The NSW election, to be held on Saturday March 25, uses optional preferencing in both houses of parliament which means that many votes will be unwittingly exhausted and wasted.
Last week, The Echo covered the importance of continuing preferencing in the upper house (the Legislative Council), to ensure not only the party with majority support wins, but to give a chance to minor party and independent candidates.
Now, let’s turn to preferencing in the lower house (the Legislative Assembly).
There is little chance locally for minor party or independent party candidates to be elected to the lower house. Only the major parties, ie Labor, the Greens and the Liberal/Nationals Coalition, are likely to have successful candidates locally.
In the Ballina electorate (Byron and Ballina Shires), we elect a candidate to represent us in NSW Parliament.
The Greens’ Tamara Smith has held the seat for two terms, and has won with preferences from Labor and the minors.
If you do not preference properly, there is a chance the Nationals Party candidate could win, as the Nationals will almost certainly be ahead on the primary vote before preferences are counted.
Greens need prefs
So vote Greens, and preference Labor or vice-versa, if you do not want the Nationals to win. Conversely, if you want the Nationals to win, number them 1.
A vote for a minor party or independent can lead to your vote to being exhausted early, and not continuing in the count, if you do not preference.
Also, the Liberal-Nationals are a coalition of two parties, but act as one right-wing party, while the left-wing can only succeed by combining the Labor/Greens vote, using preferencing.
The value of your preference depends on where you vote. Tweed and Clarence electorates are safe Nationals Party seats, requiring large and unlikely swings to defeat the incumbent. So, even by preferencing all the various alternatives, the seats will be hard to change.
The Ballina scenario is repeated in the Lismore electorate, except there, Labor won the seat from the once secure Nationals in the last election.
Labor may only hold on this time with preferences, particularly from the Greens. There is a strong chance the Greens’ candidate, Adam Guise, could replace Labor, as only 321 Labor voters from 2019 would need to switch to Greens for them to win the seat.
And, like Ballina, it is necessary for the Labor/Greens vote to combine, using preferences, to beat the Nationals.
It’s worth noting that a left-wing progressive vote seems likely to increase in Lismore, as the electorate is dismayed by the NSW Liberal/Nationals government’s inaction after the 2022 floods.
Whether Labor’s Janelle Saffin will be seen by voters to have been effective will be tested on Saturday.
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