Ipswich West and Inala Live

Ipswich West (ALP 14.4% - resignation of Jim Madden (ALP)

   Labor loses seat with 2PP swing of around 18%

Inala (ALP 28.2% - resignation of Annastacia Palaszczuk (ALP)

   Labor retains with 2PP swing in low 20%s.

Comments scrolling to top - refresh every 15 mins or so during counting for new comments

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11:30 End of night wrap: Although the ABC haven't called this seat yet for some reason, I want to make it clear there is no coming back for Labor in Ipswich West and why I called it hours ago.  They are currently over 1300 behind on 2PP counted votes, but adding in primary votes yet to be added that jumps out to over 1500, and it will probably be more (or at least not substantially less) after preferences.  And then, apart from the pretty standard Yamanto booth that has not reported yet (assuming it will do so) there are only about 3000 postals to come and there would have to be a swing to Labor on them, which there will not be (though they may not swing nearly as badly as the booths).  There is nothing in the booth counts to suggest any errors either.   [UPDATE 12:00 Many postals have now been added and have been similar to the booth swing.]

I expected both of these to go over the historic swing averages (in the case of Inala as adjusted for a Premier retirement) but they have done so by close to 10%.  They are reminiscent of the famous Stafford and Redcliffe beltings suffered by the Newman government on the way to the enormous swing against it in 2015.  I am not expecting the Miles Labor government to suffer anything like so large a swing at this year's election but I have for a long time been expecting Labor to lose in October and to probably do so decisively (but it might yet be close).  This is simply what is to be expected given that it will be a nearly ten year old government that is the same party as the party in power federally.  

Aside from the LNP, tonight's other winner is Legalise Cannabis who have again done very well in a by-election, including beating One Nation in a seat where One Nation was finishing second at a general election as recently as 2017.    

10:24 As with IW the prepolls in Inala are worse than the booths so I'm no longer convinced the swing will drop off below about 22.  

10:19 The other big IW prepoll is in on the primary vote and it's got even worse for Labor there.  

10:15 Three Inala booths now in on 2PP and we could be looking at the biggest 2PP swing of the last 40 years in Queensland as the swing is running at 23% though I think it will go down a few points from there.  

9:32 The Inala count is terribly slow with still only one booth counted to 2PP perhaps because of the large number of candidates but I still expect the swing to come in around the very high teens, similar to Ipswich West.  

9:04 Labor's share of Legalise Cannabis preferences in Ipswich West is continuing to drop back, now at only 57%. Called.

8:47 A big prepoll has come in in IW with an even worse primary swing result than the booths so far.  

8:29 First Inala booth to 2PP had a 22.6% swing but the other booths are less bad on primary vote so so far this looks like dropping down.  

8:17 Three more booths in in 2PP and Labor are now in very serious trouble.  What has happened so far is that there was one booth where Labor gained on preferences but it was atypical, in most booths they are not doing so no matter how well or badly the LNP are doing.  

8:14 A few booths in Inala - Labor will retain but the swing looks like it will land somewhere around mid to high teens so far.

7:58 A 32% swing against Labor in the first Inala booth but a lot of it is spraying, only 14% to LNP so nothing to see there in terms of the seat being at risk.  

7:53 A weird one in Leichhardt booth, Legalise Cannabis 30.3%.  

7:50 The fourth IW booth in on 2PP, North Ipswich, was bad for Labor in that although it is a poor booth for the LNP, the preference flow for LNP was quite good.  

7:43 In the third IW booth in on 2PP, Raymonds Hill, the LNP share of preferences was only about 44%, compared to 59% in the earlier two.  More of this will make the seat close.   Still nothing in Inala.

7:30 Sixth booth in in IW, Haigslea, was shocking for Labor (25.6%/-17.4%).  However a couple more, North Ipswich and One Mile, were more benign.  There's a definite trend that the swing is bigger so far in the little booths than the big ones and that will keep Labor in it.  

7:23 Pine Mountain the fifth IW booth in on primaries and that doesn't look flash for Labor either (20.5% to LNP, 13.6% against Labor) but Legalise Cannabis is getting big swings to it.  We need to see more preference throws though to see if it tightens up once there is more information there. 

7:15 Two more booths in in Raymonds Hill and Rosewood.  Here the primary swings are 17% to LNP and about 13% against Labor - that is not as bad as the earlier booths but not enough to put Labor out of trouble yet.  The Pollbludger swing estimate is 17.4%, that may come down if those early small booths turn out to be unusual, and possibly Labor's preference share will improve.  Another thing to note here is that One Nation appears to be joining the list of minor parties smoked by the dope party in a by-election; they are running last in a historically strong area.

6:55 Off and running with some small booths in Ipswich West and they have primary vote swings into the low 20s which is an interesting start.  The first booth in on 2PP is Marburg with a whopper 22.8% 2PP swing.  (The 2020 Green candidate's name was Raven Wolf!)

Intro 6:15 (times in Qld time)

Welcome to some quick (or not quick if one of them is close) coverage of tonight's Queensland by-elections for Ipswich West and Inala.  A Newspoll out this week suggested that a small bounce for the transition from Annastacia Palaszczuk to Steven Miles had faded if not then some, so it will be interesting to see just how big the swings will be.  I'll be focusing on these tonight while not distracted by the looming Tasmanian state election; I'll leave the Brisbane Council coverage to others since I normally don't cover local election counts outside my home state.

One reason I have for covering these by-elections is to put up some notes on benchmarking the swings.  It is actually very difficult to benchmark Queensland by-election swings from online material because results more than 40 years old are hard to find, and those since are all over the place in terms of usability.  Often either the source election or the by-election finished as non-2PP contests, or preferences were not distributed at the by-election, or one major did not contest, or there is a demarcation issue surrounding which of the Liberals and/or Nationals should be treated as the 2PP candidate in the seat.  (At one stage the Liberals were a crossbench party while the Nationals governed alone).  

The best estimate I could come up with was an average of 7.7% 2PP swing to opposition in 9 usable government vacancy by-elections since 1984.  I also found four usable opposition vacancy by-elections, with an average swing of 1.2% to the government (which said more about what a weird bunch of contests they were).  Averages that merge these two types of by-elections are misleading and should be avoided.

The former average is blown out by a couple of monsters (17.1% and 19.2%) against the one-term Newman government on the way to it being dumped with a 14% 2PP swing; all these numbers were inflated by a few points by optional preferencing which no longer exists.   There were also some sizeable swings against the Beattie/Bligh governments in their decline to electoral mere mortal status through the mid-2000s.  (There were no by-elections in the 2009-12 term).

I am thinking that while the OPV factor may mean the historic averages are a bit excessive, Labor would be nonetheless doing well in the circumstances to pull up below 7.7% in Ipswich West.  In Inala the loss of a Premier means the historic benchmark should be adjusted to well into double digits, so the 2PP swing has to get up to at least 15% before any attention should be paid to it.

There has been some interest in the Greens not running in Ipswich West (but they only got 6.5% there last time, why should they bother) and an amusing account in The Australian of minor union operatives trying to get Legalise Cannabis HTVs handed out to assist Labor.  Relatively few Greens voters follow how-to-votes but the lack of a Greens attempt might in theory cost Labor most of a point, all else being equal.