Secret Harbour By-Election: Prospects And Live

Secret Harbour (ALP 11.54%)
George Tree (ALP) vs Luke Herdegen (ON), Ryan Robertson (Lib) and way too many others
Cause of by-election: resignation of Paul Papalia (ALP)

CALLED (9:34) One Nation gain from Labor

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

Commentary (Comments scrolling up with latest first - refresh for latest comments)

Sunday 10:50 am I am not sure we'll ever see a Labor vs Liberal 2PP for this seat but I estimate that the Liberals would have won it, around 52-48 (by normal preference flows it would be around 53 but I have reduced that on account of it being a normally weak seat).  This suggests Labor would have lost this seat even without the One Nation surge.  Given that the average swing in government by-elections is around 5% an implied swing of 13.5% is high, but also Labor are coming off a still high baseline from the last election, which would account for some of it.  

With results like this there is always a lot of talk about high swings, but the 2CP swing is not meaningful as it is not the same combatants.  The swing against the Labor 2CP is what I call a pseudo-swing; both the pseudo-swing and my estimate of the 2PP swing are lower than in Rockingham 2023.

Sunday 6:00 am What has happened in the prepolls is that Herdegen has actually got a preference flow more like I was expecting for the by-election as a whole, 52.8% (which is not surprising given how strong the prepolls were on primaries for One Nation), and so the result has gone back to the high 50s, 57-43 at present, that was expected before the bad preference flows came in.  Overall now One Nation has 49% of preferences.  From the primaries I would have expected them to get about 52.7% without considering the ballot order, which would close at least a little of the gap.  

Begging For Debunking: A Silly Article Re Stafford Preferences

It was as sure as night follows day, as sure as daylight savings fading the curtains (oh wait) that the Stafford by-election result would see the Queensland right again beating the drum for optional preferences.  On cue we have an op ed by Morgan Begg from the IPA in the Courier-Mail trying to argue that compulsory preferential voting is some kind of aberration that has saved Labor's seat with the aid of obscure leftoids.  Begg's arguments contain a remarkable number of errors, but are also typical of the misguided and poorly debated push to return to full OPV in Queensland.

Begg is probably not responsible for the headline but for starters compulsory preferential voting is hardly an "Absurd Qld voting quirk".  Rather it is the standard form of preferential voting as it exists federally and currently (with very minor differences) in four states - and as it has existed federally, continuously, for 108 years.  (OK between 1984 and 1996 we did have a federal savings provision which allowed for a voter to deliberately exhaust their preferences, but few voters knew about that). 

Stafford By-Election: Prospects and Live

Stafford (ALP 5.32%)

Luke Richmond (ALP) vs Fiona Hammond (LNP) and others

Cause of by-election: death of Jimmy Sullivan (ALP/IND)

ALP retain with c. 4.4% swing to LNP

---

Monday:  Not much more to see

Casey Briggs has tweeted that he understands there are not more than (and probably less than) 2000 postals to come, so further changes to the current 51.2-48.8 margin will be in tenths of a percent if that.

Sunday: Excuses excuses...

Steven Miles has been quoted offering a bizarre excuse for his party's poor result, claiming it was due to One Nation not running and saying "We will never know what the result would have been if they had run and not directed their supporters to vote for the LNP,".  Stafford is one of One Nation's worst seats in the state, had they run I estimate they would have got about 8%.  Most of their voters would have preferenced the LNP anyway.  Care of the 2017 election we have a window on what happens when One Nation recommends preferences to the LNP in some seats and Labor in others - the flow difference was around 10-12%.  So for an open ticket, half that.  This argument if it works at all isn't worth half a percent, it might be worth a tenth of the swing if that.  In fact not all One Nation voters would have even been aware that their party recommended (not "directed") its voters to vote for the LNP, so probably even less.  And some of those who were aware would not have obeyed.

Miles has also referred to Fiona Hammond's local profile, but that was already present in the baseline since she was the candidate last time.  Indeed her time as a councillor was more recent then.  

Another excuse quoted by The Australian is “Right-of-centre voters, after the deal with One Nation, weren’t left with many alternatives in a field of nine candidates, and so we have seen a splintering of the vote amongst other left-of-centre parties.’’  But in fact there were four right wing candidates (up one from 2024) and the three minor righties between them got a 0.3% swing on the combined One Nation and Family First primary from 2024.  It is true that Labor's primary suffered from the extra competition on the left - but that does not explain half of the primary vote swing against Labor flowing through to 2PP swing as well.  

Farrer By-Election Live

Farrer (Lib vs IND 6.2%, Lib vs ALP 12.9%)

Raissa Butkowski (Lib) vs Michelle Milthorpe (IND), David Farley (ON) and others
Cause of by-election resignation of Sussan Ley (Lib)

CALLED (7:46 pm) Farley (One Nation) gain from Liberal

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

Live comments will appear here from 6 pm - once counting gets going from around 7, refresh every 10 minutes or so for latest comments.

Monday 11th: We don't quite know the flows by party yet but what we can track is the proportion of Coalition voters whose votes would need to be switched by a different HTV recommendation for the Coalition parties' decision to preference One Nation to have decided the seat. Currently that number runs at 33.6% (this is Liberal and National combined).  As noted below, while normally it's quite feasible that an HTV decision would carry that much weight, in this case I think probably not.

Although David Farley has obviously won Farrer very easily the mathematical proof that he has done so will require a distribution of preferences meaning he's a fortnight or so from taking his seat.  See here.

Legislative Council 2026: Huon and Rosevears Live And Post-Count (Plus Nepean!)

Huon: Clare Glade-Wright (IND) elected, gain from Dean Harriss (IND)

Rosevears: Jo Palmer (Lib) retain. 

NEPEAN (VIC): CALLED 8:30 pm Marsh (Lib) retain

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

Donations welcome!

If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  Donations can be made by the Paypal button in the sidebar or by PayID (details in sidebar) or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.

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

Live comments (scrolls to top)

All numbers here are unofficial, check the TEC and VEC sites for official numbers

Refresh every 10 mins or so after 6:30 for latest updates

3:03 All over, Palmer wins 52.8-47.2 after a 79-21 split to Labor on the Greens exclusion. A very respectable result for Labor in the north despite losing.

12:00 Palmer didn't cross off Monson but needs a trivial 7.8% of Greens preferences. Based on the scrutineering estimates she will probably end up with a 52-54 2CP which is reasonably close. Maybe at or above the higher end because the Monson-McLennan prefs will be weaker for Labor.

Farrer By-Election 2026

Farrer (Lib vs IND 6.2%, Lib vs ALP 12.9%)
By-Election 9 May
Cause of by-election resignation of Sussan Ley (Lib)

The rolling of Sussan Ley as leader of a floundering Liberal Party has led to a fascinating by-election for her seat of Farrer.  This guide will be updated from time to time with any polling news and with items of interest re candidates etc.  I will be providing live coverage on the night of May 9.

Farrer

Much of the electoral history of Farrer has been told in Antony Green's post here.  It has had just four MPs since 1949, three Liberals and a National.  Until very recently it had only ever been of the slightest interest when vacant.  Tim Fischer easily won the seat for the Nationals at the 1984 general election.  On his retirement in 2001 Sussan Ley gained it for the Liberals by 206 votes after preferences, the result being so close only because Labor ran and recommended preferences to the Nationals.

The seat has never been 2PP-competitive, only sneaking into technical 2PP-marginal territory by a handful of votes in 1972.  It saw its first serious independent attempt when Albury Mayor Kevin Mack ran against Ley in 2019.  This attempt was so hyped that betting agencies gave Mack a roughly even chance of winning but Ley won very easily, clearing 50% on primaries with a 60.9% 2CP.  

Until the 2025 election Ley had the longest active streak of wins on first preferences in the parliament (seven) but the challenge from Voices of Farrer and Climate200 endorsed Michelle Milthorpe severely dented Ley's primary vote and Ley finished up with only a 6.2% margin after preferences.  However, Farrer remained one of the most conservative seats in the country, ranking 11th on Coalition House of Reps 2PP down from 8th in 2022.  Some might think its 2PP being near the top of the list was down to Ley's personal vote but this is actually not true at all; on above the line Senate 2PP Farrer was in fact the Coalition's fourth best seat nationwide. 

Who's in the mix?

There are five four possibly competitive forces in Farrer.  Comments re candidates will be added when known but this is not intended as a candidate guide.   All candidates can be seen in a debate here.

* Liberals.  Contesting.  Justin Clancy (MP for Albury (Lib 16.3%)) was reported as a possible Liberal contender (setting up a scenario where he and Helen Dalton might both resign their state seats to run) but isn't running.  The candidate is Raissa Butkowski, an Albury councillor.

* Nationals.  Contesting.  The Nationals candidate is Brad Robertson, a former military commander.

* One Nation.  Contesting.  Sooner than they might have liked, One Nation faces a potential get off the pot moment.  If their national polling is still as high as at present following the change in Liberal leadership then they would be expected to poll strongly in this by-election and failure to do so would damage their momentum and raise some questions about their standing in the polls. The One Nation candidate is David Farley, a prominent agricultural businessman.  As is common with One Nation candidates he already has a problematic past comment that has resurfaced - but this one is also attracting more endorsements than most.  Oh, more trouble - he claims it was an accident.  (Three times?)

Further debate broke out with news that Farley had sought to join and run for Labor in 2022 and had also donated to them as recently as 2023, although this seems to result more than anything from a dislike of the Coalition.  One Nation supporters have been defensive about this but the fact is that the party has a woeful defection rate and their habit of slurping up other parties' rejects is an obvious contributing factor to this.  

In the final days of the campaign perceptions that Farley is going to become an independent at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, if elected are growing.  

* Milthorpe (IND).  Contesting.  Michelle Milthorpe immediately announced she would run for Farrer again.  

Also-rans 

Interesting by-elections often attract large fields of uncompetitive micro-party and obscure independent candidates, some of whom are often paper candidates from nowhere near the electorate.  

* The Greens' candidate is Richard Hendrie. 

* Family First (v 2) immediately announced they would re-run Rebecca Scriven who polled 2.15% in 2025. I have not been able to verify from her S44 declaration whether Scriven is eligible for election or not - though she plausibly could be - as this apparently depends on her year of birth.

* Gerard Rennick People First announced they were running, to the vivid interest of nobody; they came last with 2.02% in 2025.  Their candidate, James Bonniefin, as best I can tell has never lived in the electorate.

* Sustainable Australia is running Lucas James Ellis.

* Gary Pappin is an independent and a councillor on Murray River Council.  He has experience in mining, farming and water resource management.  Pappin is a Mutthi Mutthi man who has had a significant role in management of the Mungo National Park and the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area.  Pappin doesn't seem to be any kind of easily classifiable independent, I would probably have put him under group 5 (others) in my federal election article.

* Legalise Cannabis are running Aimee Lee Pearson.  It appears she is ineligible for election as her S44 checklist says that she has applied to renounce New Zealand citizenship but has not received the renunciation yet.  

* Roger Woodward is a serial independent candidate with a pretty random collection of policies who has also run in Cook and Berowra.  He does not live in the electorate (in fact he lives in Hornsby in Berowra).  

* The Shooters Fishers and Farmers candidate is Peter Sinclair.

Not Contesting

* Dalton (IND) Helen Dalton is the state MP for the district of Murray, which is the western end of Farrer.  She won the seat in 2019 as an endorsed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate but running a largely independent-style campaign.  She quit said party in 2022 over water issues, and was returned as an independent in 2023 with an outright majority in a field of ten candidates.  Dalton was already canvassing a possible run for Farrer in 2028.  She would have to resign her state seat to contest.  On Mar 6 Dalton confirmed she would not contest.  

* Labor:  I did not believe Labor could have be competitive if they ran and I could not see much reason for them to risk embarrassment by doing so, so I was not surprised they decided not to bother.  Independents will miss that portion of their Labor preferences that comes from how to vote cards, but it is also possible in such a crowded field that an ALP run could have squeezed out independents and stopped them winning.

* Jordi Queiruga (IND): Announced running, has notified me he has withdrawn, website taken down.

* The unregistered Riverina State Party (which supports a new state covering the Victorian/NSW border areas) expressed interest in running but this may have been contingent on its registration being approved in time, which didn't happen.  The party submitted a list of 1646 putative members to the AEC in late October 2025 but has not been advertised yet.  The advertising phase followed by AEC assessment takes more than a month and party registration froze once the writ was issued for the by-election.  (I've heard they may have passed AEC checking prior to advertising.)

Prospects

This section will be edited where needed to update it.  As of 15 March we have a messy four-way battle where it is not obvious who the final two will be.    The AEC will have a challenging task in picking which candidate pair to use for the notional two-candidate count on the night (they may go with Liberal vs Milthorpe just because those were the final two last time, though there has been one poll suggesting One Nation could make the final two.)

Farrer is a relatively strong seat for One Nation, but not super strong.  Their Reps primary of just an average 6.6% is misleading because it would have been affected by Milthorpe and the relatively large field.  In the Senate, One Nation polled 9.96% in Farrer, compared to a NSW total of 6.06%.  If their national polling swing is real and flows through to Farrer they should be looking at a primary of at very least high 20s and probably much more (because One Nation tend to get inflated swings in strong areas) - but it's not that simple.

At the 2025 election, minor right preferences did not assist Ley vs Milthorpe, with One Nation, Family First and GRPF breaking only slightly to her and Trumpet of Patriots and Shooters Fishers and Farmers preferences breaking to Milthorpe.  This suggests a lot of the voters in Farrer while anti-Labor aren't wildly pro-Coalition either and are looking for any alternative ahead of the majors (something we also saw with strong ON flows to independents in the 2022 SA election).  I'd expect on that basis that any independents that run and One Nation are to a more than obvious degree fishing in the same pond.  Perhaps this will make it hard for One Nation to get a really high primary - but it is also a problem for the independent.  

It is possible that Milthorpe could get a large enough primary from many of the seat's non-conservative voters to lead on primaries, with the question then being how strong are the flows between the conservative parties and in what order they are knocked out.  Butkowski seems a good choice by the Liberals to attempt to cover off against Milthorpe.  

Dalton would have been a dangerous opponent on preferences had she run and made the final two, but with a splintered vote and having to sit between Milthorpe and One Nation it could have been hard for her to do so.

The South Australian election showed generally not very good performances by rural/regional independents, with One Nation polling fully as well as their polling implied.  

All kinds of modelling and calculations may be entered into as to what might occur here but in a rural electorate and with this being a by-election and not a general, I suspect a lot of it will be about candidate quality and the outcome could therefore be quite different from any modelling attempt.  

Polls etc

Single-seat polling is unreliable.

An Australia Institute seat poll (presumably a uComms poll) was reported on 9 Mar taken sometime between 5 and 9 Mar with "One Nation topped the count at 28.6 per cent of the total, followed by independent Ms Milthorpe (23.3 per cent), the Liberal Party (19.1 per cent), Labor (not running - 9 per cent), undecided voters (8.6 per cent) and the Greens (3.9 per cent), and the remaining 2.3 per cent favoured another party or candidate."  The news.com.au report omitted a feeble 5.2% for the Nationals.  While the media report said 64.1% of the non-One Nation voters would not consider voting for them at all ... which doesn't necessarily mean they won't preference them.  After reallocating Labor and undecided thanks to the full poll report (with a few minor design issues not helping) I estimate the primaries at One Nation 31.4 Milthorpe 29.4 Liberal 21.7 National 7.4 Green 5.4 other 2.7 (an underestimate as other was excluded from the undecided voter follow-up), unaccounted for 1.8.  Note that Milthorpe's support could be overestimated by her being named, so there's actually a good chance here that the final two would be One Nation vs Liberal, making it possible the Liberals could retain on Milthorpe and Greens preferences.  As with many uComms polls the 18-34 age group is curiously conservative looking in this poll.  A question in the form "who do you least want to win" gets One Nation 37.1 Milthorpe 29.5 Liberal 22.2 National 11.2. 

A second uComms commissioned by Milthorpe and taken April 9-10 has One Nation ahead - on raw primaries ON 30.9 Milthorpe 30 Lib 16.1 Nat 7.1 Greens 3.8 FF 1.2 SAP 0.1 (yay!) Others 2.9 undecided 7.9, coming out to 52.7-47.3 to One Nation by respondent preferences (which I would expect to underestimate the margin because of Coalition how to vote cards favouring One Nation).  The sample has Farley 14.6 points ahead on primaries of male voters with Milthorpe 12 points ahead among female voters.  I have not found a distribution of the undecided.  The major candidates were named.  One Nation's social media account has misleadingly published the breakdown for male voters as if it was the overall poll.

Sky News said that "leaked" (by which they mean given away) Liberal polling had One Nation winning easily but provided no further details, other than it sounds like One Nation are ahead on primaries.  

In non-poll news:

A projection tweeted by the 6 News @auspoll6 Twitter account (with One Nation very narrowly winning) was incorrectly claimed to be a poll by some accounts despite being explicitly labelled as a projection based off Newspoll and as not being a by-election prediction.  The tweet has now been deleted following criticism, including from Pyxis who conduct Newspoll.  What was not stated in the tweet was that the projection (with One Nation narrowly beating Liberal) was not even a uniform swing projection off Newspoll but was a projection of what would happen in Farrer if a general election was held now based on various (as far as I'm aware) unpublished assumptions about how the primary votes found by Newspoll would be reflected in particular seats.  There is a danger even if someone grasps that such a model is a projection of them thinking that there is one particular way to project a seat off a national poll, or even that projecting a seat off a national poll is any kind of reliable exercise.  

Other projections such as MRP outputs are of limited value too.  MRP outputs are meant to be collectively indicative of groups of seat types, and not reliable for a single seat at the best of times.  But also they are not designed for by-elections.  For a by-election what we want to see is seat-specific polling, preferably neutrally commissioned, transparent and certainly without any "aided vote" preambles.

Betting

Amusingly, seat betting has been seen.  Seat betting is not reliably predictive.  As of 16 Feb an early offering was NAT 2.00 Ind 2.99 ON 4.50 Lib 4.75 ALP 34 Greens 67.  

23 Feb: Ind 2.50 Nat 2.60 ON 3.50 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

5 Mar: Ind 1.91 Nat 3.40 ON 4.33 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

As of 13 Mar the above odds hadn't moved, a different site had Ind 1.65 ON 2.75 Nat 4.50 Lib 8.00.  On 15 Mar Ind was out to 1.75 and Nat in to 3.75 on that one.  

16 Mar: Second market now at Ind 1.90 ON 2.40 Nat 3.75 Lib 9.00. 

18 Mar: Both markets similar now: Ind 2 ON 2.60 Nat 5.10 Lib 8.00 vs Ind 1.85 ON 2.5 Nat 5.50 Lib 9.00 

24 Mar: 1.95/2.39/6.40/8.50 vs 1.80/2.30/7.50/8.00

8 April: One is offline, the second is 1.75/1.95/9/13, so the market increasingly sees this as a Milthorpe vs One Nation race.

24 April: Not sure when it finally flipped (had done so by April 20) but now ON 1.40 vs 2.80 and 1.38/3.10

30 April: 1.33/3.30/19/51.

7 May: 1.18/4.75/19/51.  Another site had 1.09 vs 6.50

Prahran and Werribee By-Elections Live

Prahran (Grn vs Lib 12.0%)
Vacancy for resignation of Sam Hibbins (Grn/IND)

Liberal gain from Green/IND (called Sunday 4:20 pm)

Werribee (ALP vs Lib 10.9%)
Vacancy for resignation of Tim Pallas (ALP)
Labor retain (called Thursday 3:30 pm)

----

Distributions: Both preference distributions have been posted and I don't know if there is any scope for further changes so for now it looks like the Liberals have won the primary vote count in Prahran by one vote.  In Prahran, the lead changed a few times through the distribution, and going into the Lupton exclusion the Greens were still ahead. However, that exclusion flowed 63.7% to Liberal.  I have heard from scrutineers that the flow from 1 Lupton votes was 68-32.  

In Werribee, the Liberals gained slightly from the final (Paul Hopper) transfer; here I have heard that the split off the 1 Hopper votes was 60-40 to them but the preferences that had pooled with Hopper from other sources favoured Labor.  What is notable here is that far from the minor candidates preferences pooling with Hopper, he actually went backwards compared to both majors, and got only 27.8% of the preferences at the 3CP stage.  This means that while there was a very large vote for non-majors in Werribee, a lot of those voters were not consistently opposed to the major parties; they just liked someone else more.  The term "double haters" has been thrown around in reference to this result but the distribution doesn't suggest that's what the voters are.  

Friday 6:20 ALP lead in Werribee out to 639, there will be slight changes but I expect it to finish well within 100 of that.  

Friday: Labor has very reasonably claimed victory in Werribee but the result is not official until after the adding of final votes and the distribution of preferences, which I'd expect to happen sometime next week.  In Prahran, it's interesting to note the Liberal primary vote lead over the Greens has come down to seven votes; although the Liberals will win the seat thanks to their superior preference flow, it is still possible they will do so from second on primaries (that would be embarrassing for right-wingers who oppose preferential voting).  

Tony Lupton has been claiming credit for the result in The Australian and suggesting Labor should put the Greens last everywhere.  However not only did his vote not look very Labory in booth terms, but his how to vote card which was orange and said "It's Time For An Independent" was hardly pitched at Labor voters beyond the endorsement from Steve Bracks.  

Thursday 3:30: Recheck primaries have come through without any major changes to Labor's position; this plus the increased lead after postals counted so far makes it clear Labor has retained the seat.   (Update: I understand there are now only provisionals and the last postals to come.)

Thursday 3pm: A report that Labor has done well on primary votes on the late postals and are poised to pull further ahead on 2PP.  (Update: report from Labor that the lead is now 591.)

Thursday midday: Counting of about 2000 Werribee postals has been brought forward to today.  This plus rechecking of booths may put the seat beyond doubt.  

Tuesday: Rechecking in Prahran has not resulted in any significant changes.  Still waiting for rechecked primaries in Werribee.  

Sunday: Where The Lupton Vote Really Came From!

There has been some damage-control spinning from the Greens of a result that is simply very bad.  Among this has been a tweet by leader Ellen Sandell claiming that "Obviously it’s not the result we would have liked but with the unofficial Labor candidate sending their preferences to the Liberals, those Labor preferences have handed the seat to the Liberals this time."  Firstly, Lupton was not a typical unofficial "independent Labor" type candidate but one who'd got involved in some culture war issues and criticised the party.  Secondly, candidates don't send preferences anywhere (it's the lower house) and I'd be surprised if the follow rate for the Lupton card was that high anyway.  Thirdly the evidence is that where Lupton got his votes from tended not to be the ALP support base.  In booth terms, while his vote was pretty flat everywhere, he did worst in the good Labor booths from 2022 and better in the good Liberal booths from 2022 - even though the former had more votes up for grabs care of Labor not running!  Neither result is statistically significant but they do very strongly contradict the idea that the Lupton vote was a large chunk of the former Labor vote - it looks more like an independent conservative sort of thing:

Prahran and Werribee By-Elections

In a nice appertiser for the federal election year, Victoria has a couple of unusually interesting state by-elections coming up on February 8, which I intend to cover on the night.  One is especially interesting because it's a more or less stock-standard test for the theory that the a government is in trouble, the other because of its uniqueness.  This is a preview post for these by-elections where I look at some factors that might affect the results; I will add notes on polling if I see any.  

Prahran (Green vs Lib 12.0%, 3CP Green vs ALP 5.8%)
ALP not contesting
Vacancy for: resignation of Sam Hibbins (Grn/IND) following personal scandal

Prahran is a unique seat to begin with, and this by-election is even more of an oddity because of the decision of the Allan Labor government to not turn the rock over.  Labor cited the fact that they had not won the seat since 2006 and didn't need it as pretexts for not having a go.  Winning would have been challenging because the standard anti-government by-election factor would have made it hard for them to get over the Greens even with the loss of Hibbins' personal vote.  On the other hand with the government currently not polling well there could have been fear of a really bad result (such as being jumped by some indie and finishing fourth).  If Labor could have won the by-election they may well have been in a better position to hold off the Greens at the next general election, but unlikely to happen and not to be.

NSW By-Elections 2024 Live

Pittwater (Lib vs IND 0.7%), Epping (Lib 4.8%), Hornsby (Lib 8.0%) - ALP not contesting any seats

Pittwater expected IND gain, Epping and Hornsby LIB retain.  

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

Updates will appear here from 6 pm, scrolling to the top.

8:08 Very distracted by ACT but a very large prepoll has come in and there is nothing dangerous there for Scruby.  Scruby's lead is too large.  

7:37 The pattern in the booth voting is quite set in Pittwater and something very radical has to happen in prepolls or it's all over and Scruby has won.  

7:11 Several more booths as well as postals in in Pittwater and things are not getting any better now for the Liberals after that aberrant third booth.  

6:57 Uneven swing between booths in Pittwater, the third one in actually swung to Ryburn on projected 2CP.   

6:51 Whopping swings to Scruby in Pittwater in the early booths, coming out at around 10% 2CP!  If this continues it will be over pretty fast.  Nothing scary for Liberals to see in the other seats, the Greens a distant second in both of them.  

6 pm: This thing is on, there's even a results page.  No action expected for at least half an hour.  

Every Child Wins A Prize: Federal Seats With Swings To All Contestants

During last night's Cook by-election count there were a few comments about the swing column.  All six parties/independents had recorded a positive swing from the 2022 election.  In the case of Cook this was not at all surprising - three of the parties and the one independent had not even run in the seat in 2022, so their "swing" was automatically plus.  The Greens were always going to get a primary vote swing with no Labor candidate and no prominent left/centre independent.  That left the Liberals, and the question was whether they could gain enough primaries from the 34.6% who voted Labor, UAP or One Nation in 2022 to compensate for replacing a former Prime Minister and 17-year incumbent with some dude from outside the electorate.  This they did with 7% to spare and lo and behold there's a neat little line of pluses in the swing column for the recontesting candidates:

(Apologies to AEC, I've pinched the Wikipedia version for clearer display)

This is a common event in by-elections where one major party doesn't contest.  It has happened by my count in 9 of 21 such by-elections in the last 50 years, the others being Perth and Batman 2018, Higgins 2009, Isaacs 2000, Holt 1999, Blaxland 1996, Wentworth 1995, and Menzies 1991.  Perth 2018 achieved this feat despite having 15 candidates, however only three parties were recontesting.  Blaxland 1996 had five recontestants - I should note that I treat an independent as such only if it is the same person running and doing so as an independent both times.  

2024 Cook By-Election: Well I Don't Think I Should Call It "Live", But Anyway ...

COOK (Lib vs ALP 12.4% - ALP not contesting)

Cause of by-election: resignation of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Lib)

CALLED 6:46 pm Liberal retain - Simon Kennedy replaces Scott Morrison.  

Liberals win on first preferences. 

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

9:09 Such postals as are going to be counted tonight is in now, and there is no change to the overall pattern with Simon Kennedy on a primary vote of 62.7% and a 2CP of 70.8%.  Nothing to concern the Liberals in one of their safest seats tonight but it is not in such places the next election will be won and lost. Unless something crops up that needs debunking, that is all from me for tonight.  

8:20 Animal Justice are opening up a gap to the Libertarians for third but postals might narrow this.  Overall the Liberal result is no cause for concern - they would expect some aspect of swing against them over the departure of an ex-PM, but also swings to them because there is no Labor candidate; to come out with a gain of 6.5% out of primary vote off those two things seems fine.  But I wouldn't say it's an especially good result because there's no basis for making such a call when the opposition is so weak.  

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.    

Making Seats "Marginal" At By-Elections Is Meaningless

Last night saw the Labor government get the good end of the stick in the Dunkley by-election, easily retaining a seat that was precariously above the long-term average swing for government vacancy by-elections.  It's no disaster for the Liberals who have got a modest swing with some mitigating factors but they (especially Jane Hume) were out in force last night spinning the outcome as a triumph.  Together with the usual nonsense about first-term governments not in recent decades losing seats and governments not losing by-elections caused by deaths (both based on trivially small sample sizes) I heard a lot about how they had turned Dunkley marginal and they were coming for the seat.

Marginal seat status where a seat is retained is determined by general election results not by-elections (so Dunkley is no more a marginal seat than it was before), but this made me wonder, does getting a seat inside the marginal range at a by-election predict anything at all?  I've found that such seats have historically almost always been retained by the government at the next election, although on average the election-to-election swing has been worse than the national average in such cases.  The idea that the Liberals have put Dunkley in serious danger next time with a swing that is not even bog-average for a government vacancy by-election has no basis.  

Dunkley By-Election Live

DUNKLEY (ALP, Vic 6.27%)

Jodie Belyea (ALP) vs Nathan Conroy (Lib) and others
By-election caused by death of Peta Murphy (ALP)

CALLED 8:42 pm Labor retain

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

Updates appear here, scrolling to the top.  When counting is underway refresh every 10-15 mins for new comments.  

Thursday: Labor is now very close to winning the postal count and the 2PP is now 52.71; it is likely to finish between that number and 53.  The Australian published an incorrect article today referring to a 10% drop in turnout; the count does not finish until all postals that can be admitted are received 13 days after polling day.  The turnout is currently 83.5% and there should be about 1% or so to come; the turnout decline will be smaller than at least 16 of the last 20 by-elections, potentially 18.  Media should not publish turnout doomery articles without consulting with the AEC or someone who has a clue.  

Tuesday: With vote totals unlikely to change by even 1% from here it's worth noting an outstanding performance by the uComms seat poll.  I've been critical of poor results from this pollster recently (especially Tasmania 2021) but this one is remarkably good by seat poll standards especially. uComms' numbers with undecided redistributed are below with the actual current numbers in brackets:

ALP 40.1 (41.1)

Lib 39.3 (39.3)

Grn 8.2 (6.3)

LTN 1.6 (2.5)

Ind/Other 10.8 (10.8)

2PP 52 (52.6)

n=626.

2024 Dunkley By-Election

DUNKLEY (VIC, ALP, 6.27%)  By-election March 2
Jodie Belyea (ALP) vs Nathan Conroy (Lib) and others
Cause of by-election: Death of previous incumbent Peta Murphy
Outlook: interesting; seat margin is just above average swing for government vacancies

Early this year we'll get the first electoral test for the Albanese Government on its own turf when the division of Dunkley goes to the polls in sad circumstances after the death of popular previous MP Peta Murphy.  Last year Labor sensationally captured Aston from the Liberals during a period of honeymoon polling, while the Coalition had a pretty good swing result when it retained the uncompetitive seat of Fadden in Peter Dutton's home state.  By-elections are more random and a lot less predictive than politics junkies tend to think they are, but an outer-suburban seat, on a loseable margin, with the honeymoon gone, seems much more significant.  

The by-election has been announced for March 2.  The writ will be issued Jan 29 with close of nominations Feb 8.

Mulgrave By-Election 2023: Prospects And Live Commentary

Mulgrave (Vic, ALP vs IND 10.8, ALP vs Lib 10.2)
Vacancy for resignation of Daniel Andrews (ALP)

ALP Retain (Called 9:40 pm)

Final 2PP swing was 5.5% but Liberals unexpectedly finished third after preferences!  

Large (just over 10%) primary swing against Labor, but going to left as well as right. 

Normal by-election 2PP swing result for vacating Premier, but finishing third is embarrassing for Liberals.

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

Updates (scrolling to top)

Tuesday 27th The final result is in - the Liberals did finish third! The preferences from the Libertarian candidate with the donkey vote on board (but not at all just for that reason) flowed exceptionally strongly to Cook (61% vs 11% to Liberals) putting him close enough to just overtake Mann on Green preferences at the end by 158 votes. However the Liberal 2PP (45.33) is still much higher than the Ian Cook 2CP (43.51).  

7:20 Sunday The VEC will not realign the preferences before the preference distribution so we'll be waiting for postals to get the final margin and the expected confirmation that the Liberals were second, probably in a bit over a week.

Do Greens Do Badly At By-Elections When Both Major Parties Run?

(This article has been graded Wonk Factor 3/5.  It contains plenty of number-crunching and the odd statistical concept.)

---

Today's article is a test of a hypothesis I thought was worth looking at.  In the recent Fadden federal by-election, the Greens were among the obvious losers, copping a 4.56% swing against them and falling to fifth on primaries behind Legalise Cannabis.  Then came the Rockingham state by-election in which the Greens were again smoked by the dope party despite having outpolled them at the previous upper house contest for the seat. The Greens did pick up a swing there (currently standing at 1.7%) but that was nothing but crumbs given that Mark McGowan's departure left a 33.4% swing for other parties to feast on.  On the other hand, there was a significant local-government based independent, Hayley Edwards, running.

Social media has been awash with Labor stans and the occasional op ed or media hack claiming that one poor result and one ambiguous result are clearly all about the party's stance on the Housing Australia Future Fund bill and are a portent of incandescent doom for the Greens at the next Senate election!  Given the variability of by-election outcomes and the fact that the Green vote is stable at its election level in national polling, those involved could as always improve the standard of Twitter psephology by desisting from this untestable game and deleting their accounts.   

On the other hand, I have seen a theory that the Greens will often do badly in by-elections because their by-election campaigns tend to be token attempts in seats they can't win and without the accompanying upper-house focused campaigns to drive up the vote.  So is there any truth in this overall, or is it really just the case that the Greens vote easily goes soft when there is even modest new competition?

Rockingham By-Election 2023: How Big A Swing Is Too Big?

Note for Tas audiences: Cassy O'Connor recount is covered here

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

Rockingham (WA) (ALP 37.7%)

By-election for resignation of Mark McGowan (ALP), MP since 1996

CALLED 7:40 pm Magenta Marshall (ALP) retains, will probably just be taken to preferences

Second place after preferences TBD between Hudson (Lib) and Edwards (IND) (edit: Edwards was second.)

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.  

2023 Fadden By-Election

FADDEN (LNP Qld 10.63%)

July 15 by-election
Cause of by-election: Resignation of Stuart Robert (MP since 2007)
LNP should retain seat easily

Welcome to my brief guide to the second by-election of the Albanese government's first term, for the northern Gold Coast seat of Fadden.  Fadden has been vacated by former Minister Stuart Robert, an endlessly controversial MP and close ally of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison (whose career as member for Cook is widely believed to be approaching its end as well).  

Fadden was created in 1977 and was initially very slightly Coalition-leaning compared to the national average, running at just over 1 point above the national 2PP in 1977, 1980 and 1983.  On this basis Labor won it in 1983 but an adverse redistribution made it notionally Liberal and the one term ALP incumbent, David Beddall, decamped to Rankin.  The seat was won back by the Liberals in 1984 and remained fairly marginal through the Hawke/Keating years but was won with a large swing in 1996 (partly fuelled by a further redistribution) and since then has generally favoured the Coalition by between 10 and 13% compared to the national 2PP.  In this time only in 1998 did the 2PP go below 60% to Coalition so it is now a very solid LNP seat with a serious claim to be one of the most electorally boring seats in the nation.