Live coverage
8.51pm. With all booths counted, plus about 1000 postals and 5000 pre-polls, the Nationals are on a handsome 62.3% of the primary vote, with Jim Maher in second place on 13.2% and Labor in third on 10.0%.
7.21pm. The Nationals scored 64.0% at a large Inverell booth, their total vote now at 65.4%. Fourteen booths still outstanding.
7.10pm. Two Armidale booths have reported, and the Nationals vote there is at around 50%. That’s been enough to pare the Nationals vote back to 63.9%, with 26 booths reporting all told.
6.54pm. No booths in yet from Armidale or Inverell, but a booth from Glen Innes is only slightly less favourable for the Nationals than the rural booths (62.0%).
6.51pm. Now up to 21 booths out of 48, although these are of course the smallest and most rural booths. The Nationals vote is at 71.6%, while both Jim Maher (8.7%) and Labor (7.2%) have edged up slightly.
6.49pm. For what it’s worth, Antony Green’s booth matching suggests a 4.0% primary vote swing to Labor off a 2011 base of 3.4%.
6.46pm. Another seven booths have reported and the Nationals vote is little changed at 73.6% (and the NSWEC results are now ahead of the ABC’s).
6.42pm. Jim Maher is on a paltry 6.8% (75 votes), but he’ll presumably do better when the Armidale booths are in. That’s still enough to put him in second place ahead of Labor’s Harman Beyersdorf on 61 votes and independent Katherine Nicholson on 57.
6.41pm. The NSWEC has caught up with the ABC, so it may be that I’d opened the ABC’s page just as the update come through to each.
6.40pm. The ABC’s results are well ahead of those of the NSWEC, which inexplicably publishes them as PDF files. Ten booths have reported, all of them very small, and maintain a picture of the Nationals having a lock on the rural vote: Adam Marshall is on 833 votes out of 1095.
6.35pm. A belated kick-off for live coverage. One tiny booth (“Chandler Public”) has reported, and it seems to bode rather well for the Nationals in giving their candidate 63 votes out of 84.
Overview
A by-election will be held tomorrow in the northern New South Wales seat of Northern Tablelands following the resignation of independent member Richard Torbay, whose political career came to a sudden in March amid events culminating in an ICAC raid on his home and electorate office. It offers the Nationals an opportunity to snare a nineteenth seat in the state lower house, but their candidate Adam Marshall must first overcome a challenge from Jim Maher, who hopes to emulate Torbay at least to the extent of transferring from local mayor to independent state MP.
Northern Tablelands covers 44,674 square kilometres including a 150 kilometre stretch of the Queensland border, extending south through Tenterfield, Inverell, Glen Innes and Armidale. The electorate was created when Armidale was abolished with the introduction of one-vote one-value at the 1981 election. Armidale had usually been in Country Party hands, although it fell to Labor for one term in 1953, and with Bill McCarthy’s tenure as member from the “Wranslide” of 1978 until his death in 1987. His widow Thelma McCarthy ran as Labor’s candidate at the ensuing by-election, but National Party candidate Ray Chappell won the seat by 2.6% following a 4.2% swing.
The seat was won by independent candidate and Armidale mayor Richard Torbay at the 1999 election, at which he outpolled Chappell by 44.2% to 34.1% on the primary vote. Torbay then emerged as the most electorally successful of the parliament’s shifting array of independent members, his primary vote progressing to 71.3% in 2003 and 72.7% in 2007 before falling back to 63.4% in 2011. His informal seniority among the independents was indicated when the then Premier Morris Iemma backed him for the speakership, having boldly commenced his new parliamentary term by aggreeing to support an independent. Labor state secretary Sam Dastyari claimed in mid-2012 that Torbay had proposed joining the party and replacing the floundering Nathan Rees as premier. Torbay said this was a “lie”, saying an approach had instead come to him from the party’s state secretary John Della Bosca.
Dastyari’s claim came followed Torbay’s announcement that he would join the Nationals with a view to securing federal preselection to run against Tony Windsor in New England, the party having promised him “freedom to speak with an independent voice on local issues”. This clashed with Barnaby Joyce’s aspirations for the seat as a fallback option in view of Bruce Scott’s determination to continue serving in the rural Queensland seat of Maranoa. However, the Torbay option would firm after party polling showed he offered the clearest path to victory over Windsor.
Torbay’s federal ambitions became rapidly unstuck in March 2013 when the Financial Review reported he had received assistance from embattled Labor operative Eddie Obeid ahead of his run for state parliament in 1999. Over the next two days Torbay withdrew as candidate and resigned as member for Northern Tablelands, with Nationals state chairman saying the party had received unspecified information “of which we were not previously aware”. This information was referred to ICAC, which raided Torbay’s home and electorate office the following week.
The Nationals preselection for the by-election was won by Adam Marshall, who was elected to Gunnedah council in 2004 at the age of 19 and became mayor four years later. Marshall emerged a surprise winner over Nationals Farmers Federation president Alexander “Jock” Laurie, who entered the contest after first being spoken of as a possible competitor for Barnaby Joyce in the re-run of the New England preselection. Also in the field was Claire Coulton, whose father Mark Coulton is the federal member for Parkes. Marshall is joined on the ballot paper by seven other candidates, including both the mayor and deputy mayor of Armidale-Dumaresq. The former is Jim Maher, running as an independent, and the latter is Herman Beyersdorf, the Labor candidate. Other independents are local grazier Bill Bush and TAFE teacher Katherine Nicholson. Silvana Nero, the Sydney-based fiancee of the Reverend Fred Nile, is running for the Christian Democratic Party. The Greens candidate is retired English teacher Dora Koops.
Lib Nats on their way to a 70th seat in the lower house.
Something which will never happen again.
This will be a litmus test for Tony Windsor
Labor or independent likely to win
i still stand by my prediction 51-53 to labor , but wont be surprise if the independent gets in
its win win for windsor
Go Herman Beyersdorf and Jim Maher
wipe the smiles off the coalition supporters 🙂
Sean Tisme@2
You obviously don’t live in the Northern Tablelands, and simply don’t have a clue.
Tisme: “This will be a litmus test for Tony Windsor”
The fail is strong with this one. Northern Tablelands isn’t New England. It’s the northern corner of it. The population centre of Tamworth is Windsor’s main stronghold, and isn’t part of today’s ballot.
Anyone who pulled their head out of their arse long enough to read a map would know this.
al Dente
is right Tamworth is the biggest population city , but its not the biggest area of new england
northern tablelands is 52% – tamworth area is 48% of new england
I just voted and put marshall last 🙂
Al Dente
Posted Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:06 am | PERMALINK
Tisme: “This will be a litmus test for Tony Windsor”
The fail is strong with this one. Northern Tablelands isn’t New England.
——————————————————————
Spot on ,
I think it will be a guide to September. If the Nats can’t win today then you would have to think Windsor is safe and we are saved from BJDPM.
Sean
When Windsor went from state to federal parliament the by-election for his state seat of Tamworth saw a big win for the nationals yet when it came time for the next federal poll Windsor held New England very easily
The Nationals should win Northern Tablelands, the state government seems to be doing a good job.
What is barnaby joyce doing hanging around labor volunteers
Espionage?
Anthony Green has his results page up.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/nsw/2013/northerntablelands/result.htm
stay strong Northern Tablelands, stay independent
With 2.2% of the vote counted everyone has a swing to them.
Tony Windsor is in deep… deep… trouble.
Indies rejected, Nats embraced in Windsor country.
Expect to see Barnyard Joyce in Federal Parliament next year.
Did Windsor campaign for anyone?
[Antony Green @AntonyGreenABC 11m
#northerntablelands – All Armidale polling places in and National vote still over 60% – easy win – results http://bit.ly/18evisw ]
[Antony Green @AntonyGreenABC 3m
#northerntablelands – Nationals first prefs above 50% in 33 of 35 polling places – results at http://bit.ly/18evisw ]
Pretty solid victory to the Nat candidate.
disgusting people fell for the nationals , thinking they will keep the nbn
the small areas should have woken up
my prediction was wrong i will take the heat
Psephos
Posted Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:31 pm | PERMALINK
Did Windsor campaign for anyone?
———–
no
Don’t stop being positive MB
davidwh
dont worry its not going to change my mind one bit,
federal labor and windsor will win it
with a bit of luck Mod lib may not see this 🙂
Can this northern tablelands section be deleted, before mod lib sees it
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes 1m
#NorthernTablelands By-election after all booths & pre-poll: NAT 62.6 IND Maher 13.9 ALP 9.7 GRN 4.5 CDP 2.1 #nswpol #auspol]
Comfortable Nat win, but I suspect they will be disappointed. ALP and Greens picked up a 7.5% swing.
Disappointed with the second biggest win ever recorded in the seat history?
yes you are right reawaken
that swing would likely go to windsor
which makes it more harder for joyce to get a swing of over 22% to win
davidwh
When you consider the candidates , labor , independents, greens will likely to wo windsor in the new england election
Its not good that the nationals did better , but windsor is a different beast
votes i mean
Windsor will easily get over 40% in northern tablelands part of new england in the federal election
davidwh
Who told you this is the second largest win? From Anthony Green.
[Torbay needed preferences to win when first elected in 1999, but was easily elected with more than 70% of the first preference vote in both 2003 and 2007. Torbay even polled 63.4% of the first preference vote at the 2011 election when all other rural Independents were defeated.]
Sorry Rua second highest ever win for the Nats. I doubt they will be disappointed by the result.
davidwh
I am sure they are happy to win the seat back after losing a crown jewel for 14 years. But they could not beat Torbays 2011 vote. The combined Nat Torbay and Nat vote in 2011 was over 90% it has shrunk to just over 60%.
I would not be happy if I was a Nat hard head.
[ALP and Greens picked up a 7.5% swing.]
With 63.4% of the vote up for grabs in Torbay’s absence, it would have been pretty hard not to have picked up a swing.
Rua there would always be some level of Labor inclined votes Torbay attracted which were never going to go to the Nats.
I guess you can say
from 2011 to now
the nationals picked up 7-9000 extra votes
labor picked up picked up 2-3000 extra votes
from torbay not being in this election
In the federal election
that will not be enough against windsor
at least 50% of the nationals and labor extra votes could go to windsor in the federal election
MB it was around 12k extra for the Nats and 2k for Labor.
davidwh
in 2011 nats
13,756
looking at the figures they are 21,300+
Okay the Nats won what they should have and by its usual margin.
In a way the Nationals have done well in recent times for there was a time when they were considered dead.
I don’t see any federal implications.
what ever the margin between labor and the nats in this election , will be irrelevant in the federal election
MB all the votes haven’t been counted yet so I’m working on % changes.
davidwh
fair enough
Meguire Bob @3
“Labor or independent likely to win … i still stand by my prediction 51-53 to labor”
Is there a quantitative way to measure how big a douche you and your predictions are ? It good to keep the faith but part of time head must come out of anus to actually look around .
[42
mexicanbeemer
Posted Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 9:14 pm | PERMALINK
Okay the Nats won what they should have and by its usual margin.
In a way the Nationals have done well in recent times for there was a time when they were considered dead.
I don’t see any federal implications.]
Nats now hold 19 seats in the lower house versus 20 for ALP.
I think in one of the Wranslides the Nats won same number of seats as Libs – 14 each.
The iVotes have been reported. The final results for tonight are NAT 62.6 IND Jim Maher 13.9 ALP 9.7 GRN 4.4.
morpheus
Posted Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 9:51 pm | PERMALINK
Is there a quantitative way to measure how big a douche you and your predictions are ? It good to keep the faith but part of time head must come out of anus to actually look around .
———————–
not at all , where i was the vide was for labor and independent
yes i made a prediction
any way morpheus
i guess you are saying Abbott must have his head further up his you know what
because he expected to be pm by the end of 2011