Bradfield Archive

Election results on Saturday have largely been interpreted as some sort of endorsement of new Liberal leader Tony Abbott, yet looking at the figures the result is highly unremarkable for the Liberal Party.

Bradfield and Higgins are both incredibly safe seats for the Liberal Party. Bradfield is the second-safest Liberal seat in the country, and neither seat has ever gone to preferences. The Greens achieved a strong result in a right-wing heartland seat while running an explicitly left-wing campaign.

Read the rest of this entry »

8:32pm – There are reports tonight that police were called to Warrawee booth today following an incident where an abusive DLP worker assaulted a Greens volunteer, who he pushed over a fence. The worker had apparently been verbally aggressive to a number of other booth workers.

8:14pm – The best ever vote for the Greens in the House of Representatives before tonight was 28% in the Kooyong by-election in 1994, when Peter Singer ran after Andrew Peacock’s retirement. Hamilton is on track for over 34% tonight, the first time the Greens have cracked 30% in a federal lower house seat.

8:01pm – The Liberals are going to win both seats tonight, although there have been swings against them in both seats. In Bradfield the Greens are on 26% on primary vote, while they are on 35% in Higgins. The Greens are just below 40% on 2CP in Bradfield and 43% in Higgins.

7:21pm – Nothing interesting happening here so I’ll head to the Greens party at te Pymble Hotel and will be offline for a few minutes.

7:15pm – Second booth is in for Bradfield: Chatswood North. The Greens are now above 20%.

7:12pm – First two booths in Higgins have come in. In Toorak West the Liberal vote dropped 24%. While the Libs did much better in Kooyong Park, Hamilton is still above 30% primary. Strong, but not enough to win.

6:59pm – Now I’m updating on my iPhone due to slow computer. Reports say that Greens not far behind Libs at Ferndale, informals coming third again.

6:52pm – First booth in is Lady Davidson Hospital in Turramurra. It’s extremely strong for the Liberals, with over 70% of the primary vote. Best minor candidates were the Sex Party and Climate Sceptics, who each polled 6 votes.

6:51pm – By the way, I am using incredibly slow 2G internet on my computer as it stands, so while I’m scrutineering I may be behind on any results.

6:47pm – I’m scrutineering at Cromehurst Special School in Lindfield. They have started by sorting ballots by first preference, but they are not checking whether each ballot has managed to get all 22 boxes numbered consecutively, which will be time consuming. I have already noticed a vote for Susie Gemmell (GRN) which will be informal because it is missing a 17th preference. Compulsory preferential voting is madness.

As it stands Fletcher is well in front, with Gemmell clearly second followed by the Sex Party and the CDP candidate at the top of the ballot. Informal votes is outstripping all but Fletcher and Gemmell, although of course this only includes clearly informal votes (such as blank votes).

6:00pm – Polls have just closed in Bradfield and Higgins. It should take a little while longer to get results in Bradfield than in Higgins due to the large field of candidates. I’ll be scrutineering in Lindfield while trying to keep up with results.

Voters will soon go to the polls in Bradfield, in northern Sydney, and Higgins, in eastern Melbourne, to elect new members of Parliament to succeed former Liberal MPs Brendan Nelson and Peter Costello.

I will be at Cromehurst Special School in Lindfield today, and mostly I will probably be covering it on my Twitter account, although if there is news I may update it on this blog post.

Paul Fletcher leaving Westfield Hornsby - and taking his signs with him - very shortly after arriving Thursday evening.

I will be covering tonight’s results as well, originally while scrutineering  at Cromehurst, since I figure you won’t get solid results for a while and I’m fascinated to see how high the informal vote goes with such a large field.

While these two seats are both blue-ribbon Liberal seats, recent events and strong Greens campaigns should give the Greens a strong showing. Indeed, when I was in Hornsby on Thursday evening, Liberal candidate Paul Fletcher packed up and left his stall quickly after arriving, not long after Greens candidate Susie Gemmell tweeted that she was on her way. The sense from locals is that, while the seat is extremely Liberal and they are very strong frontrunners, Fletcher has little campaigning skills and the party has been hurt by recent internal divisions.