Campaign dismay will sink Labor landslide

Chris Minns meets locals after a speech in Parramatta. Picture: Gaye Gerard

While the polls, betting markets and pundits are predicting a Labor victory at the NSW election on Saturday, there is deep fear within party ranks that the contest is perilously close, and many expect only the narrowest of wins or a minority Chris Minns-led government when it should be a landslide.

There is dismay about Labor’s campaigning and a feeling that the party should be running away with this election given the many scandals that have plagued the Coalition, the revolving-door premiership and its longevity in office. There has never been a Liberal-Nationals government in NSW in power for this long.

Chris Minns and Dominic Perrottet following an election debate. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tim Pascoe

Labor’s campaign preparations were poor, overseen by departing NSW Labor secretary Bob Nanva. Labor MPs, staff, campaigners and party members say it is criminally negligent that Nanva did not finalise candidate preselections for a raft of marginal and safe seats until weeks ago. It should have been a priority after the federal election in May last year.

The party has been starved of funds because of limited fundraising, and it lacks campaigning capacity across the board, from the most basic of election logistics through to high-level strategy, including advertising and social media, messaging and communications, marginal seat operations and sequencing of policy announcements.

At an election rally in the critical seat of Parramatta on Sunday, designed to turbocharge Labor’s final week of campaigning, about half the seats in the small lecture theatre were empty. There were probably as many MPs and candidates as there were party supporters. It is emblematic of the Labor campaign.

NSW Labor secretary Bob Nanva

There is no doubt Minns is the best thing going for Labor. He is an energetic campaigner who is photogenic and engaging on the hustings. Although Minns trails Dominic Perrottet in the popularity stakes, he is not a drag on Labor’s vote like previous leaders. He presents as a next-generation leader without the baggage of the corrupted Keneally government.

Minns overhauled Labor’s frontbench, elevating talented MPs languishing on the backbench, and he leads a united team. He shrewdly offered bipartisanship during the pandemic and pursued ministerial integrity breaches. Minns has made a virtue of his friendship with Perrottet but Labor strategists worry this will only encourage voters to keep the latter as premier.

Labor has a “fresh start plan” but lacks an animating and persuasive agenda for change. A big part of Minns’s pitch to voters is opposing further privatisation of government utilities and highlighting the cost of road tolls. These are popular. But this small-target strategy is risky. Will it be enough to persuade voters to change the government?

A senior NSW Labor frontbencher told this column that the once legendary NSW Labor machine was “long past its peak but probably good enough to win an election”. The feared, innovative and cutting-edge party organisation run by Graham Richardson, Stephen Loosley and John Della Bosca is long gone.

None of this worries Nanva, though, because he secured for himself a parachute into the Legislative Council, no matter the election outcome. He broke a new rule that he once supported and that was imposed after federal intervention that the party secretary not seek a seat in parliament until five years after their appointment. Richardson, Loosley and Della Bosca had to win elections before they secured seats in parliament.

Former NSW Labor minister John Della Bosca speaking at a press conference.

Minns is not relying on Nanva for advice. His brains trust includes chief of staff James Cullen, formerly an adviser to federal minister Chris Bowen; former NSW premier Morris Iemma, who has been a mentor; former NSW Olympics minister Michael Knight; and Kevin Rudd’s former press secretary Lachlan Harris.

The Coalition has fewer pathways to victory but the electoral maths is also tricky for Labor. Labor needs to gain nine seats to form a majority government with 47 seats. Seats that Labor must win, such as East Hills (0.1 per cent), Penrith (0.6), Holsworthy (6.0) and Oatley (6.8), likely would remain Liberal if federal election results were replicated.

Conversely, Labor would win a band of western Sydney seats such as Parramatta (6.5), Winston Hills (5.7) and Riverstone (6.2) based on federal election voting. Labor also would gain Ryde (8.9) and Drummoyne (13.6), and pick up Monaro (11.6) in southern NSW, on federal results. Labor needs a uniform 6.5 per cent swing for majority government.

Although swings are rarely uniform, if Labor fails to secure seats it has never won, such as Upper Hunter (0.5), or has not won for decades, such as Goulburn (3.1) or Tweed (5), or loses a notional seat such as Leppington (1.5) or Heathcote (1.7), then the party will need to win seats with margins over 10 per cent to secure a majority.

Optional preferential voting and caps on fundraising and spending may hurt teal candidates, yet they still could snatch Liberal-held seats such as Willoughby (3.3) and others over 10 per cent including Lane Cove, North Shore, Pittwater, Wakehurst and Manly. The Nationals could regain Barwon (6.6) or Murray (2.8). After Saturday, independents Alex Greenwich, Greg Piper and Joe McGirr along with three Greens MPs could decide who forms government.

Labor remains favoured to win the NSW election. But final weeks can be hazardous, especially when many voters are tuned out or undecided. Polls show the Coalition clawing back support. Perrottet is not hated; Minns is not that well known. It will come down to a seat-by-seat contest that places a premium on campaigning.

On the eve of the March 1995 election, Della Bosca gave Bob Carr a final word of advice. “Ring the independents and wish them well,” he said. Carr started phoning. It was good advice then, and if Nanva had any nous he would tell Minns to do the same. In the end, Carr won a one-seat majority. Minns will be hoping to at least emulate that.