NSW PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARY RESEARCH SERVICE 2007 New South Wales Election: Final Analysis by Antony Green Background Paper No 1/08 RELATED PUBLICATIONS • Antony Green, New South Wales Election 2007: Preliminary Analysis, NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service, Background Paper No 2/07 ISSN 1325-5142 ISBN 978 1831 5 February 2008 © 2008 Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means including information storage and retrieval systems, with the prior written consent from the Librarian, New South Wales Parliamentary Library, other than by Members of the New South Wales Parliament in the course of their official duties. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the New South Wales Parliamentary Library. NSW Election 2007 2007 New South Wales Election : Final Analysis by Antony Green 1 NSW Election 2007 NSW PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARY RESEARCH SERVICE David Clune (MA, PhD, Dip Lib), Manager ..............................................(02) 9230 2484 Gareth Griffith (BSc (Econ) (Hons), LLB (Hons), PhD), Senior Research Officer, Politics and Government / Law..........................(02) 9230 2356 Stewart Smith (BSc (Hons), MELGL), Research Officer, Environment ...(02) 9230 2798 John Wilkinson (MA, PhD), Research Officer, Economics .......................(02) 9230 2006 Information about Research Publications can be found on the Internet at: http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/WEB_FEED/PHWebContent.nsf/PHPages/LibraryPublication NSW Election 2007 2007 NEW SOUTH WALES ELECTION Final Analysis CONTENTS Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 5 Legislative Assembly Election Summary of Legislative Assembly Results .................................................................. 7 Legislative Assembly Results by Electoral District..................................................... 12 Summary of Two-Party Preferred Results.................................................................. 32 Regional Summaries .................................................................................................. 39 By-elections 2003 - 2007............................................................................................ 43 Legislative Council Election Summary of Legislative Council Result...................................................................... 45 Detail of Legislative Council Primary Votes................................................................ 46 New and Departing Members ............................................................................................... 54 Details of Preferences Analysis of Preference Flows ..................................................................................... 54 Total Preference Distributions .................................................................................... 57 Preference Flows By Party ......................................................................................... 59 Preference Flows by Electorate.................................................................................. 69 NSW Election Results 1947-2007......................................................................................... 85 3 NSW Election 2007 Symbols .. Nil or rounded to zero * Sitting MP .... 'Ghost' candidate, where a party contesting the previous election did not nominate for the current election. HTV How-to-vote Party Abbreviations - Unaffiliated Candidates AFI Australians Against Further Immigration ALP Labor Party ALP Labor Party candidates nominated as Country Labor CDP Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) DEM Australian Democrats FP Fishing Party HRP Horse Rider's Party IND Independents GRN The Greens LIB Liberal Party NAT The Nationals ORP Outdoor Recreation Party OTH Others SA Socialist Alliance SOS Save Our Suburbs SP Shooters Party UNI Unity Important Dates Legislative Assembly dissolved Friday 2 March 2007 Issue of Writs Monday 5 March 2007 Close of Rolls Monday 5 March 2007 Close of Nominations Thursday 8 March 2007 How to vote registration Friday 16 March 2007 Polling Day Saturday 24 March 2007 Return of Writ Wednesday 2 May 2007 NSW Election 2007 INTRODUCTION This paper provides an analysis of the results of the 2007 New South Wales election, updating the preliminary analysis published as Background Paper No. 2/07 in May 2007. This final version completes the analysis of two-party preferred vote and includes new research on the distribution of preferences under optional preferential voting. New Electoral Boundaries All results from the 2003 election have been adjusted to match the new electoral boundaries used for the 2007 election. Details of the redistribution can be found in 2004 NSW Redistribution: Analysis of Final Boundaries, NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service Background Paper No 1/05. By-Elections and Sitting MP Indicators By-elections have been ignored in preparing the results for each electorate and all swings are shown compared to the results of the 2003 election, adjusted for the new boundaries. Details of the five by- elections conducted between 2003 and 2007 can be found on page 43. A distinction has been drawn between which party is notionally assigned as holding a seat and who is the sitting MP. An asterisk "*" is used to indicate any candidate who was a sitting Legislative Assembly MP. Both Steven Pringle in Hawkesbury and Bruce Gaudry are shown as sitting MPs, though both contested the 2007 election as Independents. Peter Black is shown as a sitting MP in Murray-Darling, though Murray-Darling had become a notional National Party seat on the new electoral boundaries. Format for Electorate Results For each Legislative Assembly electorate, full details of primary and two-candidate preferred votes are provided. The format and calculations used in the electorate results are as follows. First Count: The votes shown for each candidate are the total primary votes received. Percentage votes are calculated as a percentage of the formal vote for each electorate. Swing is calculated by subtracting the percentage vote received by a party at the previous election from the percentage received at the current election. Where the parties contesting the district differ from the previous election, ‘ghost’ candidates (indicated by "....") have been included representing candidates not contesting the current election. As a result, all primary swings add to zero, subject to rounding errors. Final Count: Represents the two-candidate preferred count after the final distribution of preferences in an electorate. All votes that did not indicate a preference to the two remaining candidates are included in the total listed as Exhausted. Two-candidate preferred percentages are calculated by dividing the two-candidate preferred vote by the votes remaining in the count, that is the formal vote minus the exhausted vote. Two-candidate preferred swings are shown compared to the final candidates from the previous election. Where the party composition of the final two candidates differs from the previous election (e.g. Newcastle), ghost candidates appear and more than two swing figures are shown. Two-Party Preferred: Represents a separate distribution of preferences conducted in the 21 districts that did not finish as a two-party contest between the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Party Coalition. Two-Candidate versus Two-Party Preferred results Two-candidate Preferred Count: To win an electorate, a candidate must receive more than 50% of the vote after the distribution of preferences. The distribution of preferences is performed by successively excluding candidates with the lowest primary vote and distributing that candidate’s votes as preferences to other candidates remaining in the count. At the end of the count, the vote for the two final candidates is referred to as the 'two-candidate preferred vote'. 5 NSW Election 2007 Two-Party Preferred Count: Most Australian elections finish as a contest between candidates representing the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Party Coalition. The final distribution of preferences between Labor and Coalition candidates is referred to as the 'two-party preferred count'. At the 2007 election, there were 72 districts where the final contest was a two-party preferred count between Labor and Coalition candidates. Of the 21 districts that did not finish as two-party contests, 11 were Coalition-Independent contests, six Labor-Independent contests, two Labor-Green contests and two Coalition-Green contests. In the 21 seats that did not finish as two-party preferred contests, a second two-party preferred count for information purposes was undertaken by the NSW Electoral Commission. Inconsistencies in Two-Party Preferred Results The Electoral Commission's "Report on the 2007 State Election" includes a table of two-party preferred counts by electorate. The table, published on pages 99-100 of the report, includes the additional two-party preferred counts for the 21 districts that did not finish as two-party contests. Unfortunately, the other 72 entries in the table do not use the actual two-candidate preferred count in each district. The figures are instead derived from unaudited preference counts conducted on election night. While all primary votes were re-counted after election night, the indicative preference counts were not re-counted. As a result,