Fadden Live: Who Gets The Swing?

Summary

Fadden (LNP 10.6%), vacancy for resignation of Stuart Robert

CALLED (7:26 pm) Cameron Caldwell (LNP) retain

Small 2PP swing to LNP ( 2.72%), slightly above average for contested opposition vacancy

Poor result for Greens, One Nation and obscure independents, strong result for Legalise Cannabis

Live Comments (scrolls to top)

12 August:  The final results have been published and the swing is 2.72%.  Legalise Cannabis stayed ahead of the Greens, failing to overtake One Nation by just 31 votes.  There are "swings" to both the LNP and Labor and away from One Nation at the 4CP stage, but this is not comparing like with like because Legalise Cannabis are the fourth party.  The most striking result in the figures is that the flow of One Nation preferences to LNP jumped to 77.06%, which exceeds the flow in any classic-2PP seat in the entire 2022 election except Gippsland.  In the Gippsland case One Nation were first on the ballot and the National's Darren Chester was second, so the flow included donkey and similar votes.  I would take this as a sign that One Nation voters are pleased that Peter Dutton is LNP leader, although it may also be they are happier to have Stuart Robert gone and/or that they are displeased with Anthony Albanese, his government or its Voice proposal.  

Friday 28th: The remaining postals count has gone to zero so the primary count is probably done now barring very minor corrections in the distribution of preferences.  88.5% of postals came back but 4.1% were disallowed, meaning 84.4% made the cut, a very common figure.  Swing is now 2.72%, turnout is 72.54% and the Citizens Party is last by 19 votes.  Next we get the distribution of preferences sometime next week maybe, which will yield some interesting order of exclusion and probably 3PP/4PP data involving One Nation, Legalise Cannabis and the Greens.  

Monday 24th: Swing now 2.76%.  Turnout has reached 72.28%; about 2500 postals are outstanding but most will never arrive.  The Citizens Party now seems secure in last place 12 votes behind the Democrats.  

Wednesday: With more postals added the swing ramped up to 2.85% and the new holder of last place is the Citizens Party.

5:40 Minor changes; Democrats now last by four.

4:15 I've added One Nation to the loser list in the summary above even though they have a small primary vote swing to them.  The reason for this is they should have done much better in the absence of the UAP, but seem to have been unable to compete with a Dutton-led LNP (which could spell trouble for Malcolm Roberts' Senate seat in 2025 if Dutton is still leader then).  The UAP and One Nation fish to a large degree in the same pond and this was something that was especially striking in the 2022 results nationwide.  Compared to the 2022 four-candidate-preferred result, One Nation's by-election primary is down 6%, the Greens are down 6.7, Labor are down 2.8 and the LNP are up 1.6.  Some of the votes One Nation has "lost" here will be to Legalise Cannabis and others and will come back to them at the 4CP stage if the Greens manage to make the final four (which is doubtful), but it looks a lot like there has been a swing on the four-candidate vote from One Nation to LNP, which is masked by the UAP not running.   Votes coming from UAP at this stage (not all theirs) split 63.6% to One Nation but only 15.1% to the LNP, so all else being equal One Nation would have a bigger primary swing and LNP a smaller one.  

PS Federation Party now last by one vote.

2:40 Another 2000-ish postals added and the swing is now 2.5% while the Federation Party is back in last by 3 votes (Citizens only 14 off last now).

Here is a graph of Opposition swings in Opposition vacancy by-elections relative to their polling (compared to the previous election) at the time.  Fadden comes out as an above-average result for the Coalition by this standard, and similar to the by-elections in Bob Hawke's first term.  Aston by comparison was a shocker.

12:00 Turnout is looking worse than when I estimated it last night; depending on the postal return rate and provisionals and Special Hospital votes it could be hard to reach 75 and might even be as low as, say, 72.  

9:45 Sunday: About 8000 postals added pushing the swing up to 2.4%.  This won't necessarily continue as later-received postals tend to be weaker for the Coalition than earlier batches but I doubt that it will come down much.   The race for last remains well and truly alive with the Federation Party four votes ahead of the Democrats.  

11:30 pm Late night wrap: With all booths in for the night (postal figures will appear from tomorrow) I think both major parties would be relieved by this result.  This by-election had the potential for voters to send one or both of them a message but in fact very little has happened.  The LNP should be the happier camp as they are presently headed for a slightly better than average result for an opposition vacancy contested by the government, and as their primary vote is in good health in a large field.  But Labor's result isn't terrible either, with their primary vote holding up OK, and I expect that this is another by-election that will be talked about for a few days with triumphalist noises from both sides and then everything will move on.  It is close enough to what I expected, and by-elections are so variable, that I would advise against reading much into it, and in particular against trying to pin the result on any particular issue or factor.  

The result is collectively poor (albeit in an unpromising area) for minor parties and independents.  The only one to have clearly done well is Legalise Cannabis who have so far added a couple of percent to their 2022 Senate vote (though that will slip a little on postals) and appear to have outpolled the Greens.  They might even manage third after preferences.  The Greens' poor result is likely to attract commentary and some trolling in the light of their recent deferral of the government's affordable housing fund bill, but I suspect that a token campaign effort had more to do with it.  

Overall this is a return to by-elections as normal after the Aston result.  Well, at least in the state of Queensland, anyway ...

10:56 Democrats now last by eight.  

10:40 Not unusually, the Legalise Cannabis vote is dropping off sharply in prepolls and will probably do so in postals as well, but they are still on 7.9% to the Greens 6.4% (One Nation is on 9.2% which is not that great given the absence of UAP but not terrible for the field size.)

10:25 The other big PPVC, Helensvale, has arrived with a slightly better than standard result for the LNP.  

9:37 I've had a go at modelling turnout off all the booth votes plus what we know about the prepolls and I get it at about 75%.

9:30 One of the biggest PPVCs at Runaway Bay has come in and the swing there is weaker than overall, suggesting the 2PP swing will come down a bit more.  (The Federation Party has improved there too and is now 35 votes up on the Democrats).  

9:15 The second prepoll in (Labrador) is more typical.

8:55 Prepoll booths have started and the first one, Gold Coast North, has a 4 point higher than average primary vote swing to Caldwell.  This is a medium-sized prepoll though, we'll see how the bigger ones go.

8:44 Federation Party now last by 20 votes.

8:32 As as broad summary of what's been seen so far, the LNP has increased its primary vote largely off the absence of the UAP.  But it's not quite that simple because the removal of the UAP should have resulted in a more favourable preference flow from the minor parties to Labor, but that hasn't happened because the Greens vote has gone down.  This suggests to me that Labor might have taken some primary votes from the Greens and also lost some votes to the LNP or Legalise Cannabis.  

8:17 Indeed the swing is coming down now, so we will see what prepolls do.  

8:11 ABC have said that Labor expect the swing to come down towards 2% on the basis of votes not yet added (Pacific Pines was mentioned in a context sounding like a correction but might just be a good result in that booth.)  Democrats have lifted and now only three votes behind AFP.

8:05 Democrats continuing to slip further into the mire of last position.  I really don't know why they bother.  

7:53 To a degree the swing against the Greens is down to a wider range of minor left options, but that's not the whole story.  They polled 9.5% in the Senate race in Fadden, and comfortably outpolled Legalise Cannabis.  Here Legalise Cannabis are beating them.  The distribution will be interesting (eventually) to see if Legalise Cannabis can even get into third ahead of One Nation, though it's a fairly big ask.

7:48 Caldwell doing well enough now that he's looking to be very close to winning on primaries.  

7:40 This is starting to look like a pretty healthy night for the LNP.  Democrats now last behind Federation Party by 11 votes.

7:30 The Citizens Party has got a wriggle on and Kevin Young is now last by one vote to the Federation Party.  Concerning the number of deposits coming back it looks like five (which I expected) but the Greens' result is so bad that maybe we should wait a bit before being sure they will get there.

7:26 I'm pretending to be Dave Wasserman, concerning the result I've seen enough.

7:15 Six booths are in now and with an overall swing to the LNP and a continuing more or less 50-50 preference flow it is looking very clear that Cameron Caldwell will win but I am just waiting for a slightly bigger total count before calling it.  The Citizens Party is currently last by seven votes behind the Democrats and Federation Party.  

7:11 Third booth in Pimpama East and this is another very strong booth for Legalise Cannabis, even stronger than their Senate result.  Legalise Cannabis are on track for a vote of possibly around 8%.  

7:00 The second booth Studio Village is in and it has what looks like a very high vote for Legalise Cannabis, but this was also a super-strong booth for them in the Senate race where they polled 11% (about what they have got here).  What is interesting here is that the Green vote has been whacked.  Nothing much to see for the major parties.  Again, turnout is up.  Citizens Party is now outright last.

6:23 First votes in already with a big lead for the LNP in Alberton.  This booth has primary vote swings to all of LNP, Labor and One Nation because a double digit vote for UAP is gone, but also against the independent Brooker.  Turnout in this booth is up slightly!  Citizens Party and Sustainable Aus yet to score. No concern for LNP re the result in this one.  The 2PP swing has also come in and it's 1.6% to LNP.  

6:00 pm Just a token post to say this thing is on and I'm waiting for figures, reports or silly takes to dunk on. 

Intro 

5:00 pm Welcome to my on-the-day, live, and to whatever extent might be of interest postcount coverage of the 2023 Fadden by-election.  As usual, comments will appear scrolling to the top, refresh every 10 minutes or so for new comments during the height of counting.  Polls close 6 pm and numbers may start arriving from 7 pm.  Queensland is on the same time as eastern Australia at the moment.

This is an unusual by-election in that while the major parties are the frontrunners, Labor don't look like being in the mix for winning it, and yet there appears to be much more at stake here than in a snoozefest such as Groom a few years back.  A big two-party swing against the LNP would be a bad sign about the viability of Peter Dutton as leader in his home state, though I would expect Sky News to run at least 23 stories blaming it on the state branch and calling them "too woke".  A big two-party swing against Labor would be taken as a comment on the indifferently-polling Palaszczuk state government but might also be considered a reality check on the government's current high polling and its ability (or commitment level) to respond to voter concerns about cost of living and interest rates.  If the 2PP swing either way is less than about, say, 4% then there might still be the odd eyebrow raised but after that we can go back to sleep.  The ability of the major parties to hold their primary votes up in an expanded field (albeit with most of the extra candidates being no-hopers) is also of some interest here.  

I have previewed this by-election and my view is that the objective factors (the history of opposition by-elections, the ballot draw that clearly assists Labor, Stuart Robert's low personal vote and the federal government's strong polling) don't provide a clear edge on expected swing to either side, so if either side does get more than a few points of 2PP swing then the bragging rights are theirs.  (I reject the view that an average by-election swing of 4% to the opposition should be expected, primarily because this is an opposition vacancy and those historically see lower average swings to oppositions).

The by-election is also a test for One Nation, which finished third here after preferences last time and might face questions if it doesn't repeat that performance.  And there are also the usual curiosities to follow: how many candidates will get their deposit back, and who among this bloated field of 13 will come last?

Tonight there are six significant prepoll booths and the numbers below give their turnouts in the AEC files with the general election turnout in brackets

Beenleigh 417 (768)
Gold Coast North 3669 (5239)
Helensvale 12668 (15400)
Labrador 2720 (3048)
Runaway Bay 15222 (18652)
Southport 875 (2193)

Overall prepoll turnout is 78.5% of 2022's prepoll turnout, whereas in Aston it was 82.5%.  19438 postals have been issued with 10269 so far returned.  19223 were accepted in 2022 and if the pattern of Aston is followed (85% accepted) then actual postal turnout will be about 86% of 2022's.  Booth turnout will presumably be less deflated but it's possible overall turnout will be down from 2022's 86.5% to around the mid to high 70s.  (I don't expect this to much affect the result, no basis for it doing so being apparent).  

There are 29 regular booths and Poll Bludger lists two Special Hospital booths.  The following from the federal election aren't in use: Coomera, Hope Island Central, Pacific Pines, Pacific Pines North.