Click here for full display of Port Macquarie by-election results.
Live commentary
End of Saturday. Liberal candidate Robert Dwyer ends the evening with 34.2% of the primary vote to Nationals candidate Sean Gleeson’s 31.2%, with preferences slightly favouring Dwyer. This is sufficient for my system to call it for Dwyer by a margin currently projected at 2.8%. In raw terms, Dwyer leads by 14,654 to 13,437 on the two-candidate count, a lead of 1217, which should increase by about 200 when a batch of postals that have as yet only reported primary votes are in. Still to come are about 13,500 more early votes, 2700 from two outstanding election day booths, and about as many postals. That leaves Gleeson needing a break of nearly 54-46 in his favour to pull off a win, when history suggests that only the election day booths will be unusually favourable to him.
9.26pm. The second pre-poll primary vote result, Port Macquarie Central EVC, has tipped my system into calling it for the Liberals after breaking 39.5% to 29.8% their way, although the swings weren’t particularly remarkable.
8.58pm. My system wasn’t updating for a while, but it’s back now. A batch of 1593 postals went well for the Liberals, but there’s been nothing further in the way of pre-polls (still on the primary votes for Port Macquarie EVC), the pattern of which is the main point of interest now.
8.20pm. Port Macquarie EVC is the first pre-poll to report its primary votes, and the swing from Liberal to Nationals looks slightly below par.
8.14pm. The primary vote swings are all over the shop, so presumably candidate factors are looming large here, as you might expect. Sean Gleeson’s home town of Hannam Vale has swung 36% in his favour.
8.12pm. On closer analysis, it undoubtedly has something to do with the Liberals having done about 8% better on pre-polls in 2023, none of which have reported as of yet, as compared with election day votes.
8.08pm. My system is back to almost calling it for the Liberals, but I couldn’t tell you why off the top of my head because the raw TCP count has the Nationals narrowly in front.
7.51pm. Just as my system was about to call it, the pendulum has swung back a little to the Nationals, though it’s not on account of the first Port Macquarie booth having reported.
7.36pm. My system seemingly gets closer to calling it for Liberal with every update, though there’s still nothing in from Port Macquarie, so I guess I’d offer a vague note of caution that the swings there might be radically different due to candidate-related factors that I’m not on top of.
7.32pm. Bit of a blockage there that I’ve taken care of with a few pieces of tape and string. My system is close to calling it for the Liberals, based on the fact that preferences are breaking evenly and the Liberals have the edge on the primary vote. The latter is somewhat more true of the projection than the raw figures, presumably because there’s still nothing in from Port Macquarie proper, where I imagine the Liberals do better.
7.18pm. Starting to look promising for the Liberals, though there are no votes in yet from Port Macquarie proper. I seem to have replaced the old problem in my primary vote projection with a new one that leaves Warwick Jonge with nothing, so I’m a little wary of it. So far as the projected TCP is concerned, the issue will resolve when enough votes are in for my system to switch to the projection based on the actual count.
7.06pm. I’ve tweaked my preference model in favour of Liberal, who I’m now projecting to a very narrow lead. Once enough votes are counted it will go off the actual preference flows recorded by the TCP count. There’s an issue with my primary vote projection that’s inflating the Warwick Jonge vote, but it’s probably an academic point.
6.53pm. Presuambly the sudden shift is due to Dunbogan Jubilee Hall, where I’m recording a 20% Liberal swing on the primary vote.
6.51pm. Looking quite a lot closer now, for whatever reason. I just noticed that my preference estimates were failing to account for optional preferential voting and a high exhaustion rate — they’re doing so now.
6.46pm. The first TCP result is in from the small Johns River Hall booth — to the extent that it suggests anything, it’s that the exhaustion rate will be rather high.
6.42pm. Three booths in and they suggest the seat will revert to Nationals type. A weak showing so far for independent Warwick Yonge, who at this stage doesn’t look like he will make the final three ahead of the Greens. I’m presently assuming Yonge’s preferences will break evenly between Nationals and Liberal, but his how-to-vote card favoured the Liberals. A TCP result or two should give a clearer idea.
6.20pm. Polls closed 20 minutes ago — frantically trying to iron a few last (hopefully) bugs out of my live results page, which you can find linked to above.
Preview
A mildly diverting by-election is on today in the New South Wales state seat of Port Macquarie, where Leslie Williams has called time on a 14-year parliamentary career. Williams held the seat for the Nationals from 2011 to 2020, then defected to the Liberals and retained the seat under their banner in 2023. This has made for a keenly fought contest between the Liberals, whose candidate is Laurieton United Services Club general manager Robert Dwyer, and the Nationals, who have endorsed Hannan Vale beef cattle farmer Sean Gleeson, with Labor sitting it out. Further complicating matters is that the original winner of the local Nationals preselection, general practitioner Warwick Yonge, is running as an independent after the party’s central executive mysteriously declined to ratify his endorsement. You can learn more about the electorate through my by-election guide – this site will offer the usual live results feature if I’m able to get my act together in time.
That’s my parents seat. 🙂
Nats should recover the seat, although that National party co-op in 2023 to put some nobody named Dougald Saunders in place as leader surely will hurt them. The Libs might have a shot despite their previous controvery with the pre-selection debacle at the council elections
I hope I am wrong and the Libs win it so Saunders can be ousted as leader, he is a nutjob.
My guess is that the Liberals beat the Nationals. Port Macquarie has been steadily changing from a country town to a retirement village-compared to the average for NSW, the population is much older, less educated, and much more heavily Anglo-Saxon, it looks like a Liberal electorate, plus the incumbent member has been a Lib for quite a few years now.
The demographics of the seat have been Liberal for at least the last 30 years and the Nats have only held on because the Liberals have not contested. Good on Leslie Williams (not my favourite person) for crossing over when Barilaro thought it a good idea to kill more koalas.
In addition the Nats preselection was a complete disaster.
Big win for Libs.
Hard to find much that is controversial about Warwick Yonge except for an issue when he established a GP Super Centre (the Rudd version of the Urgent Care Centres) in Port Stephens. The details are available on the net but probably best left there.
An example of how the Nats have held on in the area for a long time.
1993 Fed seat of Lyne.
Bruce Cowan retired, so both sides contested.
Driver (ALP) 28,424
Vaile (Nats) 18,670
Barrett (Libs) 18,678
There was an agreement that the Libs and Nats would not contest a close result and the future Deputy PM Noah Vaile won the final 2pp count 54 v 45
Well done William for including the Lord Howe booth (although it takes a lot of swiping to find). At the last election 91% 2pp for the Libs.
Big Lib vote in Dunbogan – classic retiree village
The Nats are holding up in the small booths
Edit; I misread one of the booths
this will be a substantial Lib win
Tacking Point first PMQ booth in.
Where I used to live (with most of the town’s other doctors)
Relative big votes for Greens and Dr Yonge, 32% Lib but 27% Nats which surprises me.
Similar result in PMQ Private the majors are getting a combined total of 60% in a optional preference election- results may be interesting
This thread beats the constant U.S. trump bullshit, but not by all that much. We need a bigger election here, real soon.
Rod, your comment exemplifies everything that’s wrong with the main threads, and there’s a pretty substantial irony in you importing it into one that would otherwise be free of it.
These results perplex me. Harrington which is very urban giving a large votes to Nats.
(Might be a case od who cares between two very close parties)
Thank you William, (I think!). Off topic, again, sorry, I wish the editor here had a new fountain pen and practiced that mythical ‘stroke of’ to move things on a bit. Thank you for your patience! Looks like a Lib. win here!
Do those interstate prepoll booths actually exist for by-elections? There’s one for every state and territory except WA. I’d be surprised if the NSWEC bothered with them for one seat.
At 9:09pm, all election day venues are showing reported in (NSWEC website) and the only expected remaining first count is Port Macquarie Central EVC.
https://elections.nsw.gov.au/elections/state-elections/2025-port-macquarie-state-by-election/vote-count-information-2025-port-macquarie-state-by-election#resultswebsite
Can we please not discuss anything other than the by-election on this thread.
Port Macquarie Central – Early Voting Centre in.
NAT – 1,917
LIB – 2,540
Total Votes – 6,606
End of initial counts for today. Only count to come appears to be Port Macquarie Central EVC’s TCP.
Well done to the Port Macquarie Election Office tonight – 12600 votes counted.
Total first preference % for now.
NAT – 31.18%
LIB – 34.15%
That Port Macquarie Central Early Voting Centre has sealed it for the Liberals. This should show them that they should have a candidates in Richmond and Lyne. Also Hunter.
When I lived there and politics were discussed people would tell me that they voted Liberal. When pointed out that the Liberals didn’t stand they would say “yes, yes Nationals”. The point being that for at least some voters the difference is immaterial.
End of counting for tonight. Back at it Monday.
TCP:
NAT – 47.8% (13437)
LIB – 52.2% (14654)
Oakeshott Country @ #22 Saturday, March 15th, 2025 – 9:52 pm
This could make the future of the NSW Coalition interesting. From what I know, there’s pretty much a “gentleman’s agreement” that the Liberals don’t run in seats North of Newcastle, and Nationals don’t run between Newcastle and Woolongong (South of Woolongong seems to be free for both parties to run unless there’s a sitting incumbent, such as Monaro).
If that agreement breaks down then that could be significant at the next election.
80% of people voted for Lib/Nat/Ex-Nat candidates… that’s cool (in a psephology kind of way).
I am always interested when seemingly traditional National seats slowly (or quickly) go Liberal.
Do people with more knowledge of this seat think that if the Nationals had not had their preselection problems (or if their original candidate had not run as an Independent) that the Liberals would still have won? (if, as seems likely, they do)
Rocket Rocket
I’m definitely NOT one of those people with more knowledge of this seat, nor can I answer your actual question.
What I would say from what I have learnt as to the demographic character and history of this seat up to today, is that Liberal are very likely to retain it from now on even if National don’t have candidate issues in future (unless Libs create their own candidate problems).
Libs quite a bit ahead of Nats on 1st prefs in the end – about 5%.
As well as fractionally ahead on prefs. from other parties.