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”

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  1. Ruawake says:
    Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 9:39 pm
    The pensioner will still get the dividend paid by Telstra, about 15c a share, they will not get the cheque from the ato if they have not paid any tax.

    The alp removed the grandfathered section of the child payment so all recipients were treated equally.

    This has been an ru community service .

    Cheers RU….good to see you bludging again 🙂

  2. You can take the money from wealthy SMSF without it affecting aged pensioners. Why not do that? Or better yet go after the massive super profits? Or some other scheme that does not take money off people earning below $30,000 a year. Hey here’s an idea, lets slash the DSP by $3000 a year. that could work.

  3. AFAIK Nath, the status quo is this:

    1. Company earns profits & pays tax (11.4% on average, soon to go down).
    2. Company pays dividends to retiree, plus “franking credits” of 30% (book tax rate), to use to offset tax liabilities from dividends.
    3. Retiree structures affairs to have no liability, plus at least some franking credits left over.
    4. Retiree (ONLY – this part isnt available to non-seniors) gets paid the value of any leftover franking credits as cash.

    As I understand Labor’s proposal, they want to remove Step 4.
    If my understanding is correct, I dont understand all the hoopla over this:
    a) Labor’s not proposing to tax the seniors’ incomes as such, only to remove a cash handout which is more properly the potovince of the aged pension;
    b) Howard introduced it, quite openly, as a vote-buying exercise when the mining boom was filling the public coffers (IMO, he’d have done better to put that cash aside);
    c) With the cupboard bare (As the Coalition remind us each time they want axe this or that social programme), we cannot afford an $11.4bn annual handout which overehelmingly goes to the well-to-do.

    For the Coalition to “trim” eligibility rules to evict pensioners from their homes, then cry foul sbout this rort-closing is a little precious IMO.

  4. Sorry dan, was referring to half year and misread table and edit function is not working for me.

    Either way as a retiree would not be looking to telstra for growth and income.

  5. The G primary vote in SA is sitting at 6.7%….definitely in the minor party zone. And no surprise. Their key messages could have almost no resonance with SA voters.

  6. Chalk that another one up against the Punters are always right people. The betting markets are just another rumour mill. That is all.

  7. I’ve been watcng Live at the Apollo, not the Bye-election results.
    One comedian said (translating from UK English) , that if a person knows who his/her Mhr is, he /she IS the Mhr. I don’t think this is true of Batman.
    Feeney was such a bad local member that he nearly lost the seat last election, for reasons we all know. My guess is that there may have been a 1 or 2 % swing to Labor because they had a presentable candidate. IMO the Adani/Pensions issues would have had little net effect.

  8. …and now at 6.6%…

    One of these days the Gs will realise that campaigning against Labor is to campaign against the preferences of their own supporters. It will repel their core.

  9. Great result for Ged and all the labor campaign team. Congratulations.

    This result is also a huge result for Shorten. The win in Batman has turned the narrative on its arse. From Shorten being a idiot and guilty of political stupidity over the policy announcement on Tuesday and single handedly derailing the campaign and destroying the chances of Ged Kearney Shorten will be full of steam and can tell Turnbull, Morrison and the MSM to stick it where the sun don’t shine.

    This result cannot be underestimated in its significance.

    Well done Shorten, Chris Bowen, Ged, all the true believers who have campaigned hard for this result and labor in general.

    Cheers.

  10. franking credits are not payed as cash, they are taxed at the income rate of the pensioner with the remainder refunded. So if a pensioner has an effective tax rate of %15 they get half the franking credit.

  11. sprocket_ @ #339 Saturday, March 17th, 2018 – 9:39 pm

    Labor volunteers who worked so hard on the Batman by election campaign are stamping their feet and shouting for Ged Kearney, the nurse who became a national leader and will be the next MP in the Australian Parliament. #BatmanVotes

    The wearing of The Green, Oh The Wearing of the Green….

  12. The disconnect between the rubbish pumped out by the mainstream media and what is actually happening in the electorate profoundly demonstrated. Why waste your time reading their bilge.

    And while the SA election is a (small) setback for SA Labor (though it could have been much worse) a year of Marshall as Premier could be bad news for Fed Lib candidates in SA.

  13. doyley says:
    Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 9:51 pm
    Great result for Ged and all the labor campaign team. Congratulations.

    This result is also a huge result for Shorten. The win in Batman has turned the narrative on its arse. From Shorten being a idiot and guilty of political stupidity over the policy announcement on Tuesday and single handedly derailing the campaign and destroying the chances of Ged Kearney Shorten will be full of steam and can tell Turnbull, Morrison and the MSM to stick it where the sun don’t shine.

    This result cannot be underestimated in its significance.

    Well done Shorten, Chris Bowen, Ged, all the true believers who have campaigned hard for this result and labor in general.

    Cheers.

    Darn right!!!

  14. The Black Wiggle has lost the plot..

    Conceding loss, @RichardDiNatale tells @Greens party it’s because of Labor’s deals with hard right parties. #batmanvotes

  15. Yes terrific result for the ALP. And I suspect many Greens supporters will be seriously contemplating their wasted vote today and the choice they face at the next Federal election. Stay pure and impotent or kick out the Tories?

  16. Thanks for the good wishes. The cancer is under control, just dealing with transverse myelitis now.

    Feeling much better since GED ripped the black wiggles cojones off.

  17. March 17th is St Patrick Day but it is almost the Saint Day of Joseph of Arimathea: the patron saint of Funeral Directors. The black wiggles leadership funeral?

  18. sprocket_ says:
    Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 9:54 pm
    The Black Wiggle has lost the plot..

    Conceding loss, @RichardDiNatale tells @Greens party it’s because of Labor’s deals with hard right parties. #batmanvotes

    …in defeat, campaigning against Labor, lying about Labor, who made no deals with anyone….

  19. Rossmore @ #376 Saturday, March 17th, 2018 – 9:56 pm

    Yes terrific result for the ALP. And I suspect many Greens supporters will be seriously contemplating their wasted vote today and the choice they face at the next Federal election. Stay pure and impotent or kick out the Tories?

    They got their usual 100% on nuthin.

    They would be celebrating.

    Not!

  20. Anton,

    Spot on.

    The MSM go on and on about politicians living in a bubble. The MSM are the ones living in a bubble. They sit around and interview each other, spend their days on Twitter patting each other on the back for some supposed great indepth article and will continue to do the same circle jerk totally unaware of their own hypocracy and growing irrelevance.

    Batmanexit !

    Cheers.

  21. Doyley

    You are so right. You only had to see Probyn on the ABC tonight struggling to explain what had happened.

    Biggest upset since the Russians got up at Stalingrad.

  22. Ruawake @ #378 Saturday, March 17th, 2018 – 9:58 pm

    Thanks for the good wishes. The cancer is under control, just dealing with transverse myelitis now.

    Feeling much better since GED ripped the black wiggles cojones off.

    You haven’t been around for a while and I must admit to fearing the worst.
    I sure am glad to see you tonight and wish you well in your ongoing battle.

  23. Hi Asha Leu,

    Thanks so much for your honest and non-partisan comments. We really need more of this from all sides of politics. At the moment, I generally support Labor, but there is nothing tribal about this.

  24. nath says:
    Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 10:03 pm
    crypto-tories, is that the same as anarcho-syndicalists?

    Much the same only different. They are a quasi-political hologram.

  25. Admiring watching Mark Butler on ABC resisting the temptation to say “we don’t give a shit about the SA result, we just destroyed the greens in a ground campaign and there’s only one target left”.

  26. Federal Labor has held the inner-Melbourne seat of Batman in a morale-boosting victory for leader Bill Shorten and a blow to the Greens.

    With 57 per cent of the vote counted on Saturday night, Labor’s Ged Kearney had 42.4 per cent of the primary vote compared with 40.8 per cent for the Greens’ Alex Bhathal, who is trying for the sixth time to win what was one a safe-Labor seat.

    After preferences were distributed, Ms Kearney was leading Ms Bhathal by 52 per cent to 48 per cent on a two-party basis.

    ….Earlier Saturday, Mr Shorten defended the timing of the policy announcement.

    “Labor has been arguing for a fairer tax system for the last two years. We’re the ones who’ve said that we need to reform negative gearing, we’re the ones who are actually saying that we can’t have a two-class tax system in this country,” he said.

    “Many Australians who weren’t aware of this dividend imputation system, were surprised to discover that you can pay no income tax and receive literally tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax refunds when you don’t pay tax.

    “There’s no doubt that change is hard, but at the end of the day this nation needs people who are willing to stand up and argue for a better country, we can’t just look at business as usual.”

    Greens’ deputy leader Adam Bandt, who holds the nearby seat of Melbourne, told supporters the party was “on the march everywhere” regardless of the outcome.

    Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/boost-for-bill-shorten-as-labor-holds-batman-in-tight-contest-20180317-h0xlyy#

    Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/boost-for-bill-shorten-as-labor-holds-batman-in-tight-contest-20180317-h0xlyy#ixzz5A0Gh81NJ
    Follow us: @FinancialReview on Twitter | financialreview on Facebook

  27. @GG

    Where have all the Greenies gone
    Long time.e passing……

    Ahh, Pete Seeger. I use to play this on my guitar when I was 12.

  28. Work To Rule @ #394 Saturday, March 17th, 2018 – 10:09 pm

    Admiring watching Mark Butler on ABC resisting the temptation to say “we don’t give a shit about the SA result, we just destroyed the greens in a ground campaign and there’s only one target left”.

    Yes. Excellent performance by Butler yet again – right on the money. Solid confident succinct!

    O that *Lucky* Shorten.

    /sarcasm.

  29. As my dear old mum would say, sometimes things work out for the best.

    Had Feeney not been caught up in the S44 business he would have most likely run at the next election. Would he have held off the Greens again?

    As it is Labor has got rid of a waste of space and has a brand new member with the skills to make a real contribution.

    The Tories and their media cheerleaders will be sitting tonight and wondering how that happened.

  30. Bandt has a funny understanding of on the March, woeful results in Tasmania and SA, losing Batman, I think honesty and a serious appraisal of why they lost is their best bet.

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