Queensland by-elections and Brisbane City Council election live

Full displays of results:

Inala by-election

Ipswich West by-election

Brisbane Lord Mayor election

Brisbane City Council wards election

11.42pm. My system has the Greens ahead in Paddington now, but slightly behind in Walter Taylor.

10.50pm. The ABC computer has different ideas from mine about a couple of things, notably Paddington, which it’s (again) calling for the Greens while mine has the LNP with its nose in front. This points to the difficulty of projection off an election that was held at the height of COVID, which dramatically changed how people voted. The Greens have a solid lead on the TCP count so far, but this is well behind the count for the primary vote.

10.08pm. One bright note for Labor is that they seem to have come to life in LNP-held Calamvale, which is now rated a likely Labor gain by both me and the ABC. That could see them break even after the loss of Wynnum-Manly, giving them the weak bragging right of not having done worse than last time. The ABC has retracted its call of Paddington as a Greens gain from the LNP — it and Walter Taylor both look very close.

9.54pm. I also note the ABC isn’t calling Ipswich West for the LNP — it’s projecting 52.6% TCP for the LNP whereas I have 53.2%. Mysteries abound — the TCP results on the ECQ site lag far behind the media feed, and actually have Labor ahead (from 6501 votes compared with 14,375 on the feed).

9.52pm. Actually, that’s not the reason my system is being more conservative about Walter Taylor than the ABC’s. I note that every ward result on the ABC says “0 of x centres reporting a preference count”, but preference counts have assuredly been reported. I’m not sure if this is purely a cosmetic issue or if the ABC is working entirely off preference estimates.

9.38pm. So Labor look like they are down from five BCC wards to four, having lost Wynnum-Manly to the LNP. The Greens are in the hunt in LNP-held Paddington and Walter Taylor, which both look very close, to add to their existing The Gabba. The ABC is calling Paddington for the Greens, so I suspect there is an issue here of my preference estimate selling them short — that will be corrected when a few more TCP results are through. However, their second tier hopes of Central, Coorparoo and Enoggera don’t look like coming through for them, so they will not emerge as the second strongest party.

9.35pm. I’ve devoted the last half hour to bug-hunting, at least partly because my read of a Labor disaster in the BCC ward of Wynnum-Manly didn’t seem to gel with the ABC — but now it does. That’s not to say there weren’t bugs though, one of which was stopping the two-candidate preferred tables from populating on the council wards results pages. That has now been fixed.

9.18pm. It’s been noted by preference estimates, which get used before two-candidate preferred numbers report, have been selling the Greens short in seats where they are challenging the LNP. I now have them ahead in Paddington, and a correction should soon come through in their favour in Walter Taylor.

8.41pm. A strong showing by the Greens in Labor-held Moorooka ward, where they look like taking second place from the LNP, but Labor still on track to retain it.

8.38pm. As well as Wynnum-Manly, I’m now projecting the LNP ahead in the Labor-held BCC ward of Morningside, suggesting they could be reduced to three seats. That at least raises the possibility of them being outperformed by the Greens, although it’s far from clear at this stage if they will add anything to their existing solitary seat of The Gabba (which is yet to record any figures) — there are four possibilities, but they’re not actually ahead in any of them.

8.34pm. Paddington still looks like a very close race between the LNP and the Greens with three booths in.

8.30pm. My system is now calling Ipswich West for the LNP. The projected swing in Inala is even bigger, but so is Labor’s buffer there.

8.21pm. My system is now calling six wards for the LNP, one of which is Enoggera.

8.19pm. Early figures suggest Labor are in big danger of losing Wynnum-Manly to the LNP, one of only five BCC wards they held going into the election.

8.18pm. The LNP looks like retaining Enoggera regardless of who comes second out of Labor and the Greens — my system is now favouring the latter. This was one of five LNP-held wards the Greens had identified as possible gains. Of their two presumed strongest chances, Paddington looks lineball and there is nothing in yet from Walter Taylor. Too early to say about their other second tier prospects of Coorparoo and Central.

8.13pm. While Adrian Schrinner is headed for re-election as Lord Mayor, he’s faded on my projection as the count has progressed, with a slight booth-matched swing away from him now recorded on the primary vote.

8.10pm. The good news for Labor is that my system is calling Inala for them. The bad news is that the swing is similar to the one that’s putting it on the cusp of calling Ipswich West for the LNP.

8.08pm. Early indications also point to a close LNP-Greens race in Paddington, where the Greens fancied their chances.

8.06pm. The first booth from the BCC Enoggera ward has the Greens second, but my projection has them behind Labor in a fairly close race for second. The LNP vote looks high enough for them to hold either way, but early days yet.

8.04pm. The Brisbane City booth gives the Greens an encouraging first result in the BCC’s Coorparoo ward — only 168 votes, but it points to a chance they will take it from the LNP, consistent with the party’s own expectations.

8.02pm. A booth in at last from Inala, and there too there is a huge swing to the LNP of over 20% according to my projection, with Labor’s primary vote collapsing 32.5% to 37.8%. No doubt Annastacia Palaszczuk had a big personal vote here, but still. Independent Linh Nyugen on double figures, presumably taking a bit from Labor. Bad as all this is for Labor, it doesn’t suggest they are in serious danger of losing.

8.00pm. It’s been noted that the informal vote in Ipswich West is out from 4.0% to 8.6%, which no doubt has a lot to do with an optional preferential voting council election being held on the same day as a compulsory preferential voting state by-election. Presumably this isn’t doing Labor any favours.

7.58pm. An eleventh booth in Ipswich West was obviously not good for Labor, pushing my projection of the LNP lead out from (from memory) 1.9% to 2.5% and increasing their win probability to 95%.

7.52pm. Substantial progress now in the mayoralty count, confirming what was noted before — Adrian Schrinner holding steady on his 2020 vote, and movement from Labor to the Greens but not enough to get the latter’s candidate, Jonathan Sriranganathan, to second.

7.50pm. The swing in Ipswich West continues to be big enough to make the LNP firm favourites when quite getting them to where my system would call it. The Brisbane council ward of Tennyson has been called for independent incumbent Nicole Johnston, who looks to be doing it easily.

7.43pm. Note that my mayoralty entry page does things like say certain wards have been “retained” by the LNP, which simply means Schrinner is projected to win there again. The system is geared to seat-style contests and I didn’t have time to finesse everything.

7.42pm. The lack of any action from Inala had me checking the ABC to make sure it wasn’t a fault in my system, but no, still no numbers there yet.

7.40pm. Some big lord mayoralty numbers in now, and the situation has settled quite considerably — it now looks like a status quo result with a bit of a swing from Labor to the Greens, rather than historic disaster Labor seemed to be suffering at first. Presumably this will start flowing through to the council ward results shortly.

7.37pm. Labor has perked up a little on my Ipswich West win probability with the reporting of a third two-candidate result, which presumably improved their projected preference flow.

7.33pm. On Brisbane Council, my system is now calling Bracken Ridge and LNP retain, which a huge swing blowing out what was hitherto a fairly tight margin.

7.31pm. My system has actually crossed the threshold where it’s not using my preference estimates in Ipswich West. So the 10% Labor win probability should probably be taken seriously at this point.

7.30pm. Eight booths in now on the primary vote — fast count there, slow one in Inala. Perhaps they’re prioritising by-election and council votes differently. In any case, the new Ipswich West results do not change what was written in the previous update.

7.28pm. Booth number five from Ipswich West is also less bad for Labor, being comparable to the last two. But I may have been wrong to say these booths were coming in below what the LNP needed to win the seat — I was just looking at the Labor primary vote (a lot on my plate at present). The LNP primary vote swing across the board is approaching 20%, which makes them look very dangerous. Legalise Cannabis are soaking up votes from the absent Greens and a lot depends on their preferences. My current projection assumes they will go 60-40 to Labor, but if they’re loaded with Greens voters they may get a stronger flow than that. Once there are enough two-candidate preferred votes in, my projection will go off the swing on preferences rather than my estimates.

7.20pm. From four wards, I’m recording LNP two-party swings of 4.2% to 15.0% for the lord mayoralty. It’s a similar story for the council, albeit that these are the same booths. So Labor would seem in big danger at this early stage of going backwards.

7.17pm. Two further booths from Ipswich West are better for Labor — seemingly a tad below what would cost them the seat. The two booths that came in first were well above that, so Labor will have to be hoping both were outliers. Still nothing from Inala.

7.16pm. My system is calling McDowall ward for the LNP and sees big LNP swings everywhere that a swing can be determined.

7.10pm. I’ve turned off some features that were misfiring on the mayoralty landing page. However, the primary vote numbers are suggesting a very good night for the LNP and not just in Ipswich West.

6.53pm. Remarkable first results from Ipswich West had me checking the ABC to see if there was something amiss in my system, but it concurs the LNP swing is blowing the hinges off. Still early days, but the fact that the ALP has been trounced in two booths will be giving them palpitations.

6.47pm. I’m hoping the screwiness on the lord mayoralty landing page at present will resolve when there are some numbers in that aren’t mobile booths.

6.37pm. To elaborate on that point, the swing results I have for the mobile booths are meaningless — in most cases there were zero mobile results last time, so I think I just gave them a fraction of a vote from the central pre-polling booth so the system would have something to work off. Everywhere else, the swing figures will be based on booth-to-booth comparison.

6.35pm. Two mobile booths in for the lord mayoralty, with the same issues noted in the previous update. The chart and dial on my lord mayoralty landing page won’t show anything until two-candidate preferred results are reported. Ordinarily I run projections based on the primary vote, but didn’t have time to do that in this case. A little perversely, I have projections for the mayoral results at ward level, but not overall. As always, another day to do all this would have been handy.

6.23pm. A mobile polling booth has reported 102 council ward votes in Bracken Ridge. Caution would be required here at the best of times, but especially on this occasion where mobile polling was just about non-existent last time because of COVID, making any swing figure meaningless.

6.20pm. One of the things I didn’t have time to do was code around a recurring issue where sometimes empty XML files get uploaded to my server, so I suspect there will be the odd occasion where you find the page hasn’t been filled out with data. If so, you should find it resolves after a minute or two.

6pm. Polls have closed for Queensland local government elections and Inala and Ipswich West state by-elections. The links above will take you to the Poll Bludger’s own live results pages, which I’m reasonably confident will work well in the case of the by-elections, but merely hopeful in the case of the Brisbane Lord Mayor and council elctions, which were a pretty huge undertaking and for which I was still squashing bugs up to the last, which is usually not a good sign. In any case, the first results should presumably be in in around half an hour or so.

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. View all posts by William Bowe