Batman by-election live

Super Saturday, phase one: live coverage of the count for the Batman by-election.

10.17pm. Thornbury pre-poll also swings slightly to Labor.

10.00pm. The Bundoora pre-poll voting centre has reported, and it produced a result typical for the electorate in swinging slightly to Labor. We will presumably get a further three pre-poll voting centres this evening, and presumably also a batch of postals.

8.36pm. Only pre-poll voting centres now outstanding, on the primary vote at least.

8.27pm. Labor’s small but seemingly decisive lead is holding more or less firm, now at 2.9% on my projection. Most of what remains is the large pre-poll voting centres.

8.17pm. The tide keeps flowing to Labor, with my model (3.4%) now more bullish for them than the ABC’s (1.9%).

8.13pm. Not sure where exactly, but a very good result has come in for Labor, pushing their lead out to a near-insurmountable 2.9% on my projected measure, which now differs only slightly from the raw result of 3.2%.

8.08pm. Most of the polling day booths are in now, and I’ve got Labor’s lead firming very slightly. If the Greens have a hope, it’s that a different dynamic will play out in the pre-poll voting centres.

8.01pm. As the count slowly creeps up, Labor retains its lead of around 1.5%. The Greens will want a couple of good results to come through pretty soon.

7.56pm. With around half the booths now in, the distinction between my model and the ABC’s has all but disappeared: Labor holding in both cases with a 1.5% margin.

7.54pm. Now I’ve got Labor’s lead out to 1.4%, which is a handy place to be with 40% of the vote counted, but not yet bolted down.

7.45pm. Yet another change of lead on my projection, but I’ve got the lead at 0.9% compared to the ABC’s 1.5%. ABC still staying Labor retain, I’m still saying too early to call.

7.42pm. The ABC computer is calling it for Labor, but it’s making no effort as I am to project preference flows on to seats where only the primary vote has reported, which is around half of them.

7.38pm. My hope that this might be sorted early on and I could devote my energies to South Australia is not being realised: once again my projected lead has changed hands, in large part because Labor’s preference share has now declined to 65%.

7.35pm. Now with over a quarter of the vote counted, Labor leads on the raw vote, but I’m projecting that to come back a little. Very close, in a nutshell, but Labor slightly favoured.

7.31pm. And now I’ve got the Greens with their nose in front. There are six booths in on two-party, none of which have swung much, but big swings to Labor in some of the booths in which we only have two-party numbers. The preference flow from the latter is being projected on to the former, and I’ve got Labor getting 69.4% of them.

7.25pm. Now with more substantial numbers in, it’s looking very tight – absolutely no swing at all on my two-party projection, with 12 counted in primary and five on two-party.

7.19pm. Some better results for the Greens send the pendulum back their way. My preference model is now going entirely off results from this election, and Labor is receiving 71.9% of them — 337 to 132 to be precise, going off the three booths that are in on two-party.

7.17pm. Labor have had some thumpingly good results in Alphington North and Collingwood, such that the ABC is projecting a 6% swing in their favour, and I’m projecting 7%.

7.11pm. Been sorting through a lot of technical problems with my live reporting, and I think I’m past the worst of them. So we’ve got three booths in on the primary vote and two in on two-party preferred, and my assessment is that it’s looking tight but with the Greens with their nose in front. For the time being though, this is largely based on a preference flow derived from the Northcote state election result, and the very early indications are that they might do better than that.

7pm. A very small polling booth called Murray, with 249 votes cast, has the Greens up 8.5% on the primary vote and Labor steady.

6pm. Polls have closed for the Batman by-election. This being an inner-city seat with large booths, it should take a while for us to start seeing numbers – perhaps as long as an hour. Wish me luck with my live results reporting facility.

Click here for more detailed (and better formatted) results.



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.

482 comments on “Batman by-election live”

Comments Page 6 of 10
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  4. ALP Tracking polling after the Dividend Imputation policy announcement showed that it had no effect on 65+ voting intention.

  11. Andrew Probyn found a new script in his second dig on ABC. The dividend imputation policy changed from being “horrific” to being “courageous”. Someone must have pointed out how shite his first effort was.

  12. Nath, I don’t want to challenge you but one-liner type understanding of complex policy is why we end up with bad govts.

    The franking credit question is by far aimed at removing excesses that unfairly favour the wealthy.

    Plus, if you actually look at history, it has been the Lib outs that have done more to destroy pension fairness (including single mothers) than anything labor has ever done or proposed.

  17. C@tmomma

    Well they aren’t making any more boomers these days and father time will be doing some serious pruning as time goes by. Boomers got the free uni and houses a single income could afford and all the Costello and Howard bribery and raised drawbridge on following generations. How ya reckon the youngsters would feel ? 🙂

  18. As I said before the seat is likely to look different in six months time when the redistribution is finished. Victoria is getting a new seat and that means everywhere needs to shuffle a bit. I suspect that the seat will head a bit further north and therefore become less Green but it could head south and become more Green (west and east are not really looked at as possible directions because of creeks and rivers).

  19. Been away from Poll Bludger for a bit, but I never can resist an election thread, let alone two simultaneous ones.

    I’m really not surprised that Labor is prevailing here, though it’s certainly looking like a more comfortable victory than I was expecting. They had an excellent candidate, and the Greens’ campaign was just atrocious. Both cynically dishonest and utterly misjudged, which – as someone who has almost always given the Greens my first preference (though I must admit to being at my wits end with them as of late) – it really does pain me to say. Di Natale completely lost the plot in the last week – just what the actual fuck was he thinking with those comments about Labors tax policy and Lib preferences?

    When Feeney first announced his resignation, I was really excited about the prospect of the Greens getting another house seat in the bag. Now, I’m mostly just glad its over, and while I’m very disappointed with the Greens’ conduct during the campaign, I’m finding it difficult to be disappointed about their loss.

  20. franking credits policy will impact many aged pensioners with small shareholdings.

    the Libs wanted to dismantle the Single mothers pension but never did. It was Jenny Macklin wot done it!

  23. The poor bugger just spent the last four days writing tomorrow’s article on how the greens won, its implications on the next federal election, and how Shorten is now officially embattled, with Albo set to challenge on Monday.

    He’s got 4 days work to re-write in two hours!

  24. I am clueless about the franking credit policy? that is a joke.

    An aged pensioner with 30,000 of shares, lets say Telstra shares, will lose thousands under this policy. thats a fact.

  28. Sprocket

    PRobyn is lucky

    He just goes on Tv and talks. The print media reporters and pundits would have written the stories about a Green triumph and disaster for Shorten in advance with just a few blanks for the vote numbers to be filled in and planned a late dinner.

    Oops

  29. nath,
    Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey wanted the Unemployed to wait 6 months before they got any Welfare Benefits at all! I think that Trumps anything Labor ever did.

  30. Interesting comment from Probyn that the tracking polls did not indicate that the dividend imputation policy had any effect on the 65+ demographic. Maybe the ALP has tested this and decided that the number of votes up for play in that demographic are small compared to the broader gains.

  32. C@tmomma and bemused

    I stand corrected. Just going from the commentary on ABC, who later corrected themselves by saying first Labor nurse.

  39. Greensborough Growler says:
    Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 9:05 pm
    Apparently, the Batman electorate support Bill Shorten’s view that Adani needs to stand on it’s economics.

    Exactly. People know when they’re about to be used up.

  41. An aged pensioner can have $200,000 in assets, shares etc and still get the full pension. which is a meagre wage. do you people have a clue?

  42. nath @ #274 Saturday, March 17th, 2018 – 9:05 pm

    I am clueless about the franking credit policy? that is a joke.

    An aged pensioner with 30,000 of shares, lets say Telstra shares, will lose thousands under this policy. thats a fact.

    Well what about the huge numbers of pensioners who ‘Lost’ as a result of the tory changes to Pensions?

    Oh BTW its not aged pensioners on the Aged Pension who are ‘losing’ the $6 Bn a year – its the wealthy self funded pensioners mainly and Shorten has said he will look after the genuine low income ones.

    But take a look at this – the tory cuts and changes to Pensions –

    Pension cuts under liberals –

    …
    Tony Abbott promises no cuts to education, health and other areas on the eve of the 2013 federal election
    Updated 12 Aug 2014, 3:50pm

    On the eve of the 2013 federal election Tony Abbott tells the SBS there will be “no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS” under a Coalition government.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-07/abbott-promises-no-cuts-to-education-health/5436224

  45. the tax has been paid by the company. jeezus. the owner of the shares has paid the tax via the company. learn some basic financial literacy.

  46. bemused

    I’m a bit confused over the whole thing. It’s a tax offset, so they only get back what is taxable right? If they pay zero tax, they aren’t entitled at all to any credit? I hear some people say they get some cash back.. not sure how that works.

  48. a pensioner with $30,000 of telstra shares pays tax at the company rate, taken out by the company. A pensioner with an income of$25,000 should be entitled to a franking credit of around $2000. this will hurt alot of people.

  49. Just playing the devil’s advocate for a moment. I’m not sure how many people are enrolled in Batman, but let’s assume 90,000.

    With the 2.4% margin at the moment representing about a 2160 lead to Labor and several thousand pre-polls and postals still to come, who’s to say that lead cannot be overcome?

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