NSW election on a knife edge with result not expected for days

More than one million voters have already had their say in today’s election but experts predict a hung parliament could lead to days of negotiations before there is a result. SEE WHICH SEATS WILL DECIDE THE ELECTION.

The NSW election will be won and lost on three fronts — the north coast, the bush and the city, with Labor expected to make historic inroads in electorates outside Sydney.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Nationals leader John Barilaro’s desperate efforts to hold onto these seats have been complicated by hyper-local issues that have eroded support for the Coalition.

The North Coast seats of Tweed, Lismore and Ballina are key marginal battlegrounds and if Labor snaps up all of these they are halfway to loosening Ms Berejiklian’s tenuous grip on power and forcing minority government.

Marginal nsw seats in election 2019

The Nationals hold Tweed and Lismore on very slim margins, 3.2 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively, after support for the party dropped dramatically at the 2015 election.

The site of the new hospital in Tweed has been a lightning rod for voters angry at development in sleepy Kingscliff, which Labor has effectively seized on.

It led to Health Minister Brad Hazzard and Ms Berejiklian touring the area during the campaign in a bid to sell the government’s site at Cudgen to voters.

Lismore is the most marginal seat in the state, held by just 0.2 per cent, with the Greens nearly snatching the seat in 2015 over CSG issues before the Nationals scrambled at the last minute to shutdown the scare-campaign that they would open up new wells. It led them to a crushing 24 per cent swing against them.

Nationals candidate Austin Curtin has been shadowing retiring MP Thomas George for 17 months in a bid to learn the ropes and hold on to the seat.

But Labor is threatening to snatch Lismore from the ­Nationals who have held it for more than 30 years.

Polling by The Daily Telegraph earlier this month showed Labor was ahead 51-49 in the seat with voters angry at the Nationals’ handling of flood mitigation after the town flooded in 2017.

Gladys Berejiklian campaigns with Brad Hazzard. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

Mr Curtin said the Nationals had invested $8.2 million for stage one of a new flood protection strategy and hopes the party’s track record of building projects, such as Lismore Base Hospital, will woo back voters from the Greens and Labor.

“It’s about balanced growth and sustaining it but it’s (still) very much an agricultural seat,” he said.

The Greens’ Sue Higginson is also a strong candidate while Labor’s candidate Janelle Saffin expects it will come down to the wire. “I think it’ll be tight,” Ms Saffin said.

Lismore and Ballina are unusual three cornered contests with primary votes likely to be evenly split between Nationals, Greens and Labor making preference flows crucial.

Ballina has been held by Greens MP Tamara Smith since 2015 when she snatched it from the Nationals, but with the party having been plagued by disunity she could lose the seat to Labor.

The Greens say about 17,000 new voters have moved into the electorate since the last election with Labor candidate Asren Pugh believing the changing demographic has brought in young families and this will play in his favour.

Mr Pugh is campaigning on delivering more frontline services to meet the growing population’s needs with booming housing developments in Lennox and Skinners Head and Ballina Heights.

“We’re getting lots of young families moving down because Ballina’s changing,” he said.

While Labor and the Greens are threatening the Nationals on the North Coast, in the far west the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are eyeing off the seat of Barwon.

The SFF were closely trailing 49-51 in a poll conducted by The Daily Telegraph with water management harming the Nationals.

The Menindee fish kills dominated the first weeks of the election campaign and caused headaches for the ­Coalition.

Anger at the Nationals may also play out in Murray which the SFF are eyeing off as well. If they retain their current seat of Orange and add Murray and Barwon it will give them immense power in the event of a hung parliament.

There is also speculation Labor could take the Upper Hunter from the Nationals. an electorate they have held since it was formed in 1962.

If that happens and Tweed, Lismore and Ballina fall it would represent a massive setback for the Nationals. At present Labor’s only regional seats are Cessnock, Maitland and Port Stephens but it also has an outside hope of snatching Goulburn from the Liberals.

While the Nationals try to hold onto the regional and rural seats, the Liberals are fighting on multiple battlefronts in Sydney over complex local issues in seats with wafer-thin margins.

Polling in Penrith showed Stuart Ayres just ahead on 51-49 with voters unimpressed over stadiums spending by the Sports Minister. In Ryde, Heathcote and East Hills local overdevelopment is a hot-button issue while in Coogee the bungled light rail has been a millstone for Liberal MP Bruce Notley-Smith. So confident are ALP officials, they are holding their election party in the electorate tonight.

PRODIGAL POLITICIAN LATHAM’S LIKELY TO WIN

Mark Latham is extremely likely to win a seat in the NSW upper house today and return to public office after a 14-year absence.

The former federal Labor leader is running for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, with the populist right-wing party reportedly polling an underlying primary vote of 6 per cent.

NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham speaks to the media at the launch of his Save Australia Day campaign in January. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

Half of the 42 seats of the NSW Legislative Council are up for grabs today for an eight-year term, with 346 candidates spread across 21 columns on the ballot paper.

The quota to win a seat is 4.55 per cent of the primary vote — or just over 200,000 votes — but the optional preferential voting system means minor parties can get voted in with less than these numbers.

With One Nation polling at 6 per cent, a senior Liberal source said Mr Latham (pictured) was a shoo-in.

“Latham is guaranteed to get in, and with preferences One Nation could even pick up a second seat,” they said.

“The Shooters are guaranteed a spot and David Leyonhjelm from the Liberal Democrats has a chance too.”

Mr Leyonhjelm resigned from federal Parliament to contest today’s election and is basing his campaign around removing “nanny state issues” like red tape, liquor licensing and lockout laws.

The Liberal/Nationals have 11 MPs in the upper house up for re-election today thanks to their landslide victory in 2011, and with polls deadlocked at 50-50 the Coalition are already resigned to losing Liberal MP Peter Phelps.

“Our ninth spot (on the ballot) is unwinnable, and it’s held at the moment by Peter Phelps,” the Liberal source said.

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate Mark Banasiak is expected to win a seat and join his party leader Robert Borsak, who is up for re-election in 2023, in the chamber. Meanwhile independent Jeremy Buckingham is a long shot to retain his seat, as is Christian Democrats member Paul Green.

BROLLY BIG DAY AHEAD

More than a million people cast their vote early this year, out of the way of the showers and storms forecast to batter the booths this afternoon.

Surf Life Saving NSW member Donna Wishart cast her ballot yesterday morning at St Matthews Anglican Church in Manly because she knew she would be patrolling the beach today.

Lifeguards Jakob Hammond, Donna Wishart, Sally Macintosh and Paul Hardy, with dog Flash, voted at Manly yesterday. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“Now I can switch the radio off I don’t have to listen to any of the political candidates,” she laughed.

A Bureau of Meteorology spokeswoman warned voters could cop a mild drenching if they headed to the booths later in the day.

“We’re looking at a chance of showers and thunderstorms more likely during the afternoon and evening. It will generally be a sunny start to the morning, so if you’re heading out to the polling booths I’d go early,” she said.

The showers will hit the east coast of NSW while the far northwest of the state should remain dry.

Of the 1,057,974 who have voted early, 212,195 voted yesterday.