11:12 – Alright I think that’s it for tonight.
I won’t be putting up another blog post analysing these results, but I’m going to be looking into the way the by-election has been spun in my Patreon newsletter on Monday. If you want to read it when it comes out, go sign up at Patreon.
11:01 – I think we’re close to the end of the night but I thought I would use the same groupings I used for the pre-election guide to look at the swing in a more simplified way.
There wasn’t a very clear geographic trend in the swings. The smallest swings were in the south, the most conservative part of the seat (and the only part in the Mornington Peninsula council area). The swing was biggest in the centre of the electorate, but not by much.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP 2022 | ALP 2PP 2024 | Swing to LIB |
| Central | 57.6 | 53.7 | 3.9 |
| North | 60.7 | 57.3 | 3.3 |
| South | 47.2 | 45.3 | 2.0 |
| Other votes | 54.9 | 47.5 | 7.4 |
| Pre-poll | 55.8 | 51.6 | 4.3 |
10:36 – And now we have the Carrum Downs pre-poll booth, where there was a 4.04% swing to the Liberal Party.
10:15 – The giant Frankston pre-poll booth has now reported, and the 2PP swing was 4.45% – more than the seatwide average so far, but not particularly high.
9:39 – We’re still waiting to get those big pre-poll booths reported. But we have all of the election day booths in, so I’ve finished my booth map, showing the swings and the percentage.
8:58 – I’m more confident in my previous call but it would be nice to see a few more pre-poll booths reporting 2PP figures. The enormous Frankston PPVC has a relatively modest swing to the Liberal Party on primary votes, so that’s another good sign for Labor.
8:37 – I’m going to be away from my computer for a few minutes so here’s a quick summary of the state of play.
With 27 out of 36 booths reporting 2PP figures, the swing to the Liberal Party is at 3.85%. This includes a batch of almost 4000 postal votes and most election day booths, but no pre-poll votes so far.
We do have one pre-poll booth reporting primary votes, and that was a relatively good one for Labor. At the moment there’s a swing of about 0.5% to Labor on primary votes, and a swing of 7.4% to the Liberal Party.
8:28 – We have the first batch of postal votes reporting, and it’s a swing of less than 6% to the Liberal Party (although it might not be comparing like-with-like). All the same, that’s not enough for the Liberal Party to be winning.
With 25 booths reporting and the 2PP swing currently sitting on 3.48%, I’m calling that Labor will win the Dunkley by-election.
8:20 – We now have 22 booths reporting the 2PP figure, and while there was a slight uptick in the swing it’s now dropped back to just 2.8%.
And we now have 30 booths reporting primary votes, including a pre-poll booth in Mount Eliza where Labor gained primary votes.
8:07 – After 17 2PP booths, the Liberal swing is back up to 3.3%. By the way I thought I would generate my end-of-night map early to see if there’s any trends. Generally it looks like the Liberal Party’s biggest swings are along the south-eastern fringe of the seat.
7:55 – Well the 2PP swing continues to shrink down to 2.49% after thirteen booths, although I expect when we get up to around 20 booths it will be a bit bigger.
7:48 – The 2PP swing has dropped further, to just 2.67%, but the last four primary vote booths to report have reduced the swing to Labor, so that could be a sign of the Liberal 2PP swing bumping up when those booths report a preference count.
7:43 – We now have 2PP figures for ten booths, and the swing to the Liberal Party is down to 3.3%. Meanwhile the Liberal primary vote swing is just under 7% off 17 booths, with Labor up 1.76%.
7:36 – We’re now up to six 2PP booths, with Labor down 4.3% overall. The Liberal Party gained a 3.95% swing in Skye and a 7.79% swing in Karingal Central. These numbers at the moment are not strong enough for the Liberal Party to win, but there’s still a lot of booths yet to report.
7:22 – The 2PP swing in Mt Eliza Central was actually 0.8% to Labor. The overall swing is down to 4.1%.
7:21 – With ten booths reporting primary votes, the swing to Labor is up to 1.7%. I’m probably at the point where I won’t be reporting each individual booth swing, but Langwarrin North, Frankston South, Skye and Karingal Central have all reported.
7:16 – We’re continuing to see some really positive results for Labor. They’ve gained a 6% primary swing in Mount Eliza West. This means their primary vote swing overall after six booths is now 1.3% towards them.
7:14 – Another positive primary vote swing to Labor and modest swing to the Liberal Party in Seaford North.
7:13 – And we’ve got a 5.1% swing against Labor in Frankston Heights East. If that figure was replicated across the seat Labor would narrowly retain the seat.
7:12 – Just a 1.55% swing to Liberal Party on 2PP in Carrum Downs West.
7:10 – It turns out the third booth was Carrum Downs West, not Carrum Downs, and that booth has now reported 2PP figures. Overall it has brought the swing down to 6.8%, but I can’t see what the booth swing was there.
7:07 – Mount Eliza Central is the fourth booth to report primary votes and is much better for Labor than its northern neighbour. There’s a 3.9% swing to Labor, and a swing of just 0.4% to the Liberal Party.
7:00 – And Mount Eliza North’s two-party-preferred figures are now in, with a 9.98% swing to the Liberal Party. But we already know the next two booths were not quite so bad for Labor.
6:57 – Carrum Downs and Frankston Heights East have now reported, and the swing against Labor is down to just 1.6%, and the swing to the Liberals is down to 9.8%. Still a good start for the Liberal Party but a bit more modest.
6:51 – The first booth is Mount Eliza North, and it shows a 13% swing to the Liberal Party and a 6.2% swing away from Labor. There has also been a 4.85% swing away from the Greens there. It’s worth noting that three right-wing parties polled 3.9% there in 2022 but aren’t running today, so that may be exaggerating the Liberal swing, but overall not a good start for Labor.
6:00 – Polls have just closed for the federal by-election for the Victorian seat of Dunkley. Join me as we follow the results tonight.
Labor hold here which is no surprise. The swing of 4% against the government in the ttp is not good news for Labor, Anthony Albanese has his work cut out for him otherwise he might end being a one term government. What’s fascinating with these results is the Labor Primary vote held but the greens slid by 3.5%, either way I think this has certainly squashed any early election.
@tom where? Well take the result as a win
I know you will John, just like Sussssan did.
@spacefish, a less than average swing against the government in a by election is good news. Increasing your primary vote is good news. LNP not picking up all the one nation and united aus party votes is horrible for them. Just wait till next election when they run again.
@John just a quick update Labor’s won but I’m predicting the Liberals will have a higher primary vote than Labor after prepolls and postals. Your thoughts?
Also, how was the campaign? Is it your first time on the campaign?
Want to bet on it NP? LNP isn’t making up 1653 votes on postals. Prepoll is already in.
@Tom I don’t gamble. And it’s possible they could get 2,000 postals. I get that you’re a Labor supporter but still as Nathan said in his concession speech the people of Dunkley have sent Albo a message. Should he run in 2025 he has a good chance of winning. Not certain, but certainly possible.
Oops I lied, still waiting on EAV prepoll which had 28 people in 2022.
In 2022 Labor won postal votes 53/47. Would have to break 45/55 for LNP to get ahead this time assuming the same number of postals. Can’t see an 8% swing there.
The Liberals got a swing off the back of UAP’s and One Nation’s absence. Perhaps they even sucked up their votes. In 2022 the Liberals got most of their voters’ preferences but this time, they got their primary votes.
The Greens’ vote splintered off all over the place – AJP, Vic Socialists and Democrats. The swing away from the Greens is pretty big in relative terms (for a teal-less seat).
Labor’s 2PP was a bit higher than what I and the opinion polling predicted. I did know they’d retain. The revised Stage 3 tax cuts might be why there’s a swing of 10% to the Liberals in Mount Eliza. That was a bit of a surprise. I’m also surprised by the 9.5% primary for the Democrats in Seaford North.
Yes, the message is that they got a below average swing in a by election. That their policies aimed squarely at the suburbs aren’t enough to win the former lnp seats in the suburbs. But I’m sure when inflation is down, everyone has their tax cuts and interest rates come down in 2025 more people will decide to vote for LNP than they do now because…. Nah I don’t know. No clue why you think he has a good chance of winning in 2025.
Bring back UAP and ONP and their preferences flow between 30 and 40% to labor. LNP swing gone.
@Tom win? I said higher primary vote. Not higher TPP.
I think he has a good chance in 2025 because people will get sick and tired of Albo’s bullshit.
Also One Nation and the UAP don’t have 40% Labor preference flows. More like 65% Liberal preference flows.
@Votante there was also a genuine swing to the Liberals from Peta Murphy’s personal vote. One Nation/UAP voters could’ve just gone with the Libertarian (formerly Liberal Democrats) candidate.
And I was about to bring up Seaford North’s high Democrats vote but you beat me to it. Damn it!
Big swing to the Liberals in Langawarrin though in the southwestern part of Dunkley.
Was there a high right-wing minor party vote in Langawarrin last time or is it just a huge swing?
I actually think this is a bad result for the Libs given the economic circumstances. Dutton’s road to Kirribilli was argued by his supporters went through the outer suburbs and regions and excluded the Teal seats. The First booth in looked like the Teal vote returned to the Libs in Mount Eliza but the other booths in Mount Eliza did not swing much to the Libs so the Teal vote may not return even with Morrison gone in 2025. If he did not want the Teal vote the other option was to go through Carrum Downs but Labor’s primary held up. You cannot just preach to the converted and pick up UAP/ONP votes they need to win actual Labor voters to win the seat. A lot of this seat includes white working class/tradie suburbs but they decided to elect a woman who ranted about White Privilege. I actually think if this was a general election, Dunkley would have had a far smaller swing. If Dutton is not picking up Anglo tradies then it is very hard to see him appealing to ethnic working class voters.
@Nether Portal, yes, I agree that a chunk of Peta Murphy’s personal vote went to the Liberals. That Langwarrin result was bad for Labor. Their primary vote crashed. Labor’s primary did increase in various places but it could’ve been ex-Green voters.
@Nimalan, I agree that a general election would’ve seen a smaller swing, especially with the current economic circumstances. If UAP and One Nation were running, the 2PP swing would be even smaller as they would split the right-wing votes.
What I think is more important for Dutton on the path to the Lodge is at least holding seats or even winning seats in Victoria. It’s been talked about for a while that Victoria, especially metro Melbourne, is a weak spot for the Liberal Party and Dutton. Dunkley is interesting as it represents an intersection between Metro Melbourne and a seat with blue collar workers, tradies and aspirational home owners.
I’ve always supported ousting Dutton from the leadership but who can he be replaced with? Josh Frydenberg would be leader if he didn’t lose his seat.
The path is probably still the outer suburbs for 2025 (Blair, Dunkley, Lingiari, Lyons, McEwen, Paterson, etc) but the question is who can do it? Maybe an outsider, someone from the state level to transfer to federal politics?
If Andrew Constance wins Gilmore maybe he could become leader? He was never Premier of NSW nor was he Liberal leader but he was an important Cabinet minister and indeed a popular MP. If he’s on the campaign in South Coast then Liza Butler (Labor) will go easily (she probably already will lose in 2027 to be honest).
@ NP
What about just having Dan Tehan/Susan Ley leader in the interim rather than Dutton they dont really have baggage?
*as leader
@Nimalan they would certainly make good leaders yes and Susan Ley would be the mostly likely candidate for the leadership should Dutton resign.
Another possible candidate would be Jacinta Nampijinpa Price if she moved from the Senate to the House and won Lingiari. She’s more popular than both Albo and Dutton according to polling and if she was leader instead of Dutton the Coalition would win in a landslide. She is even ranked as one of the most trustworthy and popular politicians in Australia.
Absolute fantasy talk.
I would rate Andrew Hastie as the best person in the current Liberal team to take them back into government. While he and Dutton share similar views when it comes to defence, foreign affairs and social values (he is a conservative after all), but he’s not nearly as populist and presents as someone who can appeal more broadly than Dutton. Jacinta Price I think would be (if not already is) a very strong attack dog, but not as the leader, unless you’re the type of person who wants a populist leader.
Anyway, I think both major parties can take something away from the by-election. The Libs’ attempts to appeal to the outer surburban working class/tradie demographic does seem to be working as seen with the big swings in Langwarrin, and to a lesser extent, Karingal and Carrum Downs, although one could say they’ve been chasing this demographic since Tony Abbott’s time or even further back to when John Howard was in power. For Labor, their primary vote has also largely held up – people don’t necessarily want to throw them out, and likely appreciate the changes to the tax cuts more than they feel betrayed by the broken election promise, but the message is most likely “that’s all well and good, but a lot more is needed to be done”.
Same Vic Liberals, always losing.
Dutton. Wo t resign this ca. Be seen as a good result for home if he replicated this at another election he would win a dozen seats dunkley is a strange electorate this is where both parties poll high in the primary and the minors get the leftovers
It looks like the guardian poll was accurate shocked
Voters turnout down 20% to 70% so 20,000 votes fewer. More then enough to cost the libs the seat.
They haven’t counted all the votes yet.
When has a by election swing ever then happened at the next election? They are completely different things.
Sussan would be worse than Dutton as leader. She does everything he does, just worse.
I watched parts of the live coverage on the ABC. Either Kos or Tony from Redbridge said based on their research, Labor is ahead on best to manage the cost of living crisis by 10 points. Also, the Liberals have a legacy effect of better economic managers (Howard, Costello days) but they don’t attribute to the present.
The Liberal result may have hit its peak as there’s an imminent redistribution (which could shave off its southern or eastern parts and increase the Labor margin) and likely fall in inflation and interest rates by the year-end. Also, the tax cuts will take effect in July. Interesting if tax cuts were a factor at the by-election since it’s only March.
Fun fact – yesterday was Antony Green’s, Albanese’s and Jeff Kennett’s birthday.
@tom 2014 Griffith by election
Re the “fun fact” I met Albo last year on his 60th birthday at his favourite Greek restaurant in Marrickville…getting his salad… the Mrs and I had just enjoyed a nice moussaka and lamb shoulder!
Such is the price of having to look good for the cameras!
on susan leys point, I don’t think you can attribute a 4% swing to all seats below that margin falling at the next federal election. for one, some of them have demographics that are a lot more demographically unfavourable to the liberal party under peter dutton (parramatta, bennelong, inner metropolitan greens/labor/teal seats) and others may be subject to a sophomore swing. i do think this is good news for the liberals prospects in paterson, lyons, lingiari, gilmore and hasluck but besides that i don’t think this is a result the liberals should be celebrating at all. the swing was a lot less volatile than i had predicted. not to mention economic conditions are likely to significantly improve within the next year with falling inflation and interest rates.
With respect to Lingiari it is very demographically different from the rest of the nation is not really a good bellwether. The seat is very racially polarized, so the views of people in remote communities is very different to White Residents in Larger Towns. It is also not an easy seat to do door knocking in and a lot of areas are hard to access. There is also a sitting Labor MP which was not the case in 2022. Hasluck is a mortgage belt seat and a good bellwether so if economic conditions improve Labor’s prospects improve there. I think Paterson, Blair and Lyons are the best prospects for the Libs though.
Parramatta and Bennelong should become more favourable after redistribution. Hasluck will become a Sean based seat and be a Labor seat. The new seat however will be notionally liberal. Pearce swan tangey should all come back and I think they have good prospects in Cowan too. Which might mean Anne Aly will contest hasluck and the current mp there try at the new division
@Votante it was also Chalmer’s birthday too
Can we get an astrologist in here to go over the significance of this date?
Awful result for Greens even taking into account the usual by-election excuses.
It’s clear they didn’t try and at a National level are especially distracted with BCC and Tasmania, but but given how diverse the seat is in terms of class, Greens going backwards everywhere doesn’t bode well. Going all in on Palestine has distracted from the issues they were doing well on before.
The areas with a positive swing to Labor (or the smallest positive swings to Libs) were along the Frankston Line and Frankston South as I correctly predicted (to be fair I did underestimate the popularity of Nathan Conroy). I think without Conroy’s popularity, it might had a positive Labor Swing along the Frankston Line and Frankston South as there might be indications Libs continuing to lose university-educated voters but Libs gaining non-university-educated voters.
The Victorian Socialists did very well in Carrum Downs South booth for whatever reason-7% and explained the drop in Labor primary in this particular booth. There weakest area as expected was Mount Eliza. Regarding the Greens drop in primary vote, it is possible that this was because they faced competition from Australian Democrats, Victorian Socialists & AJP. The Other thing is i feel Green vote gets Squeezed out when there is it is a close seat and there is a great focus on the Major party candidates and it is a clear two horse race. Soft Green voters in this seat is Older Millennial in places like Seaford may have switched to Labor as well. That may occur next time in seats such as Deakin, Robertson etc as well. The Greens are not really focused on increasing their vote nationwide uniformly rather concentrating it in the right places.
Lol the Greens were distracted from a by-election they couldn’t win in one of their worst areas by two elections where they can win lots of seats? I don’t know why anyone would care about the Greens result here.
@Nimalan
Regards Carrum Downs South being good for the Vic Socialists – not 100% sure if this is the reason, but the Vic Socialist candidate is a local school teacher and Palestinian-Australian activist with a bit of community profile. Carrum Downs is less Anglo than the rest of Dunkley, a lot of younger migrant families, although more Chinese and Indian rather than Middle Eastern (I think – I should probably have googled the stats before typing that). They did seem to have a few more volunteers out and about than I might have expected, and their volunteers were a bit more ethnically diverse than the ALP and (especially) the Lib ones.
Ben’s right, the Greens only put in a token effort here, not worth the resources when they’ve got state and federal elections to concentrate their resources.
My recap of Dunkley by-election:
Congratulations to Jodie Belyea for winning the Dunkley by-election. A projected 3.6% 2PP swing towards the Liberal Party, with Labor holding on with a reduced margin. Result called on the night. Everything went as I have expected. Note that the average 2PP swing against the government at by-elections held since 1983 was 3.5%, and 5.4% in government seats. The 2PP swing was in fact below average for 2PP swings against the government at by-elections in government seats in 1983.
As has been noted by David Speers and Kos Samaras, Labor’s primary vote has held steady, while the increase in the Liberal primary vote was mainly due to the absence of One Nation and UAP candidates. Labor has had a pretty good result both in terms of primary vote and 2PP.
The scare tactics of the Liberal Party and Advance Australia have animated their right flank and returned them the votes of 2022 One Nation and UAP voters, but such tactics haven’t assisted the Liberal Party in taking enough votes off Labor to make a dent in Labor’s primary vote.
The thing is, the Coalition has to actually take votes off Labor to win seats and government. They cannot win government by merely preaching to their right flank and rely on One Nation, UAP and Libertarian voters to boost their primary vote, which is the strategy Peter Dutton is pursuing.
Last but not least, yesterday was the birthday of Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers and Antony Green. They have all received the best birthday presents yesterday.
NP, the big swing in Langawarrin you were asking about was an error in the counting.
As above, Antony Green saying –
“The anomalous 11% swing at the giant Langwarrin polling place turned out to be exactly that. Counting error corrected on the check count so the swing there is now 5%, in-line with nearby polling places.” and some other discussion, including that it was (around?) 150 votes that transferred from Liberal to Labor.
So.
When formal ballot papers are counted, they are sorted to the first preference. This total pile is counted into bundles of 100 and a leftover bundle. Each pile gets rubber banded and then you put them together and it’s easy to count the total number because you just count the 100’s and a leftover amount.
What’s likely happened here is that someone has mistakenly put one or more Labor first preference bundles into the Liberal first preference bundle pile and then it got tallied (incorrectly) and reported. It didn’t pop up as a mistake because all ballot papers were accounted for.
The check count picked it up.
Go check counts.
@Expat, Demographically Carrum Downs has a small Indian and Filipino community there so it is a bit less Anglo than the rest of Dunkley however it is still very Anglo by Melbourne Standards. I think they are small and unique migrant groups that tend to be assimilated despite their lower incomes.
@Joseph – I did see that much of Lib gains were from 2022 One Nation and UAP voters an was surprised that it didn’t go so much to Darren Bergwerf (gotten 4% of the vote) a ‘cooker’ who is well known to have created to the organization ‘My Place Australia’
@ Expat,
Good point about Carrum Downs. I would expect The Victorian Socialists would do very well in Dandenong & Surrounds if they ran as they do tend to do well among the ethnic working class. Interestingly, Carrum Downs has the largest Hindu Temple in Australia so maybe that has led to it being a bit more diverse.
Raue any insights as to likely inclusion of parts of kinstong this side of the river and subtractionof bits of my Eliza will effect the 2pp
Word on the wire at the after party is that albo has shifted the 2025 budget to march indicating a may election is likely
There was a really low voter turnout which seems to be quite normal in by-elections I’m curious to know who would benefit the higher voter turn out.
@spacefish currently it’s around 90k votes so thats around the same as last time