Live publication of results, updated by the minute with full booth results, swings and probability estimates, can be found here. Commentary of the progress of the count follows below.
12.50pm. John Pesutto now leads by 53 votes in Hawthorn, and I’m also now projected the Liberals to hold Caulfield. So without wishing to take anything away from the scale of Labor’s win, a big part of the election night story is that Liberal voters voted early. I’ve now got Sandringham back down as a confirmed Labor gain, but with no pre-polls or postals there yet, I certainly wouldn’t take that for granted. I will be off line for the next half an hour, and my results won’t be updating in that time.
12.18pm. Things continue to look less bad for the Liberals. My model now has the Liberals with their nose in front in Mount Waverley and Nepean, and is no longer giving away Sandringham, Bayswater and Hawthorn — though it’s still calling it for Labor in Ringwood, Caulfield and Box Hill. Over the past hour, the statewide Labor swing has come down from 3.7% to 3.2%.
11.35pm. The notion that some of the more freakish results would be overturned on late counting is looking good. The Liberals are now home in Brighton, after hardly any swing was recorded on pre-poll and postal votes. My seat projection has come down over the last few hours from 59 to 56 (which really means 60 to 57, because a bug is awarding Preston to the Liberals — though equally, it may be wrong about the Greens winning Prahran).
9.30pm. The Greens, as ever, are living on a knife edge — they could win four, they could win nothing. The ABC projects them with leads of 2.2% in Melbourne and 1.0% lead in Brunswick, while they’re 1.0% behind in Northcote. The only thing the Prahran two-party count tells us is that they will definitely beat the Liberals if that’s what it comes down to, but with nothing to separate Labor, Liberal and the Greens, they may drop out in third, or lose to Labor if it’s the Liberals who do so. The one thing that is clear is that they have not won Richmond, despite the Liberals’ decision to give them a leg-up by not fielding a candidate.
9.07pm. Plenty to feast on in the ABC’s seats in doubt list, on which twelve seats are listed. Labor has only the gentlest of leads in Brighton, which one suspects will not stick; they are slightly further ahead in Sandringham, which remains very much in doubt; a Labor win in either would be astonishing. Both were vacated by sitting members, and male candidates (a conservative young turk in the case of Brighton) were chosen for both of them.
9.02pm. There are nine seats listed on the ABC’s “changing hands” list – Bayswater, with a 2.0% Labor lead and 42.8% counted, may not be nailed down yet, but the others look fairly solid. The only ones that were widely thought a shot for Labor in advance were Bass, South Barwon and maybe Burwood. The others are remarkable for being affluent and historically blue-ribbon Liberal seats: Box Hill, Caulfield, Mount Waverley and Ringwood. Then there is Nepean, which is a semi-rural seat neighbouring Bass, where the Liberals had a retiring sitting member and may, as in Bass, have been hampered by the retirement of the sitting member, not to mention the party’s uninspired choice for his successor.
8.24pm. Rather extraordinarily, the ABC computer has Labor ahead in Brighton and Sandringham. Either the backlash against the Liberals by well-heeled voters has taken on hitherto unanticipated dimensions, or the high pre-poll vote is turning up static.
8.08pm. Labor has retained Richmond, where the Greens showed characteristic persistence with a dud candidate, but the ABC has the Greens retaining Melbourne and Northcote. Brunswick has been going back and forth — currently it’s down as Labor retain. Prahran is a three-way contest that will be determined by the candidate who drops out in third.
7.53pm. Burwood took a long time to report a result, but not it has, it’s looking like another possible gain for Labor … and indeed has been called for Labor by the ABC as I type.
7.49pm. Ringwood and Mount Waverley looking very solid for Labor now, and Labor looks to have gained South Barwon. The ABC calling Box Hill and Nepean for Labor, but I wouldn’t give those away yet. Less unexpectedly, Labor to gain Bass. Looking close in Ripon, which was thought a lot more likely to go to Labor than the aforementioned.
7.48pm. The ABC computer is now calling Mildura an independent gain, but it shouldn’t be because it’s far too close.
7.38pm. Independent Suzanna Sheed comfortably returned in Shepparton. The ALP is calling Mildura a Nationals retain, but it looks close to me, with independent Ali Cupper a show. The ABC computer apparently doesn’t expect Darryn Lyons to get very strong preferences in Geelong, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it. Ditto Benambra, where Jacqui Hawkins looks competitive against Liberal Bill Tilley. Independent Tammy Atkins is running second behind beleaguered Nationals member Tim McCurdy in Ovens Valley, but his primary vote of 43% looks high enough.
7.36pm. The ABC computer has wound Forest Hill back from Labor gain to Labor ahead, but the Labor leads in Mount Waverley and Ringwood look rather formidable.
7.34pm. Prahran now looking a near three-way tie on the primary vote, as it was in 2014. The Greens are struggling to hold Northcote; still early days in Melbourne and Brunswick; nothing yet in Richmond.
7.32pm. The ABC computer is calling Benambra Liberal retain, but this assumes a Liberal-versus-Labor contest, and independent Jacqui Hawkins is well ahead of Labor in second place. With a primary vote barely north of 40%, Liberal member Bill Tilley is another in trouble.
7.31pm. Small swing to the Greens from the first booth in Melbourne.
7.30pm. Antony Green picking three unheralded Labor gains in the eastern suburbs: Forest Hill, Mount Waverley and Ringwood.
7.27pm. The ABC guesstimate says Labor shouldn’t be troubled by Darryn Lyons in Geelong, but the primary vote numbers look pretty soft for them to me, being just north of 40% and with Lyons clearly placed to finish second.
7.24pm. I’ve been tending to focus on boutique regional contests, but the big story is of overwhelming success for Labor in eastern Melbourne. They’re bolting it in the sandbelt seats, and putting the Liberals under pressure in normally solid seats. Though I reiterate the note of caution that there may be a lot of Liberal vote outstanding in the pre-polls, which will come through later in the night. Even so, it’s clearly a question of how far Labor.
7.18pm. Labor’s good early figures in Ringwood, which I found hard to credit, appear to be sticking.
7.16pm. One bit of good news for the Liberals is there’s an early swing to them in the endangered country seat of Ripon.
7.15pm. The Liberals look like they will run third in Prahran, rendering the notional Liberal-versus-Greens preference count academic. So the result will come down to the flow of Liberal preferences between Labor and the Greens.
7.13pm. The second booth in Brunswick is better for Labor than the first – there is now a 1.0% swing in their favour. Nothing else in from the other potential Greens seats.
7.10pm. The ABC is covering Geelong, where it actually seems to me that independent Darryn Lyons is doing a lot better than he deserves — he’s matching it with the Liberals on the primary vote, and Labor is only on 36.2%. However, the primary vote swing to Labor is 3.5%, which would keep them safe if consistent.
7.07pm. An interestingly huge swing to Labor in the first booth in from Albert Park, whose Wentworth-ish demographic might not be too thrilled with the Liberals right now. The Liberals came close to knocking it over in 2010 and 2014, but not this time by the look of it.
7.06pm. First booth in from Brunswick is a 3.7% swing to the Greens, which exceeds the 2.3% Labor margin.
7.04pm. Independent Jacqui Hawkins polling strongly in Benambra with 25.1%, and Bill Tilley’s 43.1% is low enough to make it touch-and-go for him after preferences.
7.03pm. Early days, but Nationals member Peter Crisp is under pressure from independent Ali Cupper in Mildura.
7.00pm. The first electorate with over 10% counted is Gippsland South, with a 3.7% swing to Labor. It should be cautioned here that the dynamic in play may be that the upsurge in pre-poll voting has disproportionately involved conservative voters. If so, some of these swings will come back later in the evening.
6.58pm. The ABC election results page (they need to make this stuff easier to locate) paints an impressive picture of across-the-board swings to Labor in all those electorates where two-party votes are in.
6.56pm. Russell Northe, the Liberals and the Nationals are almost exactly level in Morwell, all on around 17%, with Labor on 28.3%. Only a few small rural booths, 1.5% counted.
6.53pm. James Purcell, the upper house micro-party member trying to win South-West Coast as an independent, trails Labor 21.2% to 17.2% with 4.3% counted. The Liberal is on 42.0%, so he might be competitive if he closes that gap.
6.50pm. The ABC’s booth-matching is picking up a 6% to 7% drop in the Coalition primary vote, although there is only 0.6% counted.
6.35pm. A few peculiarities with the VEC’s approach actually, such as media feed updates only coming through every five minutes. However, they have picked the notional two-party counts I would have expected, having been guided entirely by what happened last time. So Nationals versus independent counts in Shepparton and Mildura, Nationals versus Labor in Morwell and Liberal versus Greens in Prahran.
6.25pm. An unforeseen peculiarity in the way the AEC does its media feeds means I won’t be able to get my results reporting facility to work until every electorate has a two-party preferred result in, which should take a while.
5.30pm. Half an hour before polls close, a YouGov Galaxy exit poll gives Labor a lead of 55-45. While exit polls don’t have a brilliant record in this country, this does add to a formidable picture of a strong result for Labor. For my part, I’m currently sweating over how my live results reporting and projection facility is going to operate in a real world environment, so stay tuned for that. It should be up in one form or another at about 6:15pm, with the first results to come through shortly after.
William Bowe @ #593 Saturday, November 24th, 2018 – 9:47 pm
Looks good! I hope you sorted what went wrong.
“I really did feel for him, esp when he was badgered by Michael Rowland about whether Kroger should resign. I thought he showed genuine professionalism and humility. Tough gig given the spot he was in.”
My first ever election night in the ALP fold, it was a WA state election, I was in the Michelle Robert’s HQ in Midland which was the HQ for at least 2, if not more state seat campaigns. It was similar, Graham Kierath was in the same situation:
“Following his unexpected defeat at the 2001 election, after a 10.16% swing against him”
but he had zero class. I remember very clearly, we won a tough but marginal seat (Swan Hills) and government and they got people looking up at the screens from their wine and grappa with happy faces, but Graham losing caused an explosion of happiness that almost destroyed the Midland CBD. Obviously Midland would have been much better off with a total destruction / rebuild scenario, it is to this day still a massive scale failure.
William Bowe
Please control obnoxious nath.
Ven
says:
Saturday, November 24, 2018 at 10:51 pm
William Bowe
Please control obnoxious nath.
__________________
you are kidding me right?
Great work William. Fight on.
Confessions says:
Saturday, November 24, 2018 at 10:45 pm
briefly:
Listening to Kroger and Frydenberg tonight, the Vic Libs see no need for reform.
I think they are divided on just what they might mean by reform. The Crazies want to get even Crazier. They will destroy anyone who gets in their way. In the meantime voters have clearly decided they will take matters into their own hands. They will repudiate the LNP and support Labor, the only party capable of providing “strong, stable majority government”. This will be reprised at the Federal election.
[So here’s what my election results feature would have looked like if it hadn’t gone tits up]
William — you’re in good company!
You’re not the only electoral analyst whose computer went “tits up” tonight!
It’s calling Preston for the Liberals for some reason, and it’s otherwise doing more or less what it was supposed to.
William,
Those projected primary vote tallies look wrong. I think it is the -1% total vote to the Nats that gives it away.
And the ALP majority probability is way too low at 100%……
WWP:
Several others have mentioned Graham Kierath, but i don’t remember that. Sounds like he behaved like a total tosser on the night, forgetting the central tenet as an elected member: you serve at the pleasure of the voters.
I don’t care that Pesutto is a Lib, I thought he behaved with grace and dignity on the ABC coverage, even when things got a mite uncomfortable for him.
William Bowe @ #609 Saturday, November 24th, 2018 – 10:54 pm
Because it’s saying -48% for Labor!!
Yeah, that too.
The Libs perennial (even for a female in the Liberal Party) candidate, Laura Norder, has missed out yet again. While pushing the law and order theme is ingrained in Liberal DNA, it seems that now that particular theme has utterly exhausted any relevance or impact it once had.
With SSM ,euthenasia and decriminization of abortion being fairly and openly debated in Australian society, the Conservatives (and yes, I believe all the evidence now exists to be able to clearly label the Liberals and Nationals as Australia’s Conservatives) face the painful and bitter reality that progressive politics is the new standard in this country.
Freudenberg may claim this was fought on State issues.
The thumping (and humilating) loss of the Jewel in the Liberals Crown tonight is the evidence the few remaining moderates need to see that reactionary, antagonistic and divisive politics as practised by their Parliamentary colleagues can only result in an equally disastrous Federal election. What’s stunningly obvious too is the realization that Scott Morrison is going to lead them into (his) biblical wilderness next year.
briefly:
The Libs need policies rather than ideology. The absence of policy is letting them down at the state and federal levels.
“Several others have mentioned Graham Kierath, but i don’t remember that. Sounds like he behaved like a total tosser on the night, forgetting the central tenet as an elected member: you serve at the pleasure of the voters.
I don’t care that Pesutto is a Lib, I thought he behaved with grace and dignity on the ABC coverage, even when things got a mite uncomfortable for him.”
I couldn’t agree more, I think on the night Kierath abandoned his post on the show to run back to his electorate ‘to console his team’.
Much later to be Australian Foreign Minister and massive Labor disappointment on the same broadcast was Stephen Smith. He managed to insult the labor faithful and mock the win in Swan Hills as unlikely, after we had the actual count and had texted it through to him. A pretty consistent sign of his judgement and courage, later to be displayed through the Beazley / Rudd / Gillard / Rudd disaster.
“So here’s what my election results feature would have looked like if it hadn’t gone tits up.”
Looks great William but you need to fix the result for Preston. It is an ALP retain.
Nath needed to be on a short leash tonight.
Thankfully Senator Hume’s riding crop did the job.
It’s official: Labor has finally discovered the key to defeating the Greens. It is: being genuinely left-wing. Who would’ve thunk?
Just a comment on this blog entry:
“7.34pm. Prahran now looking a near three-way tie on the primary vote, as it was in 2014.”
It was nowhere near a three-way tie in 2014, the Liberals finished well in front on almost 45% with both Labor & Greens around 25%, so this year is a massive difference with all 3 around the 30% mark due to a huge double-digit swing against the Liberals distributed almost exactly 50/50 between Labor & Greens.
Are the Greens still expecting a ministry in the Andrews government?
LOL
My system is picking up no numbers at all from Preston, for some reason. Looking into that now. Then I’ll look at the primary votes situation.
It’s hard to see what else Matthew Guy could have done. His team were united behind him. Unlike the feds…. Very hard also to beat a first term government that got stuff done. The key for the ALP is to be humble and get more stuff done. The greens need to look at their candidate choices and messaging and try to be a positive force. Currently heaping on the lnp will maximize their vote.
Looking at the current counts here are where I think the battles are:
Eastern Metropolitan: Minor Party battle
Eastern Victoria: Minor Party battle
Northen Metro: Fiona Patten’s Reason Party Vs Labor (currently Count 18 is the key)
Northen Vic: Labor vs Liberal
SE MEtro: Minor Party battle
Southern Metropolitan : Minor party vs Green
West Metro: Labor vs green (At count 19)
Western Victoria: 2 Minor party spots
So here we have a journalist at Fairfax pondering why the things he and is mates think are important don’t amount to a hill of beans with many voters.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/demolition-job-leaves-liberals-looking-at-eight-years-in-the-wilderness-20181124-p50i56.html
Maybe the Tories shouldn’t be the only people wondering where they went wrong.
Seats are moving around. Brighton has just gone from a Labor gain to in doubt to just now a Liberal retain.
Does anyone have a clue as to the % of BTL votes in Leg Council. The Antony Green vote calculator cannot factor in these votes – if they are say 10% this will have a dramatic effect on eliminations of micros.
Hinch has 4 seats in the upper house presently. Andrews has 19, easily get 2 more to pass bills. The CFA is rooted.
michael
says:
Saturday, November 24, 2018 at 11:17 pm
Seats are moving around. Brighton has just gone from a Labor gain to in doubt to just now a Liberal retain.
________________________
That is a shame. Image the shock of the residents of the Golden Mile if they had woken up tomorrow with an ALP member!
One message this result says is “bye bye Dutton”. How sweet it is.
Liberals in Bayswater are also now leading on a raw votes count.
Bayswater also flipped back to Liberal but ABC has it as ALP gain even though the 2PP favours Liberals by 72.
Could this be a similar pattern to Wentworth, we prepolls were better for the Libs than in the day?
“If Peter Dutton is the answer what is the question?”
Who do you think is the likely winner of the quest to find Australia’s greatest … (censored)?
ALP vs Green close in https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/vic-election-2018/guide/prah/
Nepean going to the ALP is still a big shock. Does this make Sorrento less desirable?
VEC & ABC are calling Prahran as Lib vs Green for TPP. Shirley (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM2K7sV-K74) that it an error, given Greens are slightly (206) behind Lab on primary vote, and whilst minors will split all over the place, is there enough favouritsm of Greens vs Lab from (in order of elimination) Aussie Battler (assume flow to Lib), Sustainable Australia (assume to Lib), Animal Justice (Assume to Grn), DLP (Assume to Grn), & Reason (assume to Lab) to get them in front of Lab so that Lab preferences make it a Green vs Lib fight?
William
The front page of your results screen not updating for detailed data below eg look at Bayswater
Otherwise looks good – could you squeeze in a ‘time/date last updated’ field? Which is very useful for the late counting
In the end, the Victorian voters were more scared of a Liberal Government than African Gangs.
I’d be thinking DLP would go to Lib, even Lab before Greens.
Navigate to Brighton on my results feature, which I’m happy to say now may come in useful for something, and you’ll see what’s happened. Double-digit swings on the polling day booths, hardly anything on the pre-polls and postals. I suspect this won’t be the last of the freakish results that evaporates on late counting.
https://www.pollbludger.net/results/vic2018results.htm
nath says at 11:26 pm
Nepean going to the ALP is still a big shock. Does this make Sorrento less desirable?
Kate Ballieu bites back against cuz’s ouster…
Nepean want from ALP 2PP of 55.34% after all booths counted to 50.95% 2PP when early and postals added in. So still a Labor gain, but a much reduced margin because of early and postal votes. So I think we will see a major swing back to the Libs when all the early and postal votes are in. More like a 4% swing to ALP on the primaries rather than the projected 5.3% swing that Antony Green is showing. And that is closer to the poll results.
Ah, so that Red Wave appeared after all…
michael says at 11:19 pm
Hinch has 4 seats in the upper house presently. Andrews has 19, easily get 2 more to pass bills. The CFA is rooted.
But one of those ALP upper house seats is Jane Garrett.
The Greens are down to 1 in the upper house (their current leader survives). What a wipeout.
Postal votes now counted ALP now 374 votes ahead of Greens can’t see how Greens now get second, with preferences or am i wrong?
A Pear – I’m also wondering if the ABC will update Prahran from “GRN Ahead” to an estimated Labor 2CP count (their page says if the 2CP is wrong they will replace the VEC one with an estimate).
Everything points to it being Labor v Liberal:
– Labor 206 votes ahead of Greens
– Preference flows likely to favour Labor more
– Postals will likely favour Labor more
The only real wild card is how the absentee votes break, they would need to favour the Greens enough to overcome all of the above.
On another note, I think Caulfield will be a Lib retain but a scare for them. While the booths whose 2PP has been counted have a -7% Lib swing, the 2PP for those 10,000+ pre-poll votes isn’t counted yet and they had a Lib primary vote swing of only -0.1%.
Overall I have the Lib swing in Caulfield only being around -3.5% which would be a Lib retain around 51-49, and that’s before postals are factored in too.
Baywater/Caulfield/Hawthorn/Mount Waverley/Nepean/Ripon/Sandringham could still flip to the Libs.
That there’s not much of a swing in the pre-polls suggests to me that there was a last minute swing to Labor not picked up in the polling.