Labor has held the federal seat of Newcastle since federation, and there’s no reason to believe that the current Labor incumbent, Sharon Claydon, will have any difficulty holding it comfortably in this month’s election.
But there’s still plenty to hold interest in other aspects of local voting results, particularly for the Senate.
The number of candidates standing for the seat of Newcastle (seven) is pretty much on par with the size of past fields for a regular federal election, with candidates from Labor, Liberal, Greens, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP), The Christian Democrats (CDP), Animal Justice (AJP), and the Great Australian Party (GAP).
Only the GAP, formed last year by former WA One Nation Senator Rod Culleton, hasn’t stood candidates in Newcastle before, though the UAP and AJP didn’t field candidates in 2016.
For parties with no realistic chance of winning a House of Representatives seat such as Newcastle, one of the primary reasons for still standing local candidates is to boost the party’s Senate vote.
Every voter in NSW participates in the ballot to elect candidates to fill the six NSW Senate seats up for election at this poll, and the method of Senate voting is now similar (though not entirely the same) as for the NSW state upper house.
Contrary to widespread misunderstanding, political parties do not control how voters’ preferences are allocated – voters do this themselves, particularly now that registered tickets are no longer used for the Senate.
A formal vote for the Senate (on the large white ballot paper) now requires a voter to number at least six boxes above-the-line (from one to six in order of preference), OR at least 12 boxes below-the-line, from one to twelve.
Except for the GAP, all the parties standing in the seat of Newcastle have at least a realistic chance of winning a Senate seat – though the odds would be long for the AJP and a little less so for the CDP.
This election will be a normal half-Senate election for six NSW Senate seats, whereas the previous (2016) election was for all twelve NSW Senate seats, which were spilled as a result of a double dissolution of the federal parliament.
Because of the way that Senate terms are calculated after a double dissolution election, most of the major party Senators elected in 2016 will be up for re-election at the federal election after this one.
Three of the six NSW Senate seats at stake in this election are currently held by non-major party Senators (Greens, UAP, and Liberal Democrats).
Half-Senate elections require a significantly higher quota for election than full Senate elections, making it much more difficult for minor parties to win seats.
The Liberal Democrats are almost certain to lose their Senate seat in this election.
Both the Coalition and Labor are each certain to win at least one, probably two, and possibly three, of these Senate seats.
The Greens will be fighting to retain their sole NSW Senate spot, and their current NSW Senator, Mehreen Faruqi, will face election for the first time, after being appointed to replace former Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, who resigned from the parliament in August last year after losing the party’s preselection ballot to Ms Faruqi.
If the Greens don’t retain this seat, it’s likely to be won by Labor.
The UAP, bolstered by Clive Palmer’s long and lavish advertising campaign, will be hoping to retain their incumbent NSW Senator, Brian Burston, who was elected for One Nation in 2016, but who fell out with Pauline Hanson and switched to the UAP in June last year.
They are likely to be vying for this Senate spot with other right-wing parties, such as One Nation and the Christian Democrats.
If one of those parties doesn’t win this seat, it is likely to go to either the Coalition or Labor.
The recent NSW election demonstrated again that an increasing number of voters are choosing to vote differently in lower and upper house elections, and this little-studied phenomenon is one of the more intriguing aspects of modern election behaviour, including in our region.
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