Resolve Strategic: Labor 32, Coalition 26, One Nation 22, Greens 10 in New South Wales

NSW Labor regains a few points in the Resolve Strategic series, in the second state poll since the One Nation shockwave first registered. Also featured: extensive preselection news.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the regular bi-monthly Resolve Strategic result on New South Wales state voting intention (available in the print edition, but not yet online that I can see) has Labor up three points to 32%, the Coalition up one to 26%, One Nation down one to 22% and the Greens steady on 10%. Chris Minns holds a 38-18 lead over Kellie Sloane on preferred premier, little changed from the previous result of 38-17. The poll was compiled from New South Wales responses out of the pollster’s last two national surveys, with an overall sample of 1000.

We’re now well inside a year out from the next election, and preselection news is starting to accumulate:

• Lachlan Leeming of The Australian reports that Mark Buttigieg is likely to lose his position on Labor’s Legislative Council ticket to Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey, having lost favour with the Right after the Electrical Trades Union detached itself from the faction. Buttigieg was the last of the seven members elected from the Labor ticket in 2019. Another Right faction MLC, Greg Donnelly, is “mooted by some colleagues as likely to retire”, but his position is in the domain of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Left faction MLC Peter Primrose is also expected to retire, his likely successor being Asren Pugh, “a former councillor at Byron Shire who is set to benefit from the Left’s rules that one of their candidates be from regional NSW”. The report further says the male dominance of the ticket could put pressure on male MPs in the lower house.

• The Nationals upper house preselection in March returned the party’s three incumbents, Sarah Mitchell, Nichole Overall and Wes Fang, to the second, fifth and eighth positions mandated to the party on the joint Coalition ticket. However, the eighth position seems a highly dubious prospect in the current electoral environment, such that the result raises doubts about the future of Fang, who has a strong social media following and support base on the right. The Daily Telegraph’s The Sauce column reports Fang may have been the victim of a lack of tactical adroitness by Young Nationals members whose enthusiasm for unsuccessful newcomer Angus Webber helped Overall take the fifth position at Fang’s expense. It further reports “strong rumours” that Fang is considering defecting to One Nation, noting he is “old friends” with Barnaby Joyce and has “removed Nationals branding from some of his social media posts”. Former Nationals leader and Bathurst MP Paul Toole has also confirmed being approached by One Nation.

• In a review article on One Nation in the Sydney Morning Herald in late March, “political strategists” identified a threat to the Nationals in seven of their 11 seats — Upper Hunter, Tamworth, Dubbo, Bathurst, Oxley, Coffs Harbour and Clarence — together with Liberal-held Goulburn. Conservative vote-splitting — a particularly live issue under New South Wales’ system of optional preferential voting — “may even lead to Labor picking up more metro seats”. The most vulnerable Labor-held seats are said to be Cessnock, Camden and Penrith. Lachlan Leeming of The Australian reports One Nation’s upper house ticket is likely to be led by Stuart Bonds, who has twice achieved strong results in the federal seat for Hunter.

• Michael McGowan of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Sue Higginson, who filled David Shoebridge’s vacancy when he was elected to the Senate in 2022, will lead the Greens’ upper house ticket at the next election. Higginson won 51% from a party membership vote held last month, ahead of 24% for the other incumbent seeking re-election, Abigail Boyd, who retains the second position from which she was elected in 2019.

• Mark Hodges, first-term Liberal member for Castle Hill, lost a preselection vote in late February to The Hills Shire mayor Peter Gangemi. Linda Silmalis of the Sunday Telegraph reports Hodges was eliminated in the first round, with Gangemi prevailing in the second over fellow factional conservative Thomas Ryan, senior manager of polling firm Freshwater Strategy. A conservative factional source links Hodges’ defeat to the weakening of the centre right faction and its figurehead, federal Mitchell MP Alex Hawke.

• Former deputy police commissioner Mick Willing has been preselected as the Liberal candidate for Camden, which Sally Quinnell gained for Labor in 2023 (and which, as noted, is a potential target for One Nation). Wendy Lindsay will seek a comeback in East Hills, which she held from 2019 until Kylie Wilkinson gained it for Labor in 2023. Lindsay has served Revesby ward on Canterbury-Bankstown City Council since 2024.

• Linda Silmalis of the Sunday Telegraph reports Phil Longley, whose father Jim Longley held the seat from 1986 to 1996, has “apparently nominated” for Liberal preselection in Pittwater. Longley is director of government relations at the Workers Insurance Association of New South Wales and a former policy adviser to Jason Falinski, the then federal member for Mackellar. His sister, Claire Longley, ran for preselection in the seat before the last election but was defeated by Rory Amon, an outcome that was criticised by then deputy Liberal leader Matt Kean. Independent Jacqui Scruby fell narrowly short of defeating Amon at the election, then gained the seat at the by-election held in October 2024 after Amon was charged with child sex offences.

• Tamara Smith, who has held the Byron Bay area seat of Ballina for the Greens since 2015, has announced she will not contest the next election.

Post-budget polling part two (open thread)

Further indications that the reaction to the budget has cost Labor a point or two on the primary vote.

Two further additions to the post-election budget polling pile (perhaps shortly to be joined by Essential Research). The fortnightly Sky News Pulse poll by YouGov finds Labor down two points to 28%, the Coalition up two to 23%, One Nation up one to 25% and the Greens down one to 13%. Labor has two-party leads of 52-48 against the Coalition and 53-47 against One Nation, which are in from 54-46 and 57-43 last time (the latter seemingly being an aberration, the previous result having been 54-46).

Anthony Albanese’s leads as preferred prime minister are in from 45-36 to 41-38 against Angus Taylor and from 54-35 to 50-38 against Pauline Hanson. Approval and disapproval ratings are not yet available, but we are told Anthony Albanese has gone from a net minus 14 to minus 19 (UPDATE: Albanese is down two on approval to 37% and up two on disapproval to 56%; Angus Taylor is down two to 36% and steady on 42%). The poll finds 9% expecting the budget will leave them better off and 44% worse off, with 47% for about the same. Thirty-one per cent agreed the negative gearing and capital gains tax changes would help first homebuyers, with 38% disagreeing and 31% unsure. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to Monday, from a sample of around 1500 (UPDATE: 1504, to be precise). I will have further detail later today.

The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor down a point to 29.5%, the Coalition down one to 24%, One Nation up two-and-a-half to 24.5% and the Greens steady on 11.5%. Labor leads 54-46 on respondent-allocated preferences, out from 53.5-46.5, and 52.5-47.5 on previous election preference flows, in from 53.5-46.5. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1668.

EMRS: Liberal 25, Labor 24, One Nation 19 and Greens 14 in Tasmania

A new poll offers an insight into what One Nation has in store for Tasmanian state politics.

The latest instalment in the occasional EMRS poll series on Tasmanian state voting intention is the second to include One Nation as a response option, and it records a five-point increase in their support to 19%, with Liberal down four to 25%, Labor up one to 24% and the Greens down one to 14%. This would seem to raise the prospect of future elections being contests between Liberal-One Nation and Labor-Greens blocs, with the present result being a moderate lead for the former.

Personal ratings for the three leaders are little changed, though Jeremy Rockliff’s 44-25 lead over Labor’s Josh Willie reverses a slump in the last poll, when it narrowed to 40-26 from 50-24 in the poll last August. Rockliff’s favourable rating is down one to 34% with unfavourable up two to 38%; Willie is down one to 21% and steady on 17%; and Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff is steady on 23% and down one to 28%. The poll was conducted last Monday to Wednesday from a sample of 1000.

This post also offers an occasion to do something I too often neglect to do, which is to follow up the results of the periodic upper house elections after election night, which produced two fairly close results. In Huon south of Hobart, independent challenger Clare Glade-Wright unseated independent incumbent Dean Harriss by a margin of 2.5%, chasing down a 30.8% to 27.4% deficit on preferences from Labor (16.7%), the Greens (15.0%) and two independents (5.4% to 4.7%). In the Launceston region seat of Rosevears, Liberal incumbent Jo Palmer’s 42.4% to 25.1% primary lead was enough to hold out against Labor’s Ben McKinnon: the 16.0% vote of independent Susan Monson appeared only moderately favourable to Labor while the Greens’ 16.4% split as Greens preferences typically do, giving Palmer enough leakage to prevail by a 2.8% margin.

Post-budget federal polling part one (open thread)

Four polls record variable impacts on voting intention after a negative response to last week’s federal budget.

As always, a flurry of federal polling is emerging in the wake of the budget, with more to follow over the coming days. Newspoll in The Australian finds Labor holding its ground on 31% of the primary vote, the winners out of any budget backlash seemingly being One Nation, up three to 27%, putting them well ahead of the Coalition, down one to 20%, with the Greens down one to 12%. Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings are unchanged at 40% approval and 57% disapproval, while Angus Taylor is respectively up three to 36% and up two to 48%. Preferred prime minister is little changed, with Albanese’s lead at 46-38, in from 46-37.

This is despite perceptions of the budget’s impact on the economy being the worst recorded since Labor’s horror post-election budget in 1993 (Newspoll has consistently posed the same suite of post-budget questions since 1988), with 22% rating it good for the economy (in fact no different from last year’s budget, which came six weeks before Labor’s landslide win) and 47% bad (up 15 points on last year). In terms of personal financial impact, the net result is the worst since the Abbott government’s disastrous debut budget in 2014, with 11% expecting they will be better off and 52% worse off. However, this is not immensely worse than for the Albanese government’s first budget in October 2022, for which the respective results were 12% and 47%. On the other regular Newspoll post-budget question, relating to whether the opposition would have done better, the results are unremarkable: 39% say yes and 47% no, compared with 38% and 47% last year.

Further questions find 48% expecting the budget will worsen inflation, 9% improve it, and 32% make no difference; 39% expecting they will pay more tax, 7% less, and 41% no change; 27% rate it a step in the right direction on housing, compared with 38% for wrong direction and 22% for no difference; and 26% felt the government was “rebalancing the playing field to make things further” compared with 47% for “driving a wedge between younger and older generations” and 18% for neither. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1252.

Other polls are less sanguine with respect to Labor’s electoral standing, the monthly Resolve Strategic poll for Nine Newspapers finding them down three points to 29%, with the Coalition unchanged on 23%, One Nation up one to 24% and the Greens up one to 12%. The poll notably has Angus Taylor leading Anthony Albanese on preferred prime minister by 33-30, after Albanese led 33-32 last month. Albanese’s combined very good and good rating is down three to 34%, while his poor plus very poor rating is up four to 56%. Taylor is respectively down four to 37% and up three to 29%.

The Resolve Strategic poll finds 24% saying the budget will be good for their household compared with 35% for bad. Thirty-six per cent say the broken promises have damaged their view of Labor, with 31% saying they have not and 14% holding that their view of Labor has improved. However, pluralities are recorded in favour of the changes in capital gains tax, supported by 36% and opposed by 21% with the remainder undecided or neutral, and negative gearing, supported by 35% and opposed by 21%. Of 11 budget measures canvassed, only the cancellation of further work on the Inland Rail project, supported and opposed by 27% apiece, does not find more supportive than opposed.

A Freshwater Strategy poll for the News Corp papers records a tie on two-party preferred, after a 53-47 in the pollster’s last result three weeks ago, with Labor down three on the primary vote to 29%, the Coalition up two to 25%, One Nation up one to 26% and the Greens down one to 11%. The poll finds 21% rating the budget as positive and 46% as negative in terms of economic impact. Forty-five per cent say the changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts have reduced their trust in Anthony Albanese and Labor, with 13% saying their trust has increased. Forty-one per cent say they are less likely to vote Labor compared with 15% for more likely. Fifty-eight per cent believe the budget increases the chances of further interest rate rises, compared with 10% for decreases and 21% no effect. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Friday from a sample of 1384.

A poll by Wolf & Smith, conducted on Wednesday from a sample of 1002 (for “Amplify, a non-partisan community group founded by tech investor Paul Bassat”, as related by the Financial Review), has Labor on 30%, the Coalition on 24%, One Nation on 22%, the Greens on 11% and others on 13%. It finds pluralities in favour of the changes on negative gearing (41% with 32% neutral and 27% opposed) and capital gains tax (38% with 35% neutral and 26% opposed), but only for those who own their homes outright is it felt the impact will more likely be positive than negative (37% positive, 43% neutral, 20% negative), followed by prospective homebuyers (34%, 28% and 38%). Only 16% said the changes would be positive for renters and mortgage-payers, with a respective 45% and 43% expecting it to be negative.

Stafford by-election live

Live coverage of the count for Queensland’s Stafford state by-election.
Projected 3CP Projected 2CP Win Probability

Click here for full display of Stafford by-election results

1.00am. The ECQ uniquely publishes preference flow data by candidate on the night, from which we learn that 86.4% of Greens votes favoured Labor over the LNP despite the lack of an active recommendation on their how-to-vote card. Labor got 81.6% of preferences from Liam Parry of the unregistered Queensland Socialists; 60.2% from Legalise Cannabis; 24.4% from Family First; 62.7% from Animal Justice; 36.5% from independent Damian Smart; and 33.6% from Libertarians.

10.56pm. I’ve finally fixed what was screwing up my probabilities, which were essentially behaving as if only a few hundred votes had been counted. So it is no longer countenancing the possibility of a Greens win, which was obviously never on the cards, and getting towards calling it for Labor without going all the way, as I believe is appropriate.

10.40pm. With little further ado, its TCP results are now in, and they added only 181 to the Labor lead, though at 768 votes it’s almost certainly enough.

10.30pm. At long last, the Chermside South pre-poll has reported its 6833 primary votes, which have both major parties higher and the Greens lower. If the preferences flow as they have been elsewhere, they should add about 300 votes to a Labor TCP lead that’s currently at 587, which should settle the deal for them.

9.21pm. I don’t have all the data on this I would like, but I would roughly guess that there will be about 3000 late-arriving postal and the LNP will make up about 400 to 500 votes on them. The only other category of vote outstanding after Chermside South pre-poll is in will be in-person declaration votes, which favoured Labor 267-138 in 2024.

9.21pm. The TCP count has caught up with the primary vote count, and Labor has a seemingly handy 587-vote lead. However, neither result has reported from the Chermside South pre-poll, which Labor won 54-46 in 2024 compared with an overall result of 55.3-46.7. If Labor can hold their ground there, they can probably be favoured to hold out against the late-arriving postals.

9.11pm. The Stafford pre-poll has reported its TCP result and it’s pushed Labor to a 121-vote lead, though they have in fact gone backwards slightly on my projection, which has them winning 50.4-49.6.

9.07pm. The LNP has a 17-vote lead on the TCP count, with three election day booths plus the Stafford pre-poll only having reported the primary vote. Those booths are unlikely to change the TCP much when they report. The big question is whether Labor does well enough on the Chermside pre-poll when it reports to give them a buffer sufficient to hold out against late-arriving postals, which will assuredly favour the LNP.

8.25pm. I should also note that I rolled the Brisbane CBD pre-poll booth, which is not in operation at this by-election, into the Stafford pre-poll result for purposes of historical comparison, which was a) a bit inelegant, and b) gave that booth a baseline for comparison that was stronger for Labor than it should have been, since they did well on the Brisbane CBD result. This means the swings from the booth are a bit better for Labor than the results just cited, and gives them hope for a strong pre-poll dynamic that will carry over to the Chermside pre-poll when it reports. On the other hand, Labor won absents 57-43 in 2024 compared with 55-45 overall and there will be none of those this time, an anomaly my system doesn’t factor in. So swings and roundabouts, in other words.

8.18pm. The Stafford pre-poll booth, with 6254 votes, has gone as Labor might have hoped, with Labor down 7.5% compared with 10.8% on election day booths, and the LNP up 1.9% compared with 3.6%. Which at the very least keeps them in the race.

8.05pm. The postals are now in on TCP, and they have indeed pushed the LNP to a quite handy 52.7-47.3 lead that the remaining election day booths are unlikely to change much. My system is likely flattering Labor a little because they did well at the 2024 election on absents and the Brisbane CBD booth, which aren’t in play this time. They can still win if they do well on pre-polls, which may not report until later in the evening, but you would rather be the LNP at this stage.

7.52pm. 3656 postals have just unloaded, and they have swung more gently than most of the rest of the votes so far (Labor down 5.6%, LNP up 4.8%), such that my system now has it neck and neck. They are still strong for the LNP in absolute terms though, as postals usually are, so they may have the effect of pushing the LNP into the lead on the TCP count (on which they continue to trail) when they report their TCP result.

7.39pm. Twelve of 14 election day booths are now in, and all you can say with confidence is that everything is riding on the pre-poll booths, which may not report for some time.

7.38pm. TCP blockage cleared, and now my system is projecting preference flows off an actual TCP count, Labor is getting 70% of them rather than 67%. That’s far from decisive, but it slightly moves the needle in their favour.

7.34pm. The Grange booth was one of Labor’s less bad results. Touch wood, the TCP results blockage should be fixed in the next update.

7.30pm. Actually, it looks like there are TCP results but my system is failing to read them. Looking into it.

7.27pm. The Stafford Heights booth is slightly better for Labor than its performance generally so far. The LNP is still slightly favoured, but the uncertainties noted in my 7:17pm update remain. Still nothing on TCP — my estimates are giving Labor 80% of Greens preferences, which is less than I’d normally have because of their open HTV card.

7.24pm. Chermside East is a bit better for Labor than the other two Chermside booths, but everything in the previous update’s assessment still stands. Still nothing on the TCP count.

7.17pm. Chermside West booth almost as bad for Labor as nearby Chermside South. Labor’s hopes are for a better flow of preferences than I’m estimating, a stronger dynamic in booths nearer the city that are yet to report, and a better trend on pre-polls.

7.12pm. The large Kedron West booth is less bad for Labor than Chermside South, but still bad enough — probably enough for them to lose narrowly if it proved representative, and certainly not good enough to get them back ahead on the projection. A lot depends on preference flows though, and there is still nothing on TCP.

7.06pm. Bad result for Labor from Chermside South booth gives the LNP a projected lead. A lot depends here though on the accuracy of my preference estimates, there still being no TCP results.

7.00pm. The first actual booth to report is Stafford West, and it’s living up to suggestions of a tight result: Labor down a dangerous 8.5%, but LNP only up 1.8%. Still nothing on the TCP count.

6.49pm. Three results in on the primary, none of them from static booths — telephone voting, pre-poll telephone voting and mobile voting. Consistent with a close result, though I’m projecting a narrow Labor lead. This is based on preferences estimates though, in the absence of any numbers on the TCP count.

6.37pm. Another minor result, 308 votes from Telephone Voting, is better for Labor, the LNP swing being only about 4%. My system has been a bit slow to update so far due to bugs, but I should get them sorted shortly.

6.30pm. The Mobile Polling booth result came through promptly, with only 106 formal votes, but they’re encouraging for the LNP as far as they go with a 12.7% increase on their primary vote and little change on Labor’s.

6pm. Polls have closed for Queensland’s Stafford state by-election, first results of which are likely to come through in about three-quarters of an hour. For what it’s worth, a Courier-Mail straw poll of 150 voters conducted at booths this morning found 43.3% saying they had voted LNP and 32.7% Labor, which would point to an LNP win if accurate, though the margin of error would have been 8% even allowing for a genuinely random sample.

Stafford by-election minus two days

A previous of Saturday’s Queensland state by-election for a seat in Brisbane’s north where Labor is grimly defending a 5.3% margin.

The third by-election in as many weeks takes place in Queensland on Saturday for the state seat of Stafford, vacated by the death on April 4 of Labor-turned-independent member Jimmy Sullivan. The by-election is a return to simpler times in being a straightforward contest between Labor and the Liberal National Party with the Greens as the biggest party on the sidelines, One Nation having opted not to run in a seat that is too close to the city to be convivial territory for them.

The question is thus whether a Labor opposition enduring the doldrums that typically follow being evicted from office can defend a margin of 5.3%. David Crisafulli’s government is at a correspondingly favourable point in its life cycle, although it has been enduring an ill-timed ministerial scandal over recent weeks. The Greens have placed a speed bump in Labor’s path by declining to direct preferences on their how-to-vote card — this typically makes a difference of about 5% to the flow of their preferences to Labor, which is non-trivial in the context of a seat where its vote share at the 2024 election was 18.1%.

The closest we have come to an opinion poll is a straw poll of 300 voters conducted at the electorate’s two pre-poll centres by the Sunday Mail, which found 41.7% saying they had voted for the LNP, 36.7% for Labor, 12.7% for the Greens and 8% for independents. This compares with 2024 election results of LNP 38.1%, Labor 38.8% and Greens 18.1%, or 39.6%, 39.3% and 17.0% specifically among pre-poll votes. The accompanying report oddly claimed this put the LNP “on track for by-election upset”, despite the movements being inside the Labor margin. The independents include Liam Parry, part of the unregistered Queensland Socialists, who has been in the news as the first person charged for using the proscribed “from the river to the sea” chant at a pro-Palestine rally in March.

Morgan: 53.5-46.5 to Labor (open thread)

In a quiet week for federal polling, Roy Morgan records only modest changes on last week’s result.

Newspoll didn’t report this week on its normal three-weekly schedule, presumably to allow clear air for the Farrer by-election. But we do have the weekly result from the ever-reliable Roy Morgan, which had Labor up a point to 30.5%, the Coalition up one to 25%, One Nation up half to 22% and the Greens down one-and-a-half to 11.5%. Labor’s two-party lead narrows from 54.5-45.5 to 53.5-46.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, and from 53-47 to 52.5-47.5 on preference flows from the 2025 election. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1605.

Farrer by-election live

Live results and commentary on the count the federal by-election for Farrer.
Projected 3CP Projected 2CP Win Probability

Click here for full display of Farrer by-election results

End of evening

Writing in advance of last week’s Nepean state by-election in Victoria, I noted that the share of an electorate’s population that was over 18 and had no educational qualifications beyond high school was a highly useful predictor of One Nation support at the South Australian election in March: the specific formula being 0.543 – 0.555x. That formula suggested One Nation would score 26.6% in Nepean and 31.9% in Farrer, whereas the actual results were 24.5% and (on current counting) 39.4%. In both cases One Nation enjoyed the benefit of a forfeit by Labor, whose vote shares at the previous election were and 32.6% and 15.1% respectively. Clearly then Farrer was a stronger result for One Nation than Nepean, and can also be considered above the par of the South Australian result. Two factors likely explain the relatively weak result in Nepean: a less vigorous One Nation campaign and a state Liberal Party in better electoral shape than its counterparts federally and in South Australia.

Another two random observations. First, turnout appears to be on track for around 86%, where the by-election norm is more like 82%. This raises the possibility that One Nation’s surge has enthused previously disengaged voters. Secondly, as I noted during the count, Coalition preferences look to have split about 60-40 in favour of One Nation over Michelle Milthorpe, which is quite a lot stronger for Milthorpe than I would have guessed — about the same as in the independent-versus-One Nation contest for Stuart at the South Australian election, where the independent (Geoff Brock) would seemingly have been more attractive to conservative voters than one who has struggled to shake off the “teal” tag (with how-to-vote cards favouring One Nation in both cases). One possibility is that Liberal and Nationals efforts to tar David Farley with the Labor brush (which “brought 1996 attack ads to a 2026 realignment”, in the estimation of Kos Samaras) had an impact on the voters who remained loyal to them, while failing entirely to entice defectors back into the fold.

Election night commentary

12.15pm. I believe we’re done for the evening, with all booths reported on both the primary and TCP apart from the oddity of the electronic assisted voting result. Late counting will mostly be postals and a small number of provisionals, neither of which are likely to change a One Nation margin that reduced from 9.4% and 7.3% when the big pre-poll booths reported at the very end of the evening.

11.05pm. All but two pre-poll booths are in, recent additions including the Albury pre-poll with nearly 12,000 formal votes, which will knock a point or two off the current raw 59.5% One Nation vote when it reports on two-candidate preferred.

10.24pm. The Griffith pre-poll voting centre becomes the largest booth to report so far with 6582 votes, and it too is a bit below par for One Nation.

10.10pm. The Leeton pre-poll voting centre has provided the first substantial new numbers in over an hour, other than a few special hospital results. Its 2794 votes are a bit above par for Milthorpe and a bit below for One Nation.

8.55pm. The election day booth count is pretty much completed, not counting special hospital and remote mobile results that probably aren’t getting done tonight. However, pre-poll voting centres that collectively accounted for over 38,000 votes are yet to come through, and should in theory do so tonight, though larger centres (Albury pre-poll centre had 12,586 votes) sometimes don’t report until the following day.

8.40pm. My projection and the published TCP result have settled at around 58-42, meaning One Nation have achieved a slightly bigger win over Michelle Milthorpe than Sussan Ley. One Nation are doing at least as well on pre-polls as on election day votes; the postals that are in are stronger for Liberal and weaker for One Nation than the remainder, but about the same on the One Nation-versus-Milthorpe two-candidate count.

8.18pm. David Farley and One Nation are claiming victory. If you’re enjoying my coverage — which among other things provides the only place where you can easily observe the booth results — please consider a tip through the “become a supporter” buttons at the top of the site and the bottom of the post. The results feature in particular involves a lot of work and actually costs money to run, at least in months where the mapping goes over the Google bandwidth limit (as it did very handily in the month of the South Australian election).

8.09pm. This seems a particularly bad result for the Liberals, whose primary vote — barely into double figures — is only slightly shading the Nationals, whose weak showing is less of a surprise. This is never good territory for the Greens, but it may be noted that their vote share is down more than half even in the absence of a Labor candidate. Right-wing small parties are collectively down by around half as One Nation sucks out their oxygen.

8.03pm. Around two thirds of the booths are now in on the primary vote, which includes two of the 12 pre-poll voting centres, both from rural areas. One of which is a little better for One Nation than the local election day booth, the other a little worse. I remain surprised by the evenness of preferences — the estimates I was using at the very start of the count would have allocated about 65% of these preferences, nearly 80% of which are coming from parties of the right, to One Nation. Currently it looks more like 55%.

7.35pm. I’ve just farewelled myself from Ben Raue’s live webcast, which ended with us both concurring that One Nation had gained the seat. My results system had in fact done so nearly half-an-hour earlier, but as noted, it was always my feeling that it was going to go too hard too early for One Nation. Now though we have enough booths in from Albury that it seems that Michelle Milthorpe will at best equal her result there from 2025 against Sussan Ley, and perhaps go backwards slightly, when she needs to be winning these booths big to redress rural booths that are in some cases going against her by upwards of 80-20. The one glimmer for her as I noted was that she seems to be doing better than expected on Liberal and Nationals preferences, but as those parties are only accounting for about 20% of the vote between them, this doesn’t decisively change the overall pictures.

6.30pm. We have a booth in, which is Rankin Springs in the electorate’s north. The good news is that my results system is functioning, the bad news is that it’s been too aggressive too early, so don’t take the “probability” reading too seriously until some real numbers are in.

6pm. Polls have closed for the Farrer by-election. From 6:30pm to 7:30pm I will be appearing on a live webcast hosted by Ben Raue of The Tally Room, so I probably won’t have much to offer in the way of commentary during that period, which will start at around the time the first results are in. We can expect that to happen quite quickly as this is a largely rural electorate with many of the 94 booths (including remote mobile and multiple special hospital booths) dealing with perhaps as few as 150 votes that won’t take long to count. On the other hand, the fact that there are 12 candidates will slow things up at least somewhat.

First, some insight into what my results facility is trying to achieve here. The two-candidate preferred result from the 2025 election was Liberal-versus-Michelle Milthorpe, which few expect to be repeated this time, including the AEC who are conducting a One Nation-versus-Milthorpe count, in line with what is generally expected to be the result. That means there is no historic data to work off in projecting swings in two-party terms. However, my own system is more concerned with projecting off the primary vote, and then filling the gap with an estimate of preference flows. These will be entirely estimated for the early part of the count, and will then switch to the flow indicated by the two-candidate count when enough of it has been conducted.

I am a little wary that my system will be too aggressive in calling it for One Nation based on the first results, which will be from rural areas where One Nation will be especially strong. This becomes troublesome for projection (at least the way I do it) when we have a paradigm shift of a result. The primary vote swing to One Nation in the early booths seems likely to be extremely high, and applying that swing to the final result from 2025 may serve to overestimate them. When larger booths come in from bigger population centres, notably Albury, the One Nation swing may come down, and with it the projected result. In other words, there’s a good chance my system will be calling it for One Nation quicker than I’d like to. If betting markets are on the money, this will ultimately be academic: Betfair is offering $1.10 on a One Nation win, $6.20 for Milthorpe, $10 for the Liberals and $20 for the Nationals.

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