Kororoit by-election live

Vote Swing 2PP
Marlene Kairouz (Labor) 12,665
49.0%
-13.9% 56.3
Les Twentyman (Independent) 5,108
19.8%
43.7
Jenny Matic (Liberal) 5,345
20.7%
5.2%
Marcus Power (Greens) 1,297
5.0%
-2.2%
Tania Walters (Independent) 1,093
4.2%
-8.1%
Andre Kozlowski (CEC) 334
1.3%
-0.8%

Tuesday 6pm. I am reliably informed that the Victorian Electoral Commission has conducted an unpublished Labor-versus-Liberal preference count which puts Labor at 71.5 per cent. So the real swing against Labor was only 4.1 per cent, a good result for a third term government with a big majority. There was troubling news for the Brumby government on Saturday, but it came from Gippsland, not Kororoit.

Monday 1am. I have been too busy with Gippsland to comment on Kororoit. I rather feel that this shows a sense of proportion which is lacking at The Age, whose website puts Kororoit at centre stage with a headline reading “Big rebuff for Brumby”. This heads a story which claims Labor has suffered a 16.5 per cent per swing, a figure obtained by comparing the apple of 2006’s Labor-versus-Liberal result with the orange of Saturday’s Labor-versus-Twentyman result. A meaningful two-party swing cannot be readily obtained because we don’t know how Twentyman and the minor candidates’ preferences went, but an educated guess points to a Labor/Liberal split of around 70/30 and a no-big-deal swing of 5 or 6 per cent. There is no reason to be surprised that a candidate of Twentyman’s reputation and celebrity should be able to achieve 20 per cent of the vote, or that he should do so primarily at Labor’s expense given his ideological orientation.

8.09pm. Postal votes reel Labor in 0.4 per cent and boost Twentyman 0.3 per cent.

8.05pm. Deer Park Central boosts Labor 0.2 per cent, and cuts Matic’s lead over Twentyman from 1.3 per cent to 0.8 per cent.

8.03pm. Slow going with the remaining booths. It’s worth pointing out that Twentyman is not actually ahead of Jenny Matic on the primary vote, but will presumably get there on preferences.

7.51pm. Note that Tania Walters’ swing compares her performance with her result in 2006 as Family First candidate.

7.44pm. All booths bar Churchill Reserve and two in Deer Park have now been added. The error which omitted the Greens from the above results has been corrected.

7.28pm. St Albans North added, reining in Labor 0.5 per cent. 20 per cent counted, eight booths to come.

7.19pm. St Albans West booth in, confirming what I said in the previous entry.

7.14pm. Albanvale booth in. Primary vote swings suggest Labor will land a little below 50 per cent on the primary vote, but come close enough to retain the seat.

7.07pm. Creekside booth in. Table above shows primary vote swings comparing like with like from 2006, and a 2PP result based on raw primary vote with my own guess of the preferences.

6.00pm. Polls close. I am told that the VEC will be posting results on the half hour, so presumably we can expect to see the first serious results at 7pm.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

63 comments on “Kororoit by-election live”

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  1. Twentyman reckons the ALP’s dirty campaign tricks in the dying days of the campaign cost him 10% of the vote, and the seat. Sure, they bruised him, but they didn’t finish him off – not even close.
    If you look at the early voting centre numbers, Twentyman did only 3.4% worse on primaries in the weeks leading up to polling day than he did on polling day itself. 3.4% strung into a 10% swing? Tell him he’s dreaming.
    And that difference alone can be almost exactly reconciled with the 3.5% increase for Greens support on polling day, compared with Greens early voting results.
    A couple of leaflets here and there only seemed to contribute to the indecision of the anti-Labor left, nothing else.

  2. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but with alot of aspirationals moving in to new subdivisions in the electorate, and many of those aspirationals not having a clue who Twentyman is or what he does for the community, it is perhaps not so suprising that the Libs got a swing to them. The Liberals also offered to fix alot of the problems that people have been asking the Labor party to tackle out here for 10+ years.

  3. TW,

    Depends how big the hind is.

    The Libs promised $100 million of new spending in Kororoit. There are plenty of problems in every electorate. Governing is about priorities and balancing the budget.

  4. So they say, GG. Although i’m pretty sure that voters in Toorak and Brighton never hear it from a Liberal government.

  5. This result is a worrying result for Labor. The next election will be close in Victoria, because Brumby has not got the same aura as Bracks has about him.
    Also Victorian Labor now counts the Greens and Leftie independents as the opposition instead of the Liberals. It is running somewhat fraudelent scare campaigns against these groups and is treating the electorate as mugs.
    More worrying for the Victorian Party is that the so called movement groups the catholic right ( The SDA retail group) are getting more power within it. The preselection and admin committee are evidence of this. If their power continues problems could arise down the track regarding policy direction and being able to gain a diversity of members. More worrying may be splits within its ranks and the party in general. (1955 all over again? )
    Finally the Party Secretary is running negative campaigns instead of postive ones and needs to change focus, personally i think he should be sacked.

  6. The SDA getting control will be a serious problem. It is probably not going be the problem at 2010 election, but if the ALP does win a four term and the hard Right is fully in charge, then they might get sandwiched (Sort of the way the Canadian Progressive Conservatives were sandwiched by the left parties (LP, NDP) and a new rightwing parties (Reform)). The Liberals would probably do preference deals with anyone to win at that stage and most voters would probably be happy to see the end of the government by then.

    I doubt the Greens alone can become the really opposition, but if the ETU or another Union is expelled and forms some form of leftish independent block that runs in conjuction with the Greens, there is a bit of a chance. There are a lot of leftish voters who are don’t really like the Greens that much but wouldn’t mind an alternative to the ALP. Also a union probably has enough members to form a party and man booths etc. Then the inner city would fall….

  7. It is not paranoia, the SDA are now the biggest union in Australia and more members mean more delegates at conference and more power within the Labor Party. They are a real concern.
    Growler you and Landeryou know each other?

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