Victoria 2022 Live

The starting line: Labor 57 Coalition 26* Green 3 IND 2

Labor has retained majority government with little if any net seat loss

SEATS APPARENTLY WON (some not confirmed) ALP 52 L-NP 24* Green 4 IND 0 (In doubt 8)

* includes Narracan subject to being retained at supplementary election

SEATS APPARENTLY CHANGING (some not absolutely confirmed)

ALP to Lib: Nepean

ALP to Nat: Morwell

ALP to Green: Richmond

ALP to IND or Lib: Hawthorn

IND to Nat:  Shepparton, Mildura

LIB to ALP: Glen Waverley, Ripon

IN SIGNIFICANT DOUBT (others may be added):

ALP vs GRN:  Northcote (ALP leads)

ALP vs IND: Preston (Exclusion order issue)

ALP vs Lib: Hastings (ALP ahead), Bass (ALP ahead)

Lib vs ALP: Croydon (bouncing around lots), Caulfield (Lib ahead)

Lib vs IND for gain from ALP: Hawthorn

Lib vs IND: Mornington

(NB Party-occupied seats that are notionally for the other side are counted for the party holding them.  Morwell treated as ALP)

*Narracan is treated as a Coalition retain pending supplementary election.

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REFRESH OFTEN FOR LATEST COMMENTS

1:00 Wrapping up Lower House coverage for tonight and switching to Upper House.  Lower House postcount threads for roughly those seats listed as in significant doubt will be rolled out tomorrow.

12:50 As expected Labor has taken the lead in Northcote and now looks highly likely to retain it.  

12:33 A 63-37 split on the first batch of postals puts Crewther in front in Mornington where he had been tracking for a clear loss called by the ABC earlier.  

12:20 After a long wait, more votes have finally come through for Mulgrave confirming that Daniel Andrews has retained his seat easily.

12:03 Labor seem to have finally put Footscray away and have also taken the lead in Croydon (Lih).  Although Matthew Guy in his speech declared the Coalition had definitely increased their seat count in both houses, that call was way premature.  

11:42 I have been looking at Northcote and it seems that when the current prepolls come fully through to 2CP Labor will move ahead in the count by approaching 700 votes.  The Greens are projected to improve from there (eg inner city counts have high absents) but this seat is in doubt,

11:27 Polwarth error fixed.

10:53 Labor ahead in Pakenham again.

10:24 The count in Polwarth may be in error or else the 2PP prepoll count is unrepresentatively incomplete.  The prepoll 2PP has Labor way ahead but the primary votes in prepoll are not different enough to explain the massive difference from the booth 2PP.  When this is corrected Polwarth should come back to the Liberal column.

10:13 In Melton there is a crazy scatter of over 30% of the vote for minor parties, but Birchall would need to gain on the Liberals at nearly .5 votes/vote in a three-way split with Labor to make second, which won't happen (and he loses anyway so far) so seems clear Labor has retained Melton.

10:04 A number of seats where Labor is surging at the moment, the ABC has Labor ahead in 56 though a few should fall over.  

9:48 A lot of jumping around as prepolls go in and fail to replicate the pattern from 2018!  So Labor has jumped ahead on ABC projection in Polwarth (!!???) and Caulfield, though Caulfield is volatile in late counting.  

9:30 Have been looking at many seats and didn't realise I hadn't commented for 39 minutes!  There is a weird count going on in Preston where the Greens are currently third and independent Gaetano Greco is fourth.  The Victorian Socialists preferenced Greco on their card, but I suspect their voters could preference the Greens anyway.  Either way someone should get over the Liberals.  

8:51 Mellissa Lowe is looking strong in Hawthorn in a generally bad night for independents.  Her position may slip on prepoll (etc) but Green votes should keep/put her over Labor.  Kate Lardner ditto in Mornington is still looking strong.  Those are the only well placed teals; Sophie Torney is behind in Kew where Jess Wilson was a smart preselection.

8:46 ABC now projecting Labor ahead in Pakenham.  

8:44 Pascoe Vale is still competitive according to the ABC but not Poll Bludger.  One to keep an eye on.  

8:38 It is a massive, massive struggle to find 13 net seat losses for Labor, especially while they are leading in two Coalition seats.

8:33 ABC's projection has the Greens back to level in Footscray (Poll Bludger has them well ahead however.)

8:28 An extreme swing showing in early counting in St Albans though not enough to knock it off.

8:26 Labor projecting ahead in Ripon and Glen Waverley now.  Also notable Suzanna Sheed is trailing in Shepparton.

8:14 Nats have hit the projected lead in Morwell.  Labor are also well ahead on the 2PP in Pascoe Vale now.  

8:08 Greens back in the frame for top two in Pascoe Vale!  At the moment we could see Labor losing more seats, or at least more net seats (see Glen Waverley) to the Greens than the Coalition.

7:59 In Kew Sophie Torney is currently third and struggling to get into the top two on current figures, but may yet make it.  It's a general theme that teals and INDs generally are struggling for primary votes.

7:57 Brighton is looking like a 2PP contest at the moment.  

7:52 Early numbers in Melton have Birchall (IND) on a very low primary though with a massive scatter and a very low major party vote.  We may again be dealing with the question of whether Birchall can get into second.

7:35 At this early stage, not seeing Labor in trouble in a lot of seats.  They're apparently losing Bass, Northcote, Richmond and Nepean (no surprises there), probably Hawthorn but not clear, and struggling in Footscray in early counting.  In Pascoe Vale at the moment the Liberals have a big swing to them so it's doubtful the Greens are making the top two.  Still nothing from Melton.  

7:27 In Mornington, teal Kate Lardner is posing a serious threat to Chris Crewther at this stage as she is currently second.  In Hawthorn, Mellissa Lowe is currently third however, but not out of reach of second yet,  

7:20 It is looking a great deal like Labor has won this election as the Liberals are not tracking ahead anywhere they shouldn't be.

7:19 Labor off to a good start in Point Cook where at this stage Joe Garra is third.

7:05 Greens projecting ahead in Footscray!  Let's see if this lasts, very big swings there so far.  But in Albert Park the swing is so far not enough to keep the Greens in second.  And in Richmond the projection off one polling place is dire for Labor (unsurprisingly)

7:04 Bill Tilley (Lib) off to a good start in Benambra.

7:02 In Williamstown there is a swing to the Liberals, which if it continues will leave the Greens in third.  

6:57 A large bunch of 2PP seats have swings but not yet seeing any signs of big trouble for Labor in these seats (into second-tier target seats etc).  Labor have fallen behind in Nepean, no surprises there.

6:54 Nats way back in front in Euroa.  

6:51 PollBludger projection of state 2PP currently at 56-44 (ABC's has broken).  [6:55 Dropped back to 51.6 now as a lot of votes came in.]

6:39 An early very small booth in Geelong has a large swing to Labor.  [Early booths in Ripon have bounced back to them too, but the sample size is trivial,]

6:36 PollBludger booth feed working now!

6:32 Swing to Louise Staley in Ripon in an early booth (betting markets had Staley favoured to lose, which surprised me despite the unfriendly redistribution).

6:30 Ricky Muir is running for Shooters in Gippsland East but is making little impression so far.  I am seeing Family First Victoria doing well in some of the early rural booths.  Also while it's extremely early the ABC is not projecting much 2PP swing yet (but 2018 flows may be unreliable aside from the tiny sample size.)

6:20 The first booth is in in Euroa.  This is a three-cornered vacancy (a safe Nats seat on a 2PP basis) so something to see in the first booth is ... the Liberals are in front!

6:05 Polls have closed and this thing is on.  That's all.  The PollBludger results feed is well worth keeping an eye on.  [EDIT: not showing results by booth at this stage as of 6:26.]

 Introduction (2:30)

Welcome to my election day coverage of the 2022 Victorian state election.  Comments on the count itself will start from 6:00 or shortly after, unless there are useful reports earlier.  Comments will scroll with the latest at the top apart from the state summary and request for donations; refresh every 10 minutes or so for updates once counting gets seriously underway.  Major exit polls are not expected and any minor ones should be regarded with extreme suspicion.  

My final comments on state polling are here.  Final polls have Labor with a large 2PP lead (on average in the low 54s), and this plus crossbench risks in Coalition seats and an unfriendly pendulum mean that any form of Coalition victory would require a level of polling failure that Australia hasn't seen for decades.  However, Labor will almost certainly lose some seats and is at risk of losing several to Liberals, the Greens and Independents.  It is possible that even with a somewhat clearcut 2PP in the 52s or 53s (less likely 54s) Labor could drop enough to these collected forces to not make the magic 45.  If the polls are accurate it is most likely Labor holds on with a seat count around the high 40s, but falling short even off a 2PP that would have won any other election outright easily remains a realistic and interesting chance.  

My live commentary aims to act as a complement to the ABC live coverage, especially by following interesting seats that aren't on the radar, exclusion order issues, and so on.  Tonight I expect to focus almost exclusively on the Lower House through to about 1 am, and only switch to looking at the Upper House when a useful percentage of the vote has been counted there.  If the Upper House count is going well enough I may start my detailed Upper House live thread overnight.    

Please note that it takes a very long time for Upper House (Legislative Council) counting to settle down to a point where final seat winners might be projected with any kind of confidence, and even then just assuming the ABC Calculator winners will win is a method likely to lead people astray because of slight shifts in post-counting and below the line votes.  In any case, I expect a similar profusion of undeserved micro-parties to win off low vote shares as in 2018, though there are some signs it might be not quite so many.  I also think there are good prospects of the mix including somewhat more left microparties and somewhat fewer "Druery parties", but we'll see.  I regret I have not had time to model the Upper House in any detail this year, having only had time to briefly run some basic scenarios through the calculators.

In my Lower House coverage I will be especially keen to keep an eye on the many likely non-classic seats where independents may disrupt the Labor-Coalition 2PP picture.  Often we can get a good idea quite early if they are a serious threat or not.

Tomorrow I will be rolling out postcount threads for Lower House seats in doubt.  Unusually exciting seats (especially those that are three-cornered or otherwise messy) will often get their own threads.  Others may be grouped by themes - classic 2PP, Greens vs Labor, IND vs Coalition etc.  

There may be delays in clearing comments tonight and there will certainly be delays in responding to them; also at some point during the coverage I will stop for a brief dinner break.