Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says the latest Roy Morgan Poll into NSW voting intention shows the election is still ‘up for grabs’ just over a month before 25 March election day

 

Roy Morgan Research, media release, excerpt, 21 February 2023:

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says the latest Roy Morgan Poll into NSW voting intention shows the election is still ‘up for grabs’ just over a month before election day in late March with the ALP holding a narrow two-party preferred lead over the Liberal-National Coalition:

“The latest Roy Morgan Poll of NSW voting intention shows the ALP on 52% narrowly ahead of the Liberal-National Coalition on 48% on a two-party preferred basis. This result is a reverse of the 2019 New South Wales election when the L-NP won a majority of 48 seats in the 93 seat lower house.

“The primary voting intention shows an almost three way split between the Coalition on 35% ahead of the ALP on 32.5% and another 32.5% supporting other parties and independents. This result is very similar to last year’s Federal Election when the ALP won Government despite receiving only 32.6% of the primary vote, even less than the L-NP on 35.7%.

“The low primary vote for the major parties increases the importance of preferences from minor parties and independents. Around half of the support for this group is flowing to two minor parties on either side of politics – the left-wing Greens on 9.5% and right-wing One Nation on 6.5%.

“Greens support traditionally flows strongly to the ALP via preferences at a rate of around 85% while One Nation support flows via preferences at a rate of around 65% to the Coalition. However, the optional preferential voting (OPV) used in NSW means voters need not direct their preferences to any party beyond their first choice.

“The OPV system allows voters to simply number their ballot paper with a ‘1’ for their preferred candidate to register a valid vote. Analysis of prior NSW State elections shows around 50% of voters direct preferences to exhaustion while the other 50% of voters don’t.

“The OPV system therefore makes it harder for parties finishing second, or even third, in the primary vote to overtake the leading party on preferences – favouring the party with the highest primary vote. Not since the 1995 NSW State election has a party won government despite receiving a lower primary vote.

“One interesting result from this month’s voting intention results in NSW is that support for One Nation increased 2% points to 6.5% - the highest level of support for the party since the 1999 NSW State Election over 20 years ago when the party scored 7.5% of the vote.

“One reason for the rise in support for One Nation may have been the recruitment of former Labour MP Tania Mihailuk during January. Mihailuk has represented the seat of Bankstown in the western suburbs since 2011 before resigning from the ALP in 2022 and joining One Nation in mid-January.

“Upon joining One Nation Mihailuk became the first One Nation MP to represent a lower house seat in the NSW Parliament and will run for the Legislative Council in second place behind NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham – a former Federal ALP Leader.”