liberals - they went to the greens and other candidates. The independent votes didn't come back to Labor, and the liberals won the seat on a narrow 2PP swing.
Labor's primary vote mostly held in the mountains or leaked to the greens, but they suffered in the hawkesbury. If Labor's primary vote had been 2% bigger, they would have narrowly held on. But all in all, the 2PP swing to the liberals was not very large here. Labor will be kicking themselves that they lost this one.
Rural/Regional NSW Seats - Labor actualy increased its 2PP vote in some key places
Perhaps the most baffling thing is how Labor managed to actually hold, or even increase its vote in regional NSW.
Against all the odds, and despite a tiny margin of just 0.1%, Labor somehow managed to get a 2PP swing in favour of it, to the tune of 1.5% in the central coast seat of Robertson. The Labor and the liberals vote both fell by 2% and the greens vote slightly increased. Everyone had written it off, and Labor had actually stopped a lot of campaigning there and transferred resources to Dobell. The liberals must be kicking themselves - they really should have won this seat. Instead, the decision of local branches to remove Belinda Neal's preselection saved the day. Well done Deb O'Neill.
Next door in Dobell, also marginal, Labor's Craig Thompson increased his primary vote by 0.1% on Primaries. The liberal vote fell by almost 2%.
Just above Dobell, in the safe liberal seat of Shortland, Labor's vote only fell 2%.
Further up the North Coast in Page, Janelle Saffin got a very healthy 4.1% primary vote swing in her favour, while the nationals vote went nowehere. Well done Janelle.
In the bellweather seat of Eden-Monaro in the south of NSW and near the ACT, Mike Kelly increased his primary vote by 0.3%, and picked up a swing of 1.5% on the 2PP, with help from a slightly higher greens vote.
In all these seats, Labor's vote actually increased on a 2PP basis.
But now look at Sydney
Outer suburbs
In Greenway, the seat Louise Markus held before a very bad redistribution for her, Labor lost 7.9% on Primaries. They were only saved when a mere 2.8% of it went to the liberals, giving Labor a very narrow win on 2PP.
In Lindsay, strong local campaigning from David Bradbury seems to have saved the day. Despite a 6.9% swing against him, he still beat the liberals on primaries. Tellingly, the greens only got 4.5% of the vote, and so he squeaked back with 50.2% of the 2PP. The liberals will be very annoyed they didn't win.
In Macarthur, Labor suffered a 6.9% swing on primaries. The libs got 2.4% of it, and that was enough to give them th seat. Interestingly, 2.9% of it went to One Nation, although they were number one on the ballot paper.
In Hughes, Labor's hopes of winning a tight seat from 2007 were derailed by a 5.8% primary swing against Labor - 3.1% went to the liberals. One nation again scored lucky with the number one ticket spot and picked up 1.6%.
In Werriwa, Labor's primary vote fell a whopping 8.9%. The locals may not have appreciated Laure Ferguson being parachuted in.
In all of these seats, the swing was around 5-7% against Labor on the primaries. It's a miracle they didn't lose more.
Bennelong
Next, lets have a look at the other seat Labor lost - Bennelong, right in the heart of Sydney's west.
Labor's primary vote fell by a whopping 8% - and almost all of it went straight to the liberals. John Alexander won 49% of the Primary vote and was easily elected.
And now, for the carnage in safe ALP Sydney seats
Although Bennelong was the only seat the ALP lost, check out the enormous collapses in Labor's primary vote in a number of Sydney Metro seats:
Banks: -10.3%
Barton: -8.9%
Blaxland: - 8.4%
Chifley: -12.0%
Fowler: -15.9%
Kingsford-Smith: -8.7% -
McMahon: -7.3%
Parramatta: -8.9%
Reid: -11.8%
Watson: -10.3%
In all of these cases, the swing went almost straight to the liberals, to the point where some of them were won by Labor by only 52.5% on the primary vote. Some of them could only now be called marginal.
Even in the inner city there was severe damage:
Grayndler: -8.7% - Albo was given an almighty fright when the Greens picked up 6%, finished ahead of the liberals, and only lost to the ALP 51.5-48.5.
Sydney: -5.4% - Tanya Plibersek did better than many colleagues - the greens got 3% of the swing but fell 4% short of getting into 2nd spot.
And even in Wollongong and the Hunter, Labor heartland, there was bad damage:
Throsby: -7.9%
Cunningham: -3.3% - although the liberal primary vote actually increased by 5.3%
Newcastle: -2.8% - the ALP lost it's primary vote win, but the libs and greens each picked up 5% off an independent from last time.
Hunter: - 5.2% - of which sadly, 3.3% went to One Nation. And no, they weren't first on the ballot.
So what does all this mean?
Clearly, brand Labor is well and truly down the toilet. Although the ALP hasn't lost many seats, it has lost a sizeable chunk of it's iron grip on metropolitan Sydney. If these results are repeated at the upcoming state election in March 2011, Labor will be utterly wiped out for a generation in NSW.
And I'll post my thoughts on why in a moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment