Thursday 8:55am – I should probably make one more post here with now that the AEC has finished their 2CP count. Labor’s Basem Abdo is on 55.08%, which is a comfortable victory after a lot of doubt.
Here is the final version of the chart I’ve been posting.
Tuesday 12:20pm – The AEC has started publishing 2CP counts between Labor and Carly Moore on their standard reporting platform. About two thirds of votes have been added to the count and Labor has 54.82%. While that will likely bounce around, it looks like a clear Labor win, and more so than other independent races like Bean and Fremantle.
Monday 11:36am – The Greens preferences have been distributed and we can call this as Labor retain.
68.6% of Greens preferences flowed to Labor, 24.7% to Moore and 6.6% to the Liberal.
The current standings are
- Abdo (ALP) 48.0% (+11.4%)
- Moore (IND) 29.7% (+4.1%)
- Ghani (LIB) 22.3% (+1.1%)
Based on the Fowler preference count we would expect about 70% of Liberal preferences to flow to Moore, leaving her on about 45-46% of the 2CP. Moore would need over 91% of Liberal preferences to win.
Friday 11:51am – Joseph Youhana’s preferences have just been distributed, and Carly Moore has gained over 58% of these votes, with just 16% going to Labor.
The new standings are:
- Abdo (ALP) 36.6% (+2.2%)
- Moore (IND) 25.6% (+8.1%)
- Ghani (LIB) 21.2% (+2.2%)
- Garcha (GRN) 16.7% (+1.4%)
Carly Moore’s chances of winning now look very good. She needs just 64.4% of the remaining preferences to win.
We don’t have a lot of great parallels ofr this race. The best one I can consider is Dai Le in Fowler in 2022. She likewise won a seat off a new Labor candidate in a multicultural area with Liberal preferences but not with Greens preferences. Moore is an ex-Labor mayor while Le was an ex-Liberal, which may help her a bit with the Greens.
Le gained 71.93% of Liberal preferences and 35.53% of Greens preferences. The distribution of preferences is slightly different because these candidates have gained other preferences through the count. In Fowler, 69.14% of Liberal preferences flowed to Dai Le in the distribution. For the Greens, they were knocked out before the UAP and flowed 52.5% to Labor, 24.8% to Le, 13.5% to Liberal and 9.3% to UAP.
If I apply 71.9% preferences to Moore to the Liberal vote and 35.5% to the Greens vote, she ends up losing with 46.7%.
But perhaps Moore will do better than Dai Le did? She seems more likely to peel away Greens voters, and apparently the Greens favoured her on the how-to-vote at pre-poll before changing their mind on election day.
This looks very close.
Thursday 12:55pm – Preferences from the Muslim independent Moslih have been distributed, and the Greens have overtaken Youhana. Youhana will now be knocked out.
The new standings are:
- Abdo (ALP) 34.4% (+1.0%)
- Ghani (LIB) 18.9% (+0.4%)
- Moore (IND) 17.5% (+1.1%)
- Garcha (GRN) 15.3% (+5.1%)
- Youhana (IND) 13.9% (+0.7%)
Youhana’s how-to-vote recommends preferences to Moore, so it seems likely that she will overtake the Liberal and stay ahead of the Greens, but really we just have to keep watching.
Wednesday 5pm – The count has now been updated with all votes for the One Nation candidate distributed to the next choice. Carly Moore picked up 1.7%, Labor 0.6%, Liberal 1.4% and Youhana 1.1%.
The next exclusion will be Muslim independent Moslih, who is on 8.2%. The Greens are on 10.2%, and Youhana on 13.2%. It is possible his preferences could push the Greens ahead of Youhana, but I doubt they will flow that strongly.
Wednesday 1:28pm – The fifth elimination has now been concluded, with Legalise Cannabis preferences being distributed. Moore has picked up another 1% of the formal vote, up to 14.7%, Youhana has picked up 0.2%, Labor is up another 0.7%, and the Liberal is up 0.2%.
One Nation will be excluded next, with 5.6% to distribute.
6:56pm – Two more counts have been conducted, distributing Family First and Citizens Party preferences. Legalise Cannabis are next. The full stats for the four lead candidates are at the bottom, but in short Carly Moore has picked up 1.8%, Labor has picked up 1.6%, Youhana 1.1% and Liberals 1.2%.
25.4% of the vote is sitting with the other four candidates:
- Greens – 9.1%
- Moslih – 7.6%
- One Nation – 5.0%
- Legalise Cannabis – 3.7%
Greens preferences flow to Moslih (who will already be out), then Youhana, then Labor, then Moore, so it is entirely possible that if many voters follow that how-to-vote it could still disrupt things. Moslih was endorsed by Muslim Votes Matter, who published a HTV ordering Greens, then Labor, then Youhana, then Moore, then Liberal. Moslih published his own how-to-vote card, but it had all the candidates polling more than him in the same order. So it is quite possible Moore could do poorly from voters following how to vote cards. But many will make up their own mind, and a popular independent may continue to attract more preferences.
Original post, 2:48pm Tuesday – The AEC has now commenced the distribution of preferences for the seat of Calwell. Normally the AEC does not publish distribution of preference data until the count has concluded, but in recognition of the great deal of public interest the AEC has published a page where they will post the latest DoP data after each round of the count.
There are 13 candidates running, so there will be eleven counts. So far the first three counts have been conducted, with independent candidates Peach and Ragupathy and Trumpet of Patriots candidates Issa already excluded with their votes distributed. Family First candidate Bengtsson is next in line.
You would expect each round of the count to take longer, as more and more votes need to be moved.
This table shows the share of the vote for the four leading candidates on the primary vote and each subsequent round:
Independent candidate Carly Moore is off to a strong start. She has already increased her primary vote by 0.8%, whereas fellow independent Joseph Youhana is only up 0.2%, Labor is up 0.5%, and the Liberal is up 0.4%.
The first question is whether Joseph Youhana can overtake Carly Moore and make the 3CP. Right now that looks pretty unlikely, as Moore is widening her lead over Youhana.
Moore right now looks quite plausible to overtake the Liberals, and if so I think she would probably be in a position to gain a strong flow of preferences and potentially beat Labor.
I’ll keep this post updated as we learn more.
I’ve seen posts online saying that Labor has got this in the bag because scrutineers are saying most Greens votes will be distributed to Labor.
There’s probably less donkey voting amongst Greens voters. Some may be rusted-on Greens voters who put 2. Labor, because it’s their preferred major party or because most HTV cards elsewhere and at previous elections say “2. Labor”. They may not necessarily follow the HTV card in order from start to finish. I also guess that there are pro-Palestine voters who ranked Labor highly because they feel it’s better the devil they know than the devils they don’t.
I don’t think Moore will get a huge boost from the distribution of preferences when the Greens are excluded. This is despite benefitting heaps from excluded minor parties and independents. This was thanks to her pole position on the ballot. She didn’t run on a teal or pro-Palestine platform.
The strong preference flow from Moslih to the Greens probably suggests either: his voters voting on ideology or a high rate of adhearance to either his HTV or the MVM HTV.
Yes I did state this earlier it would have been better is youhana had beaten the greens as he would of got greens preferences
After Yohana’s exclusion, the current standing of candidates are:
ALP: 36.59%
Moore: 25.56%
LIB: 21.20%
Green: 16.65%
Ben mentioned in Folwer at the 2022 federal election, which was also a contest between Labor and a conservative independent, when the Greens were excluded, preferences flew 52.5% to Labor, 24.8% to Le, 13.5% to Liberal and 9.3% to UAP. Assuming Greens 4CP preferences flow 55% to Labor, 25% to Moore and 20% to Liberal, I got a 3CP of:
ALP: 45.75%
Moore: 29.72%
LIB: 24.53%
In Fowler in 2022, 69.14% of Liberal preferences flew to Dai Le at the exclusion of the Liberal Party. Asssuming 70% of Liberal preferences flew to Moore at the exclusion of the Liberal Party, I got a Labor vs Moore 2CP of 53.1% to Labor. Labor will retain Calwell, but with the lowest primary vote, 2CP vote and probably notional 2PP vote in the seat’s history.
Joseph, this election showed it is not just the Liberals having issues with ‘teal’ independents. Labor can also have problems with community independents challenging them, with Bean and Fremantle joining Calwell as ‘close calls’ that could have ended up like Fowler 2022 had Labor’s vote been slightly lower.
@yoh agreed labors survival in calwell can be atrributed to the large field and fractured vote. if youhana managed to stay above the green he likely would have won due to having green preferences over labor. Labor will have problems here in 2028. could also be in trouble in watson and blaxland if a community independent favourable to the libs enters the race.
Greens preferences don’t tend to follow the card to the letter. KB once had a piece which suggested only about 10% of Greens voters do so. Instead, the voters simply choose to preference Labor on their own. If they have strongly favoured Abdo as expected in this case then they would have done so if Youhana was the challenger as well. Youhana doesn’t appear to be highly regarded by Greens and MVM votes so there’s no way he would have stitched together the votes to win.
By “doesn’t appear to be highly regarded” that is regarding Palestine. He didn’t make any noises on the topic and as an Assyrian Christian I doubt the Muslim community would prefer him to Abdo.
It depends on how disciplined the pro-Palestine and rusted-on Greens voters were in ensuring they had Labor ahead of Liberals and independents whose Palestine platform was unclear. As Basem Abdo has Palestinian heritage, these voters might’ve found a way to put him higher than the rest.
There would likely be Assyrian Christians in both Gaza and the West Bank as well as refugee camps in Iraq, so Youhana would have to tread carefully in any public statements.
It’s unfortunate he didn’t get a couple more % PV, he might have made his mark in Parliament, while Abdo is most likely an ALP placeholder, if he was bolshie on Palestine he wouldn’t have been preselected, imo.
Final prediction 52.5% LABOR WIN.
@ Gympie
Palestianian Christians are not Assyrians they are Arabic speaking and are either Greek Orthodox or Melkite Catholic while Assyrians are Nestorian Christians or Oriental Orthodox. The Chaldeans are simmilar to Assyrians but Catholic.
Just had a look at the exclusion of Greens preferences and Labor’s attracted close to 69% of Greens preferences, putting them just over 48% 2CP, Carly Moore performed very poorly on those preferences with just over 24% of it.
That should settle it. Calwell will be a Labor retain.
Will be interesting how many Liberal preferences go to Carly Moore over Labor. I think Moslih vote will flow stronger to Labor over 1 Green voters who maybe more likely to be non-Muslim and more willing to preference Carly Moore
yep moore was never gonna win. Youhana was the best hope of winning this seat but he fell short of the greens. still its become marginal and labor will now need to defend this once safe seat
ABC is calling Calwell a Labor retain
Yes I also called Calwell 20 minutes ago.
@Nimalan
Palestinian Christians mostly belong to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, but also to the Anglican, Lutheran and other Protestant churches, but there are also Syrian, Jordanian, Assyrian, Chaldeans and other non Arab Christian minorities in Gaza and the West Bank.
called it on friday
well thursday after it became clear Youhana wasnt gonna make the 2cp
will also be interesting to see TPP here with current 3CP at 48/30/22 for ALP/Moore/Lib
There are cases in history of preferences flowing at over 91%. For example, in the McPherson electorate in 1972. After the distribution of all the minor parties, it was ALP 43.0%, Liberal 28.9% and Country Party 28.2%, 91.7% of the Country party preferences went to the Liberals (and this included the 2.7% of votes that were added to the country party total from minor candidates). In a 3-cornered contest like that, at that time, preference flows of over 90% were not unusual. There’s no evidence that Liberal preferences will flow at anything like this rate in this election, but I’d like to hear some scrutineers reports.
TCP for 39 of 39 booths: Abdo 55.1% wins over Moore 44.9%
@andrew not confirmed lib preferences havent been distrbuted yet
It seems on a TCP basis Moore did best in (a) Craigieburn itself, and (b) the more Liberal-friendly areas like Greenvale, Attwood, and Westmeadows. I guess conservatives seem to have used her as their “Anyone but Labor” candidate….
Labor still easily won Broadmeadows, Meadow Heights, Coolaroo, etc – the poorer and most hardcore Labor parts of the seat.
@John I believe the count on the AEC’s virtual tally room effectively reflects the distribution of the liberal preferences. The fact that this has not been double reported on the Calwell Distribution of Preferences page doesn’t mean it’s not been conducted all through today or that these results are wrong.
Cragieburn is more middle class and less Muslim/Middle Eastern than Meadow Heights etc. There is a great article below. Many local branches were unhappy that Basem Abdo was imposed on them. Carly Moore actually sought Labor preselection. There some dissapointment in the Syriac/Chaldean community that a member of their community was not chosen. Joseph Youhana probbaly benefited from this. Carmen Lazar who was the Liberal candidate from McMahon actually visited Calwell.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/how-a-labor-power-play-turned-calwell-into-australia-s-most-unpredictable-seat-20250507-p5lx92.html
Nimalan, does that make Calwell a district similar to Werriwa or McMahon in Sydney? Both of these seats are considered ‘mixed’ in nature, with the suburbs closest to the major centre/s (i.e. Liverpool, Fairfield or Blacktown) containing most of the CALD minorities whereas those suburbs further afield away from the major hubs consisting predominantly of ethnically white voters.
Yoh An
I still feel that that Calwell is much stronger for Labor demographically then Werriwa/McMahon. Even though Cragieburn and more recently Mickleham are less Middle Eastern/Muslim they are still quite CALD they have a larger South Asian community. These suburbs are very recently built and reflects newer migration patterns. Greenvale/Atwood are more affluent and more Italian so a bit like Abbotsbury in Fowler. I would say Calwell is what happens if you mix Blaxland, Fowler and Chifley so no perfect analogy to a Sydney seat but more a cocktail of 3 different Sydney seats. I would say Bruce/Holt are more mixed seats and closest to Werriwa and maybe Gorton but to a lesser extent.