NSW election a bleak choice between flat white and a latte

The coming NSW election feels like a third act of Waiting for Godot, the absurdist drama, written in the ashes of World War II, featuring two tramps whose only vaguely coherent, but tantalisingly allusive, and repetitive, conversations fill in time, and not much more.

Labor leader Chris Minns and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet: similar age, conservative Catholics, political careerists, married with kids who were first elected in their mid- to late-20s. Kate Geraghty / NCA NewsWire

In the Tweedledum/Tweedledumber proscenium arch of Australian politics we have two politicians facing each other, with nothing of substance to separate them.

Similar age, conservative Catholics, political careerists, married with kids who were first elected in their mid- to late-20.

Slight class differences – one's father is a schoolteacher, the other an adviser with the World Bank; one worked as a firefighter and a union official, and the other was a lawyer. But these are like the differences between flat white and latte.

The NSW government is currently a minority government, holding 46 seats out of 93. A number of the independents are Liberal leaning, so they can achieve their legislative agenda, with some co-operation.

For Labor to win outright they need a swing of 6.3 per cent, which equates to a uniform two-party preferred (2PP) vote of 54.3 per cent statewide. However, swings are never uniform and Riverstone, a boundary seat in north-west Sydney, was polled by Freshwater Strategy and showed a lead to Labor of 54-46 2PP. That is a swing in that seat of 9.7 per cent.

But Labor doesn't need 6.3 per cent to form a minority government; 3.3 per cent would give them five seats and the opportunity to form a minority government supported by the Greens.

Calculating real 2PP results in New South Wales is complicated by its optional preferential system, which allows voters to just vote one. According to our polling (carried out between February 28, 2023, and March 6, 2023), 18 per cent of Greens will not distribute preferences, compared to 53 per cent of independents, 55 per cent of nationalists (right-leaning minor parties) and 33 per cent of others (left-leaning).

This gives Labor an edge, and also puts Mark Latham's One Nation, which is running in the lower house in a number of outer-urban and regional seats, in the role of disruptor (Pozzo, if you know Waiting for Godot).

One Nation might not win, but they could help the Liberals to lose.

So Labor is numerically in the box seat. They also have momentum with them.

This Liberal government in its four iterations has been in power for 12 years since winning the 2011 election with an unprecedented 64.22 per cent of the 2PP vote. Two of its premiers have resigned as a result of scandals, and Dominic Perrottet has only been in power around 12 months.

At each election votes have leached away, and worse, some elected members have been forced to the crossbench as a result of scandal.

While voters in our polling still talk about Labor Party corruption, it's well in the past, and the Coalition bears its own burdens, particularly those associated with the name Barilaro, which taint not just the former Nationals' leader, but the current premier, who as former treasurer, is implicated in allegations of pork-barrelling.

Voters don't feel too strongly about either leader. Labor's Chris Minns is comparatively unknown, and has been playing a small target campaign, à la Anthony Albanese, so is likely to stay that way until after the election, or until the Liberals target him with advertising.

Perrottet is better known but confuses voters. He was initially greeted with suspicion in the inner-city, and welcomed out in the burbs and regions, because of his conservative but mainstream Christianity. However, the inner-city view has softened as a result of things like flying the Aboriginal flag on the Harbour Bridge, and allowing a conscience vote on euthanasia.

While Perrottet comes from the right, he has governed from the centre, or even the centre-left, which is attributed by some voters to his deputy Matt Kean. Kean evokes some concern, and One Nation is likely to try to capitalise on this. Kean's deep green credentials also take climate change out of the equation as a battleground issue.

The issues are pretty clear. They are housing affordability (and cost of living more generally), climate change, infrastructure, funding of schools and hospitals, energy and gaming.

Perrottet's "Future fund" for kids is a desperate attempt to find a winner on cost of living and housing affordability. I have no polling, but I also have no doubt, this will damage his credibility, in a similar way the overly generous parental leave scheme damaged Tony Abbott's.

It's a plan for the government to partner with parents to build an up to $49,000 nest egg for their kids by their 18th birthday. Sounds great, until you realise the promise is really paid for by the parents' contributions and the recipients' future taxes.

Bribes have become a way to the citizen's vote, but not to their heart, and this from a man who claims to be a classical liberal. You can feel voters peeling off on the right.

Minns is running on anti-privatisation. It's a pitch to the faithful, as well as drawing attention to the increases in costs, and the running down of services. It doesn't solve the cost-of-living problem, but it provides a focus for blame.

It also eats away at infrastructure, which is one of the Coalition's strengths. Over the last 12 years they have privatised over $55 billion of assets, and that money is being poured into infrastructure.

Minns' one misstep appears to be in the area of gaming, where his response to Perrottet's policy of a cashless card is seen as inadequate.

Godot never arrives, but we'll have a conclusion to this Australian melodrama in a week. Labor should win, and in the current mood Labor won't need to be more than adequate to make a good impression because voter expectations are so low.

It's a bleak situation.