Sunday, December 19, 2010

According to the pendulum, 6 seats are held by margins under 5%, these being Miranda, Menai, Wollondilly, Camden, Gosford and The Entrance. Liberal should win them all, as none of them (apart from maybe the Central Coast seats, which have retiring MP's and are drifting gradually towards Liberal, despite the recent federal election saying otherwise) are natural Labor seats. Wollondilly might be salvageable, as Phil Costa has a high local profile and the issues that are making people pissed off at Labor being less noticeable in a country seat.

A further 6 are held by margins between 5-10%, these being Monaro, Londonderry, Wyong, Coogee, Drummoyne and Heathcote. These should probably all fall too. Monaro could stay put, as Eden-Monaro swung to Labor and it's the sort of seat where a local profile of the MP might count despite everyone hating the ALP in NSW, but Eden-Monaro's generally a bellweather (since 1972, it has gone with whoever won power federally), and in Monaro, from 1941-1995, it went with whoever won power statewise, too. Heathcote's normally a safe Labor seat, but the high Green vote, which goes to Labor via preferences at federal level, might well exhaust, giving Liberal victory. Wyong is normally a Labor seat, too, but the Coast is moving to Liberal, so it'll probably be lost to the Liberals as well. The other 3 are demographically shifting to Liberal, and there's no reason why Labor should them (Drummoyne's having a lot of new housing developments which is pushing the real estate prices up, whereas Coogee's renters are being replaced by people who actually the money to be able to live there, and Londonderry I believe has some semi-rural Hawkesbury territory and outer suburban mortgage belt areas).

It's also worth having a look at; Riverstone, Rockdale, Blue Mountains, Mulgoa, Kiama, Bathurst, Parramatta, East Hills, Oatley, Strathfield, Maroubra and Kogarah. All are safe Labor seats, but for various reasons, are probably in play this year.

Balmain and Marrickville are at a big risk of falling to the Greens (Keira's an outside chance, especially given the retirement of David Campbell, but that would require something weird to happen), whereas seats like Newcastle, Maitland, Woolongong, among others, could fall to independents.

Hard to see any Liberal seats falling, although some independent seats might be at risk (Lake Macquarie's an outside chance of the Liberals overtaking the independent there, whereas a backlash in Tamworth and Port Macquarie following the decisions of Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to support Labor against the electorate's wishes, means that the Nationals could win these back).

Further details will come on board once nominations begin. I'll write up a preview for all of the electorates, but only the edgy seats will have anything substantial however.

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