Federal election live: day five

The three seats that might potentially get Labor over the line to a majority remain up in the air, as more distant prospects for them fade further from view.

Click here for full federal election results updated live.

My system today called Bass and Wannon for the Liberals and Wentworth for Allegra Spender, the latter being the first gain called for the teal independents, although I don’t doubt there will be four and probably five to follow. Postals continue to be added in large numbers, although they will start to diminish henceforth. As noted below, one of the biggest developments today arose from rechecking. Tomorrow we are apparently see numbers from electronic-assisted telephone voting added, which is exciting because I have absolutely no idea about their partisan tendency and how many there will be.

The latest from the three seats that could potentially push Labor over the line to a majority:

Brisbane. Kevin Bonham’s post-count post suggests the AEC is conducting an unusual indicative three-candidate preferred count to determine which out of Labor and the Greens will drop out and deliver the seat to the other. However, I’ve heard no official word on this. Based on the preference distribution in 2019, my earlier assessment was that Labor would need a buffer on the primary vote to hold out against preferences to the Greens from Animal Justice, and even to some extent from the right-wing parties, more of whose preferences went to the Greens than Labor (though a great deal more again went to the LNP). However, as with one or two of my other early assessments, this may have failed to fully account for the substantial increase in postal votes this time, which are being true to form in being weak for the Greens. Labor now leads the Greens on the primary vote, but it will need to further boost the margin if my surmise about preference flows is borne out.

Gilmore. Labor had a very handy boost of 382 votes in rechecking that was mostly down to the Gerringong booth, where the two-candidate figures had been entered the wrong way around. This apparently put Labor in the lead briefly on the raw count, but the Liberals recovered it when a small batch of postals favoured them 701-521, with Andrew Constance currently 104 votes ahead. Postals will no doubt continue to favour Constance, but the bulk of them are now out of the way. Still to come are declaration pre-polls, which should break about evenly; absents, which should boost Labor by maybe 300; provisionals, which should add a couple of dozen for Labor; and electronic-assisted votes, which I continue to have no idea about.

Lyons. This is the first result I’ve looked at where the second batch of postals was observably different from the first, going 1024-910 to Liberal compared with 2966-2857 to Labor. If the outstanding postals break like the latest batch, Labor’s current lead of 703 votes will be cut in half. That makes it very close, but there is no specific reason to expect the other outstanding votes will move the dial in either direction.

Elsewhere, Labor continues to be buried on postals in Deakin, the latest batch breaking 3715-2584 to the Liberals. Yesterday I asserted that outstanding postals should add around 1000 to Michael Sukkar’s lead, but this batch alone adds to 1131. From here Labor will need stronger than anticipated absents and/or declaration pre-polls, and/or for the enigma of electronic assisted voting. I would personally call Menzies for the Liberals now even though my system doesn’t yet have it past the 99% threshold, yesterday’s postals having broken 3715-2584 in their favour.

After a quiet day in Curtin on Monday, a second batch of postals were added that favoured Liberal member Celia Hammond 4464-2950, a similar proportion to the first batch. This suggests the outstanding postals will bite a further 1000 or so out of independent Kate Chaney’s 1842 vote lead. However, the Liberals were relatively weak on absent votes in the seat in 2019, and there’s little reason to think out-of-division pre-polls will be particularly favourable to them.

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.

1,036 comments on “Federal election live: day five”

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  2. What’s the point of a legislated/trial run voice? We already had one. As soon as they were a problem for the government they got abolished. The only voice worth having is the one that has to be heard even when it says hard things to hear. (Repost from yesterday’s thread.)

  3. We will all benefit from having the newly elected independents on committees setting the path for Australia’s future. Many bring a lot of experience and have excelled in their fields prior to entering Parliament.
    As the teals will be presenting their FICAC and climate suggestions for consideration in the first sitting of parliament, they will then have plenty of time to concentrate on their committee work.
    What a contrast to Pawleen. Can you imagine her helping plan out future course on China or renewables.

  6. I can see the logic in the Liberals pitching right rather than moderating, esp when you consider the numbers as Uhlmann has done.

    Some suggest that the remaining Liberals should now tilt left. This seems unlikely because the independents just purged the party of moderates and the progressive side of politics is hitting saturation level. The Liberals can’t compete with the “Starbucks” choice now on offer, and heading further left only opens opportunity for trouble on the right.

    So, the most likely path for the Liberals is to pitch right under former defence minister Peter Dutton. Then the party might abandon the idea of trying to win back the inner city and set its sights on the vast swathe of Labor seats in the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne.

    The Coalition, One Nation and United Australia Party primary vote at the election tallies to 44.6 per cent, and if some, or all, of it could be gathered in the one tent then it becomes a formidable force.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/circle-of-political-life-turns-canberra-upside-down-20220524-p5anxc.html

  8. Liberal MPs who feared their government was on a path to electoral oblivion urged Josh Frydenberg to challenge Scott Morrison in September last year but were unable to convince the former treasurer to turn against his leader.

    Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, one of a number of moderate MPs who approached Frydenberg with the idea of a leadership coup, confirmed preliminary discussions took place but that the plot faltered after Frydenberg declared his loyalty to the prime minister.

    “As a matter of course, colleagues always consider ongoing electoral viability,” he said.

    Former NSW Liberal MP Jason Falinski, who lost his seat to teal independent Sophie Scamps, also confirmed to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that a change of leader had been canvassed.

    “There were no serious discussions about replacing the prime minister,” he said. Frydenberg declined to comment.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/liberals-discussed-dumping-morrison-in-coalition-s-final-months-20220524-p5ao0z.html

  9. The article also says that Frydenberg’s campaign considered printing flyers saying ‘Vote Ryan, Get Dutton’, but that seems incredulous.

    I think it’s increasingly obvious that they should’ve gone to the election late last year, even without a change of leader. Holding out for this long didn’t only give the Teal candidates more time to build their community support, but it just further entrenched the low opinions people had of Morrison.

  10. Confessions

    “The Liberals can’t compete with the “Starbucks” choice now on offer”.
    ————
    Whatever do they mean by a “Starbucks” choice?

    I only once ever had (unwillingly) a Starbucks coffee and found it bland, second rate and it has been unrepeatable.

    That is a strange description of the range of non-tories that make up the new Parliament.

  12. Voodoo Blues (from previous thread)

    I also expressed similar views on the Teals, but more specifically with education reform. Whether the individual Teal members support the current gross inequities in school funding, for instance, is largely unknown, but their electorates sure as hell do!

    But, yeah, there’s a bit of a “let’s do something about climate change as long as someone else pays” feel at the moment. That includes the Greens “let’s just tax billionaires” con.

  13. And, true to form, Stokes’ 7 in Melbourne says electricity prices are going up in VICTORIA

    No mention of nationally

    This is the same across media whether it be the Pandemic as the catalyst for pressures on our health systems to reporting of case numbers to any other matter

    The Pandemic is global

    The impact is global

    Media are the uneducated telling their fellow uneducated what they do not know

    And Stokes should stick to WA, where his discredited media interests dominate

  14. Confessions @ #8 Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 – 6:18 am

    I think it’s increasingly obvious that they should’ve gone to the election late last year, even without a change of leader. Holding out for this long didn’t only give the Teal candidates more time to build their community support, but it just further entrenched the low opinions people had of Morrison.

    The counter-argument against that strategy is that the COVID situation looked a lot worse late last year, which surely would have been a negative for a government that was already being attacked for failures on quarantine, vaccine procurement, cooperation with state governments, etc.

    I confidently predicted that if we didn’t have a serious COVID wave around election time, the Coalition would be re-elected. Fortunately I was wrong – even though people seem to have largely put the pandemic out of their minds, voters still deserted the government in droves.

  17. https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/05/25/federal-election-live-day-five/#comment-3923999

    Could refer to plastic corporate hospitality, all dollars and process and no genuine experience. Boxed services delivery.

    HoJo motels.

    Try and order something simple in an American deli (with Chinese menu range oof choices), several types of rolls, butter, sauce etc etc etc .

    Or a latte with two types of sweet, 70% milk, 30% oat milk and a twist …

    McDos did it differently based on the paradox of choice, meals and items but only a few. (Same with Apple, one small, medium, large … make it simpler to choose)

    More choice, less satisfaction.

    Hard to tell really.

  18. “The Liberals can’t compete with the “Starbucks” choice now on offer …”

    Uhlmann is referring to the ‘left’ of Australian politics (such as it is)?

    Oh, FFS! If the Liberals were to lurch further right, they’ll be competing with the PHONies and Palmer’s PUPs and the (neo)Liberal Dems and Rooters, Shooters ‘n’ Fishers and the Kattermites and Dog knows who else.

    Oh, and let’s not forget the Osborne Independent Group (is that still a thing?):

    “Uhlmann unsuccessfully contested the ACT 1998 general election for the electorate of Molonglo with the Osborne Independent Group. The conservative group was named after Paul Osborne, who was strongly pro-life and advocated blocking both euthanasia legislation and any attempt to decriminalise abortion.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Uhlmann

  23. Confessions;
    That strategy of the coalition cannibilising the UAP vote to win the suburbs should be titled the ‘add more slop to the bucket’ strategy.

    It amounts to the libs wanting to become the working man’s party… What could possibly go wrong/s

  24. The Qld Nationals and Nationals party , will have a similar number of members in the house of reps now as the cross bench
    15/16

  27. If the Liberals can’t compete, it means they’re not where most people want them to be.

    The solution is to move towards that, not away from it.

  28. William, I saw a figure somewhere – could have been Antony Green? – that there was around 82,000 phone votes all up. About 6,000 of these were blind people, and the rest presumably were Covid isolated.

    You’d think those who went to the effort of finding out the process, registering and voting, would be at the more motivated end. So likely to favour other than the Coailition.

    This is just speculation

  29. Morning all. Thanks Jaeger for this link and story:
    “ Coalition delayed news that electricity prices are set to rise until after federal election”
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/25/coalition-delayed-news-that-electricity-prices-are-set-to-rise-until-after-federal-election

    Labor needs to get the message out as a priority that this was concealed by the Liberal Party. There hasn’t been enough time for higher power prices to be due to anything but Liberal policy. This will further boost Joshflation and the need for wage rises.

    Labor also needs to boot any gas industry shills out of the AER quickly.

  30. bug1 @ #22 Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 – 6:51 am

    Confessions;
    That strategy of the coalition cannibilising the UAP vote to win the suburbs should be titled the ‘add more slop to the bucket’ strategy.

    It amounts to the libs wanting to become the working man’s party… What could possibly go wrong/s

    Well, I can imagine a scenario where it does work for them. I know it was over 20 years ago, so people have probably forgotten, but cannibilising the One Nation vote was exactly what John Howard did, and it didn’t do him any political harm.

    Long term may be another matter, but certainly in the short to medium term I can see that such a strategy could be effective. And if that’s the route you want to go, then Dutton is probably the best leader to be able to do it.

  31. Shellbell, heard Wolahan interviewed on the radio last night. Clearly far less obnoxious than Kevin Andrews. Seemed to understand the LNP problem with race-baiting quite well. Was careful how he framed it given that Dutton is about to be his leader.

  32. Libs wanting to compete for the UAP and One Nation vote ( combined vote less that the Greens ) because there is too much competition in the middle?

    Sky-news will keep the Liberals out of power for generations. Long may they broadcast.

  34. Some bloodletting in the ACT…

    Zed Seselja is bunkering down and refusing to concede defeat as independent David Pocock edges closer to an historic ACT Senate win.

    The former Wallabies captain has yet to claim victory as counting continues, but he told The Canberra Times late on Tuesday that it “looks increasingly likely that the final result will be in our favour” as preferences continued to flow his way.
    ………
    The Canberra Times understands a group of moderate Liberals arranged to meet on Tuesday night to discuss Saturday’s election result and the future direction of the party.

    Senator Seselja’s brand of hardline conservatism has shaped the local branch, making him a powerful but divisive figure.

    Forrmer Liberal chief ministers Kate Carnell and Gary Humphries were on Tuesday urging the branch to shift back to the centre.

    Liberal members who spoke to The Canberra Times on the condition of anonymity are optimistic the branch can reposition itself following Senator Seselja’s departure.

    But there is also palpable anger among sections of the membership.

    “The loss of the ACT Senate seat is unacceptable and rests entirely at the feet of Zed Seselja – he is the architect of his own demise,” one member said.

    “At every opportunity he has chosen his own personal crusades over the interests of the territory which has put him at odds with his own community on an almost daily basis since his election.”

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7751767/seselja-not-conceding-as-pocock-edges-closer-to-victory/?cs=14329

  35. Regarding calling the election late last year, the Covid situation was just too uncertain. Delta was still around, we were just coming out of lockdown, no one knew how it would go. The Morrison Government probably determined that the risks of going early without good reason (political advantage doesn’t count) to what might well have been a massive superspreader event were just too great.

    As it turned out, NSW held long-planned local elections on December 4 with no obvious adverse consequences during what turned out to be a hiatus between Delta and Omicron, but no one could know that at the time.

  36. Confessions;

    Yea longer term is the problem if they tack more extremists on.
    It could be argued that Tony Abbott is the one who started the coalition towards their current loss, he was the one who alienated women, which alienated professionals as well (it just took them a while).

  39. bug1 @ #35 Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 – 7:17 am

    Confessions;

    Yea longer term is the problem if they tack more extremists on.
    It could be argued that it was Tony Abbott is the one who started the coalition towards their current loss, he was the one who alienated women, which alienated professionals as well (it just took them a while).

    And to pick up on Abbott, I’ll bet London to a brick the coalition will pick up where Abbott left off in opposition by trying to create as much chaos and dysfunction for this parliament as they can. That way they kill two birds with one stone: painting the Labor govt as hopeless and incompetent, or worse, breaking promises, and at the same time being able to say ‘see, we told you that if you elect independents it will create chaos’.

  42. rhwombat @ #37 Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 – 7:23 am

    C@tmomma @ #36 Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 – 7:20 am

    Scomo a Gone Gone @ #1 Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 – 2:51 am

    I’ve had a vision of what the LNP slogan for election 2025 will be… 😡

    “Give Albo the elbow”

    grrrr

    ‘Punt Dutton’

    Sack Spud?
    Turf Turnip?

    The more the merrier. We need to start early and build up a head of steam. Peter Dutton is already putting it about in the media that he’s actually a nice guy. Can you believe the chutzpah!

    #FICACNow!

  43. Here’s a story on the guy who might get Legalise Cannabis over the line in Queensland. He’s a lawyer from Noosa:

    Legalise Cannabis Australia’s Bernie Bradley is in with a sniff of winning Queensland’s sixth Senate spot – and he doesn’t even smoke dope.

    The criminal defence solicitor likes to play a little golf and go to the Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club to hit the water on his RL24 “sailer trailer”.

    Bradley, 52, went to the Anglican high school of Churchie, played a bit of rugby union and describes himself as “pretty conservative”.

    “My mates are mainly stockbrokers,” he says.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/25/the-noosa-yacht-club-member-who-led-the-hemp-party-to-its-best-result-yet-in-queensland

    🙂

  44. Cat and others

    I agree on Dutton. His rule would be more like the Argentine military junta. It would be useful for voters to be more aware of the circumstances of his departure from Qld police too.

    Meanwhile the war in Ukraine has vanished from front pages but has recently increased in intensity. We should send more artillery, ammunition and Bushmasters. We should not wait till they ask.

    Have a good day all.

  46. howard succesfuly out did one nation in 2001 with asylum seekers and tamper adopting one nation policies and won a big victory dutton and morrison were clearly following a similar stratigythois time painting china as the enimy how ever ucraine and rusia plus solamons helpt under mine this plus gladys liu runing in cchizolm if libs dumpt sazelja for karnell they could have won dutton was good mates with cormann which is suprizing given different personalities on labor hope don farell does not get a senyor role uselishope clare and galligher get premoted

  47. 14 students and a teacher have died in a “horrific … incomphrensible” shooting at a primary school in Texas.

    Authorities believe the shooter was an 18-year-old man from Uvalde, and “it is believed responding officers killed him”.

  48. Of the three methods employed in Sydney/Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to eject the Libs my favourite is the WA approach, a full-frontal swift kick in the nuts.

  49. That Uhlmann article is wishful thinking. If he can get paid to write his wishes as if they’re good strategy, why can’t I get paid to do it too? I’m sure it wouldn’t be any worse.

    Any Coalition government from here has to start from the fact that they’re more than a dozen seats down and that the only reliable seats they can put minister-grade candidates in are in Queensland or the senate. It’s that simple. A Victorian who fancies themselves a possible federal government minister has to fight for preselection and fight for election every three years. They won’t have time to represent the government by campaigning in neighboring or distant seats. Until they can come to terms with the fact that they need to be a representative national coalition to get elected, they’re not going to get into government.

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