Live updated results from the Australian Capital Territory, Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater.
End of Saturday night
To summarise, the Liberals have had a disappointing result in the Australian Capital Territory, looking to have gained only one seat from their starting point of nine out of 25 and not even being assured of that. Labor has held steady on ten seats, despite its vote share being down by three to four points. The Greens have failed to match a best-ever result in 2020, but the cut in the party’s representation from six seats to three (or possibly four if things go their way in Brindabella) reflected only a slight drop in vote share. Of particular note was the election of two independents for the first time since the 1990s, dove-tailing with the emergence of David Pocock on the federal scene. With Labor and the Greens set to retain a combined majority, they face a marginal position in the new parliament.
Another notable independent win was chalked up last night by Jacqui Scruby in the New South Wales state by-election for Pittwater. Scruby fell 0.7% short of being the only teal independent to gain a seat at the March 2023 election, which she has accounted for on my projection with a swing of about 5%. In this she was no doubt aided by the ignominious circumstances of Liberal member Rory Amon’s departure, and also by both Labor and the Greens leaving the field vacant for her. Labor also did not contest yesterday’s by-elections for Epping and Hornsby, respectively vacated by Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean, where Liberal candidates Monica Tudehope and James Wallace both looked to have scored majorities on the primary vote.
Live commentary
9.46pm. Another update from Brindabella has the Liberals down from 2.58 quotas to 2.57 and the Greens up from 0.54 to 0.55.
9.26pm. The Brindabella preliminary distribution, which was calculated before the weakening of the Liberals’ position, had Labor’s Mick Gentleman, who is fighting for his and Labor’s third seat, excluded with 3708 votes to the third Liberal’s 4218, or 14.3% of the total to 12.6%.
9.19pm. Kevin Bonham can further discern a scenario where Brindabella comes out at Labor three and Liberal two, rather than the other way around. Clearly this is the electorate that will be the main focus of interest in the late count.
9.08pm. I’m not sure whether it’s because of the correction of the Chisholm booth error or a substantial addition of new votes, but the Liberals’ third seat in Brindabella no longer looks secure. The Liberals have a 2.58 quotas (a 9.7% surplus over the second quota), the Greens 0.54 (9.0%) and Independents for Canberra 0.45 (7.5%), leaving preferences from the latter the decisive factor in whether the Greens can yet pull an iron out of the fire here. The preliminary preference distribution has the Independents for Canberra preference going 30.5% to Labor, 19.2% to the Greens and only 13.1% to the Liberals, with 37.2% exhausting. That suggests to me the Liberals will need the fillip they are presumably likely to get from postals to hold out against the Greens.
9.03pm. Nothing in the preference distribution to doubt the earlier assessment of Kurrajong as two Labor and one each for Liberal, Greens and independent Thomas Emerson, the latter taking the Greens’ second seat.
8.55pm. No surprises in the distribution for Brindabella, a clear result of Liberal three and Labor two. Ginninderra is as expected projected as a status quo result of Labor two, Liberal two, Greens on. Jo Clay of the Greens gets the last seat by surviving ahead of Mark Richardson of Independents for Canberra by 13.6% to 10.6% at the decisive point of the late count.
8.46pm. Preliminary preference distributions have been published on the ACT Electoral Commission site, which I’ll now be poring over.
8.45pm. Antony Green on the ABC notes all 900 votes from the Chisholm booth in Brindabella have been allocated to the Liberals, an obvious error. However, its correction won’t fundamentally change the situation there.
7.58pm. So it looks to me like the Liberals are gaining a seat from the Greens in Brindabella, and independents are gaining seats from the Greens in Kurrajong and Murrumbidgee. That would leave Labor steady on ten seats but reduce their coalition partners in the Greens from six to three, while leaving them with a combined majority of 13 out of 25. The Liberals would at least gain parity with Labor on ten seats, but be unable to gain a majority even if the two independents supported them.
7.52pm. Yerrabi looks like a status quo result in every particular, returning incumbents Michael Pettersson and Suzanne Orr of Labor, Leanne Castley and James Milligan of Liberal, and Andrew Braddock of the Greens.
7.49pm. My system is now calling Pittwater for Jacqui Scruby (and I believe that’s despite a glitch in the projection that’s favouring the Liberals by a handful of votes).
7.48pm. A second independent looks like being elected in Murrumbidgee — Fiona Carrick, at the expense of Emma Davidson of the Greens, with Labor (incumbents Chris Steel and Marisa Paterson) and Liberal (incumbents Jeremy Hanson and Ed Cocks) remaining on two each.
7.44pm. Kurrajong, which went two Labor, two Greens and one Liberal in 2020, looks like electing Thomas Emerson, Independents for Canberra candidate and son of former federal Labor minister Craig Emerson. This is disappointing for the Liberals who look like remaining stalled on one seat (Elizabeth Lee’s), with the others going two Labor (Andrew Barr and Rachel Stephen-Smith re-elected) and one Greens (Shane Rattenbury re-elected, Rebecca Vassarotti failing to retain the Greens’ second seat).
7.33pm. Ginninderra looks like a status quo result of two each for Labor and Liberal and one for the Greens. Labor incumbents Yvette Berry and Tara Cheyne will be re-elected, as will the only recontesting Liberal, Peter Cain, likely to be joined by Chiaka Barry. Jo Clay should be returned for the Greens.
7.21pm. Antony Green says the ABC computer is calling Pittwater for Jacqui Scruby. I’ve got her probability at 97.4%, and don’t call it until 99%.
7.18pm. I’ll now go through the ACT seats alphabetically. Brindabella looks like Liberal three and Labor two, with the Liberals taking a seat from the Greens. The only contesting Liberal incumbent, Mark Parton, has a quota on his own, with Deborah Morris (especially) and James Daniel looking good for the other two. Labor’s only contesting incumbent, Mick Gentleman, is coming third on his party’s ticket, behind Caitlin Tough and Tamius Werner-Gibbings, the latter of whom had to fight for preselection.
7.06pm. As my projection suggested it would, a fourth booth from Pittwater has moderated Jacqui Scruby’s lead. We also have, very early, a batch of postals, breaking 743-606 to Liberal. So Scruby will need her lead on the booth results. She’s very well placed, but my system still isn’t calling it.
7.03pm. I believe it was just the one bug, and it’s now fixed.
6.58pm. Bugs in my ACT page: pretty much everything in the summary table at the bottom of the entry page, and the bar charts on the seat pages are misbehaving. Initial impression is that the Liberals are doing very well in Brindabella, but more modestly elsewhere.
6.53pm. Thanks to the magic of electronic voting, a massive influx of results from the ACT.
6.51pm. Three booths in from Pittwater, and I’m projecting Jacqui Scruby with 55.6% TCP when her raw primary vote is 58.7%, so presumably these are from good areas for her. My system isn’t quite giving it away yet though.
6.48pm. Three booths in from Epping, Liberal candidate on nearly two-thirds of the vote.
6.43pm. Two booths from Pittwater look hugely encouraging for independent Jacqui Scruby, her primary vote at over 60% in both.
6.42pm. Sixty-nine votes from Wisemans Ferry offers nothing to disabuse the assumption that a Liberal win in Hornsby is a formality.
6pm. Polls are closed for each of the above-mentioned electoral events, which you can read a lot more about through the election guides at the top of the sidebar. My results page for the by-elections offer booth-matched swings and projections and full results at booth level in map and tabular form. The ACT page is more elementary – no results at booth level and the swings simply compare the current results with the final ones from 2020.
The ACT election results website is now showing 0% swing to the Libs overall.
Lars Von Triersays:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 7:55 pm
Obviously untrue, defies the facts and a tad disingenuous Lars.
Cheers !
Votes towards the independents have increased.
Swing to Liberals is close to zero!
“Can anybody explain why the ACT Government has an office of international engagement?”
Knowing very little about Canberra, or international relations, I still feel I can fairly safely say the answer is ‘Embassies’
As the night has progressed it has looked less bad for Labor, less positive for the Liberals and still bad for the Greens.
On Dr Bonham’s comments, nobody knows Hare Clark better than he:
8:51 Chisholm issue fixed. What happens with Brindabella in the interim distribution is that despite Labor trailing 2.02 quotas to 2.77 quotas, they keep three candidates in the race who use the Ginninderra Effect (drink) to outlast the Greens, Independents for Canberra etc and get their preferences. As a result of this at the point where Gentleman is excluded, Labor has risen to 2.63 Q vs 0.86 Q for the Liberals, but more than that, Labor have two candidates short of quota and Gentleman is on 0.76 quotas. Now that’s the interim distribution, but also since then the Liberals are down 0.19 quotas to 2.58 and Labor are up 0.09. Labor’s gain splits two ways, but I’m not sure the Liberals get any such benefit. So on live numbers the Liberals may be behind – an astonishing scenario that may get snuffed out by postals but amazing it’s even possible.
joeldipops – Surprisingly not. It is about Sister City relationships and boosting trade and links….
https://www.cmtedd.act.gov.au/economic-development/business-and-innovation/international-engagement-and-trade/oie
Sister City = junkets.
Lars Von Triersays:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 8:22 pm
Are you Woollahra or Waverley ?
Antony on ABC has called it for Labor.
fascinating change after the initial e-vote report. Libs up 2.1% then
At 52% was 1.2
55% 1.0
57% 0.9
59% 0.5
64% -0.1
Some issue in Chisholm booth mentioned but aside from that a persistent trend with on the day votes added
”No offence to Canberra but they probably don’t care about a glorified council election…”
I suppose it’s a mini-State Government. The ACT has about 80% of the population of Tasmania. It has an area that approximates that of Luxembourg with about ⅔ of its population. It is bigger than many member states of the UN.
Lars Von Trier:
I assume all the states and territories have something like that, for things like sister city agreements, facilitating trade shows and delegations, liaising with the Federal Government on international matters (particularly of interest to the ACT with the large number of diplomatic missions situated in the territory).
Elizabeth Lee is conceding on ABC.
ALP have been in power for 27 years now in the ACT.
Demonstrates the powers of education and the resultant intelligence.
The Libs can save a bit of money in 2028 by keeping their “23 years is long enough” corflutes and changing the 3 to a 7.
Sticking the finger up not good thought she may have gotten away with it earlier tonight’s count .Labor good result given 23 years in power,libs not great and Greens terrible.
Public sector unions rule ACT.
.
Somehow I doubt that Lee’s finger had any impact on the outcome. No more that Brittany Higgins had on Morrison’s departure.
Libs person just called out the evangels in Liberals downfall in ACT.
At least they are saying it openly.
Also, not only there but national as well.
Gotta get rid of them Libs otherwise you’ll never get into government anywhere.
They are even trying to sabotage the Qld election.
As a Labor person I can only say go you religious extremists!
With just over seventy percent of the votes counted, it’s now clear the gains for Independents for Canberra have come mostly at the expense of other independents and minor parties (down 3.5 percent) and Labor (down 3.3 percent). Their gains at the expense of the Greens (down 1.2 percent) have been comparatively small.
But anyone expecting a change in the narrative of the Greens being slaughtered by independents had better not hold their breath.
Luigi Smith @ #166 Saturday, October 19th, 2024 – 9:38 pm
I disagree. For the ACT Liberals to win, everything had to go perfect for them. That she lost her temper like that and acted like a petulant child, that shattered it for them.
Arky, though they are only 11 percenters, when it comes to the government of the ABC they are 23 percenters (3/13)
Is it assumed that all 3 independants in the ACT assumind a 10 Alp 10 Lib 3 Green 3 others would all align against the ALP?
Would it be possible for 1 of those to also lign to form Govt?
Lee, enough!
Didn’t you see that eyeroll from your rep in the ABS studio?
You lost!
“joeldipops says:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 9:12 pm
“Can anybody explain why the ACT Government has an office of international engagement?”
Knowing very little about Canberra, or international relations, I still feel I can fairly safely say the answer is ‘Embassies’”
I don’t really know but I think it’s similar to state governments sending trade missions overseas to drum up business from abroad. International students come to mind (obviously hampered at a federal level) and also hi-tech and defence industries. Not to mention trying to get international flights into Canberra airport as Qantas continually refuses.
”ALP have been in power for 27 years now in the ACT.
Demonstrates the powers of education and the resultant intelligence.”
Wouldn’t it be great if we could keep the Coalition out of office for 27 years Federally.
‘Ante Meridian says:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 9:40 pm
With just over seventy percent of the votes counted, it’s now clear the gains for Independents for Canberra have come mostly at the expense of other independents and minor parties (down 3.5 percent) and Labor (down 3.3 percent). Their gains at the expense of the Greens (down 1.2 percent) have been comparatively small.
But anyone expecting a change in the narrative of the Greens being slaughtered by independents had better not hold their breath.’
================
The Greens got lucky in the last Hare Clark lotto just crossing the quota line for several members.
That has caught up with them now.
They had six seats in the last Assembly on a vote of 13%.
This Assembly they are eleven per centers. Three members in a 25 seat assembly is 12%.
23 years is long enough for the Liberals to have gotten their shit together instead of flipping the bird to the electorate.
Doubledummy @ #170 Saturday, October 19th, 2024 – 9:50 pm
There are 2 others.
One is progressive (Emerson) the other is unknown (Carrick).
33% for the Libs
That smells like a Senate quota to me.
Goodbye Senator Dropkick
The ACT Liberals are an interesting combination of socially liberal free-marketeers and the hardest-core culture warriors you’ll find anywhere (in Australia at least). Occasionally they remember that only the first type of Liberal can actually get elected to government in the ACT.
Sydney Morning Herald: Jacqui Scruby set to win Pittwater, Teal’s first NSW State seat.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/i-am-nervous-nsw-liberals-sweat-on-byelection-results-20241019-p5kjnr.html (paywalled)
yep my bad, can’t add to 25.
5-6 progressives
10 centrists
9-10 loons, hacks and religious nutters
‘Ante Meridian says:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 9:40 pm
With just over seventy percent of the votes counted, it’s now clear the gains for Independents for Canberra have come mostly at the expense of other independents and minor parties (down 3.5 percent) and Labor (down 3.3 percent). Their gains at the expense of the Greens (down 1.2 percent) have been comparatively small.
But anyone expecting a change in the narrative of the Greens being slaughtered by independents had better not hold their breath.’
=============================
I pointed out before the ACT election that Labor had fat it in its quotas and that the Greens did not.
They only just crossed the line to achieve a number of quotas in the last election.
The Independents surge and the Greens loss of 1.2% therefore had a disproportionate impact.
Boerwar,
I know the Greens were lucky last time, and I know that three seats would be proportional to their vote this time.
My point was that the narrative has been, since before the count even started, that a rise in the number of prominent independents would see the Greens’ vote slashed, and that narrative is not borne out by the results.
paul Asays:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 9:54 pm
33% for the Libs
That smells like a Senate quota to me.
Goodbye Senator Dropkick
—————————————————————
Because of course the results of a state/territory election are directly translated into a federal result. Fool.
‘Bryon says:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 9:59 pm
5-6 progressives
10 centrists
9-10 loons, hacks and religious nutters’
================
ACT Labor is center left progressive. Nor are all the Liberals freak show.
Pocock will run and will almost certainly gain a senate seat in the next Federal election.
‘Ante Meridian says:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 10:03 pm
Boerwar,
I know the Greens were lucky last time, and I know that three seats would be proportional to their vote this time.
My point was that the narrative has been, since before the count even started, that a rise in the number of prominent independents would see the Greens’ vote slashed, and that narrative is not borne out by the results.’
=================
My point is that the Independents capture of even a small number of Greens votes cost three Greens reps their seats.
BW – Gain? You mean retain?
BSF
Whoops. Retain.
I can’t imagine there are too many “federal implications” that can be gathered from a mild swing against a 23-year-old government, in a jurisdiction that comprises just 2% of the nations population, with just three federal seats that are all held on thumping majorities by the party vying for reflection.
IMO, the only things that can really be drawn from this result are that Pocock is probably safe and that Labor likely won’t face serious challenges from the Greens in their ACT house seats in 2025, both of which are good news for the federal government.
Katy Gallagher may come third in the ACT senate count.
“paul A says:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 9:54 pm
33% for the Libs
That smells like a Senate quota to me.
Goodbye Senator Dropkick”
It should be a closer contest in 2025 than in 2022 with Pocock against Seselja. However the preselected Liberal is almost unknown. Could be line ball.
AG says we could end up with 2 Greens and 3 Indys so that would make it abit untidy for the next Labor Govt in Cantberra. Interesting times ahead. Bloody Hare Clarke, always a pain.
Like all independents, Pocock will get a strong second-term surge. He’ll smash it.
Lars Von Trier says:
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 10:11 pm
Katy Gallagher may come third in the ACT senate count.
—————————-
In your wild fantasies.
People like me who strategically voted Pocock before Gallagher to get rid of Seselja may not do so again. I won’t.
Bad night for my greens!
Fascinating that the government has been re-elected and yet the junior coalition partner has lost seats.
Lessons to be learned.
There are too many contradictions within the Greens in their current form for them to grow beyond the 15% primary vote nationally.
I’m with citizen at 10.14. Pocock has a good chance but it will be complex. My money would be on the Libs if they don’t pick a ratbag. But there is a significant chance they will pick a ratbag.
Bryon
Is Lee in that crew.
From her concession speech and the lot behind her I got a sort of impression of weird .
Not the pleasantest tone of discussion on here tonight, seems to have adopted the insults and name-calling normally reserved for the main (and, more recently, USA) threads.