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 I am reliably informed that the Victorian Electoral Commission has conducted an unpublished Labor-versus-Liberal preference count which puts Labor at 71.5 per cent.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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  3. Twentyman is getting close to over taking the Liberals. ALP primary is too high to see anything interesting to happen.

  15. Gee… just looked up the result, they were only 3% away from the Liberals in 2006.

    Why did the party not endorse Tania Walters this time? Clearly many people were voting for the party name and not the candidate.

  16. So is this a vote for pro-life, given the stance taken by Marlene Kairouz, and supported by Tania Walters? It is rare that a candidate declares themselves as prolife given the bias in the media against such a stance. Good to see marlene having the guts to take a stand, and to b rewarded in this way by the electorate

  17. So they have a Labour MP with a name no one can pronounce like the last bloke. What ever happened to the Anglo Saxons in the ALP – must be all that ethnic branch stacking.

  18. My sources tell me that the biggest issue at present is the proposal by the Victorian Legal Reform Commission proposal to decriminalise abortion!

    At first I was cynical thinking it would be the 2am lockout or the Desalination plant but this result may prove my sources to be right!

  19. Based on Antony’s latest figures, the formerly Family First endorsed Independent had her vote cut by about two thirds. The Labor candidate is down 12.7%. The pro-choice Liberal candidate is up by 4.8% and Les has 19.8% from scratch. How is this a pro-life vote?

    The Libs have done well, on the back of a strong campaignbased on local issues such as transport and law and order. The relatively poor performance of Labor in the postals, perhaps shows how effective the smear campaign against Les has been, in the last few days.

  20. Interesting to that the DLP did not field a candidate given it stance against abortion in the Upper House in Vic. Or were they satisfied that the ALP had a pro-life candidate?

  28. Does anybody know what the story is with Tania Watkins. Family First did not run a candidate. Why not.? She is no longer a member i believe. Was she running with the blessing of FF. Or was was she reallly independent.

  29. Goanna,

    It wouldn’t make sense for voters to vote against a pro-life Labor candidate if they wanted to tell John Brumby not to decriminalise abortion. In any case, he will be unable to get the legislation through the Upper house without the support of a large number of Liberals. I think that around 6 Labor MLCs will vote against it.

  30. For every vote she got for her pro-life stance, there would have been a dozen more she got because of three simple words on the ballot: Australian Labor Party.

    Abortion will only be a major issue if the Liberals were to take a totally different stance; and that it is a highly unlikely.

  31. In the seat of Kororoit, most voters will not have the first clue about the nuanced debates there are to be had about abortion.

  36. So in the end: Not a great result for the ALP. It would have required an earthquake to upset the applecart in that area. Brumby is not going to losing sleep at this stage but it might be in the back of his mind as he eats his cornflakes in the morning.

    Twentyman has possibly set himself up for a run at the upper house in 2010.

  37. I hope this is the first time, and not the last, that Les runs in Kororoit. Perhaps at a later date, there might be equal scrutiny on potential influences on ALP drug policy.

  38. Les won’t ever run out there again. He’ll probably have a crack at Footscray in 2010 where he’ll find far more receptive latte sippers than out in St Albans.

    Labor’s incumbent is expected by many to retire so it’s a bit of an opening perhaps. And of course he has the advantage of living in the electorate.

    He won’t have the resources to do the upper house thing, imo. Far too much ground to cover.

  39. but Andrew, you only need 10% (in practice) to get elected in the Western upper house area, and Twentymen could get that in his sleep in this part of this world. It would be the smart option for him, and he could actually play a far bigger part in governing than he would in the lower house.

  40. Andrew, that wasn’t latte I saw in Marlene’s cup, on ABC news tonight, was it?
    tsk tsk

    The upper house would be a dead end for Les. With some proper planning of a state election campaign, he would do better. We’ll see where the governments transport blueprint leaves the western suburbs, and how much disaffection he will have to tap in to.

  42. Lighten up Bill, it’s just a bit of blowback from the Labor nonsense about a vote for Les Twentyman being a vote for the Liberals. 🙂

  44. What are you saying, GG? A vote for Les, wasn’t a vote for the Liberals? The Age story seems pretty rational is you view Les Twentyman as a ‘Liberal’ independant.

  45. The Greens can chip away at the middle-class left, independents can attract older Anglo voters (in Vic they are left independents in NSW they are on the right) but so long as Labor holds its NESB base it’s seats are secure. if Twentyman gave preferences to Labor than this would deflate artificially the 2PP swing (like Wills in 1996). I couldn’t see him getting ahead of the Greens in the race for the last LC seat in the west.

  46. TW,

    Read William’s balanced summary on the Kororoit election and compare that with the inanity of The Age’s approach. You might also remember the bay dredging debacle. The Age campaign was a beat up from start to finsih. Unbalanced, unfair and unnoticed.

    It seems the Age wants to be The Opposition when they grow up.

  48. I Agree, GG. The lack of solidarity which The Age demonstrated for comrades in the transport and warehousing industries, over the dredging issue, was a low point and a disheartening glimpse of The Age under Ron Walker. I think the journalists at The Age were able to recognise the issue as well and have been struggling for their independance since.

    William’s brilliance is not in dispute, but perhaps a little nuance was lacking at 1AM monday morning.

  49. I’m surprised the Liberal vote was up given Twentyman’s candidacy. Perhaps Labor’s shock/horror campaign convinced Liberal voters that Twentyman wasn’t their sort of man.

  50. Antony,

    I believe a significant proportion of Liberal voters prefereced Kairouz before Twentyman which would confirm your thoughts.

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