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Thursday
As suggested here yesterday, today’s Queensland and Western Australian Senate distributions both produced results of two Labor, two Coalition, one Greens and one One Nation – predictably in Queensland’s case, less so in Western Australia’s. It was noted that my model based on 2022 election preference flows got the One Nation candidate in WA to a winning margin over the third Labor candidate of 0.013 quotas, and that the party had over-performed this in similar circumstances by 0.046 quotas in South Australia and 0.032 in Victoria. In the case of WA the improvement was 0.023 quotas, the margin at the final count being 0.895 to 0.859. That just leaves the New South Wales count to be finalised, which is scheduled for 9:30am tomorrow, and looks like a clear-cut result of three Labor, two Coalition and one Greens.
In the Bradfield recount, Nicolette Boele’s momentum yesterday failed to carry over to today: she began proceedings two votes behind and ended three votes behind, with a net 22 votes being knocked out for Kapterian and 23 for Boele. Much of today’s effort was seemingly spent on the 9589 votes of the Willoughby pre-poll centre, which disappointed for Boele in yielding only a net gain of one vote, despite the high Liberal vote there. Another part of today’s recounting was postals, which I presume wasn’t all of them given the modest scale of the changes, with two primary votes knocked out for both leading candidates. This unknown factor means it’s no longer possible to precisely calculate how much of the recount has been completed: ordinary votes amounting 41.1% have been accounted for, together with however many of the 12.3% of the total that were postals have been accounted for. The Liberal favourability deficit out of what’s been counted will also have narrowed, though not closed (remembering that the relative Liberal strength out of what’s been counted will likely be to their disadvantage, since it means more opportunities for their votes to be knocked out).
It seems clear now that the Goldstein recount will not pull any rabbits out of the hat for Zoe Daniel: Tim Wilson’s lead remains unchanged from yesterday at 263.
Wednesday
The Victorian Senate result was finalised today, producing the anticipated result of Labor three, Liberal two and Greens one: in order, Raff Ciccone (Labor), James Paterson (Liberal), Jess Walsh (Labor), Jane Hume (Liberal), Steph Hodgins-May (Greens) and Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Labor). Ananda-Rajah won at the final count with 0.869 quotas to the One Nation candidate’s 0.814, which was 0.032 quotas narrower than anticipated by my model based on preference flows from 2022. Something similar was observed in South Australia, where the final count likewise pitted One Nation against Labor’s successful third candidate, the final result being 0.046 quotas narrower than anticipated by my model.
This is encouraging for Tyron Whitten, One Nation’s candidate in Western Australia, where the count will be finalised tomorrow at 3pm eastern time. My earlier modelling of the result gave the third Labor candidate a narrow win over Whitten of 0.869 quotas to 0.852, but this was before Labor’s vote share fell back on late counting – re-running it with the final results, I get Whitten winning by 0.862 to 0.849. Half an hour later, the Queensland result will be finalised – here a result of two Labor, two Liberal National, one Greens and one One Nation looks assured.
Gisele Kapterian’s lead in Bradfield was slashed today from 14 to two, as proceedings went more as I expected them to go initially: votes for both candidates knocked out as informal, but the process favouring Nicolette Boele by virtue of the recount mostly affecting first preference votes for the two leading candidates, of which Kapterian has more to lose. On Monday and Tuesday, when as many previously informal votes were being deemed formal as vice-versa, Kapterian’s lead climbed from eight to 14 – today, Kapterian had a net loss of 29 votes compared with 17 for Boele.
The process has now resulted in the recounting of 30,357 votes out of 118,856, or 25.5%, encompassing 16 out of 52 election day booths and four out of 14 pre-poll voting centres. Non-ordinary vote types, including over 14,500 postals, are yet to be examined. Out of the votes examined so far, 33.5% were first preferences for Kapterian and 28.2% for Boele, compared with 38.1% and 27.0% out of the total count, with the two-candidate count being 53.9-46.1 in Boele’s favour compared with 50.0-50.0 overall. For reasons noted in yesterday’s update, this indicates the votes to be rechecked lean to Kapterian.
If today’s dynamic holds, with votes being knocked out as informal providing most of the changes, it seems very likely that Boele will soon pull ahead and stay there. However, I have no reason to be sure that we won’t see a re-emergence of the earlier dynamic of as many votes doing the reverse, in which case Kapterian may still be a show. Either way, the margin looks like being fine enough to raise the strong possibility of a legal challenge. Ben Raue of The Tally Room has done us all a fine service in attending the count as a scrutineer and recording his observations.
The partial recount in Goldstein began today, and got about 15% through without bringing any joy for Zoe Daniel, whose deficit against Tim Wilson is out from 260 to 263.
Finally, the AEC is now well into finalising two-party Labor-versus-Coalition counts for “non-classic” contests, which will ultimately allow for a national two-party preferred result. This will settle somewhere between 55-45 and 55.4-44.5, indicating that pollsters who were revising preference models based on the 2022 result to make them less favourable to Labor would have done better to have let them be. This under-estimation of Labor extends to the estimates I was using for non-classic contests to produce the national two-party preferred on my results page – I have revised these upwards, though probably not far enough.
Tuesday
End of day update: In the second day of the Bradfield recount, Gisele Kapterian again widened her lead over Nicolette Boele, which has gone from eight to ten to fourteen. Substantial revisions have been made in the Artarmon Central (17 informal votes reclassified as formal) and Gorton (14 votes going the other way) without appreciably advantaging one candidate or the other – the changes arise from another 13 booths that have been rechecked, five producing revisions in favour of Kapterian against one for Boele. Boele can take at least some comfort in the fact that these booths recorded a relatively narrow 29.6% to 27.6% advantage for Kapterian on the primary vote, compared with 38.1% to 27.0% overall, on the principle that opportunities await for challenges to the formality of Kapterian votes. So far though, it seems that as many informal votes are being deemed formal as the other way round, contrary to the experience of the preference distribution.
Earlier: The Senate distribution for Tasmania produced a result of two Labor, two Liberal, one Greens and Jacqui Lambie, in the order of Carol Brown (Labor), Claire Chandler (Liberal), Nick McKim (Greens), Richard Dowling (Labor), Jacqui Lambie (Jacqui Lambie Network) and Richard Colbeck (Liberal). With four candidates chasing two seats at the second last exclusion, Lambie had 0.82 quotas, Colbeck 0.80, third Labor candidate Bailey Falls 0.73 and Lee Hanson 0.57. Hanson’s exclusion put both Lambie (1.05) and Colbeck (1.01) over the line for a full quota, leaving Falls holding the bag with 0.80. I should have had more faith in my model based on 2022 preference flows in last night’s update, as Lambie got more preferences this time from lower order and mostly right-wing candidates, outperforming my model’s projection of 1.00 quotas for her. Colbeck outperformed his projected 0.92, while Falls did weaker than the anticipated 0.87, again contrary to what I suggested might happen last night.
The distribution for the South Australian count was published today, showing that Labor’s third candidate, Charlotte Walker, recorded 1.00 quotas at the final count ahead of 0.80 for the One Nation candidate, against which my model’s projection of 1.00 to 0.75 stacks up quite well. Also finalised today was the Northern Territory Senate count, confirming the formality of Malarndirri McCarthy (Labor) and Jacinta Price (Country Liberal) winning the two seats. The button-press for the Victorian Senate count is scheduled for 9:30am tomorrow – the evidence so far offers no encouragement for One Nation that they will be able to close what my model projects as a deficit of 0.85 to 0.76 in the race for the final seat against the third Labor candidate. This will shortly be followed by the foregone conclusion of the Australian Capital Territory count.
The preference distribution has been finalised in Calwell, Labor’s Basem Abdo emerging a comfortable winner with 49,481 votes (55.1%) to independent Carly Moore’s 40,350 (44.9%).
Monday
Today’s developments:
• The preference distribution in Calwell has all but confirmed a win for Labor, who received more than two-thirds from the exclusion of Greens, putting Basem Abdo on 48.0%, independent Carly Moore on 29.7% and the Liberal candidate on 22.3%. This leaves Moore needing an all-but-impossible 91% share of the preferences with the imminent exclusion of the Liberal.
• The button was pressed on the South Australian election Senate count, confirming the anticipated result of Labor three (Marielle Smith, Karen Grogan and Charlotte Walker), Liberal two (Alex Antic and Anne Ruston) and Greens one (Sarah Hanson-Young). We must await publication of the preference distribution for further detail.
• The Australian Electoral Commission advises that we can expect the buttons to be pressed tomorrow morning for Tasmania and the Northern Territory. The latter is a foregone conclusion, but the former is likely to find a three-way battle for the last two seats between Jacqui Lambie, the third Labor candidate and the second Liberal candidate. My earlier modelling suggested Lambie was very likely to be re-elected, since substantially different preference flows from the last election would be needed for her to fall behind both Liberal and Labor. On reflection though, the former seems more plausible than I was allowing, given the observable impact of Lambie’s opposition to salmon farming on the geographic distribution of her primary vote, and the fact that most of the preferences being distributed are from right-wing parties. The latter might arise as a corollary of Labor’s stronger performance overall.
• The AEC announced today responded to Zoe Daniel’s request for a recount in Goldstein by announcing a partial recount that would consider first preference votes only, which in fact account for about three-quarters of the total. Substantial revisions were made to the totals during the course of the preference distribution, a process which examined only the remaining one-quarter of the vote, ultimately with the effect of increasing Tim Wilson’s margin from 129 to 270. The recount will begin on Wednesday and is expected to take about four days.
• The first day of the Bradfield recount, which may take as long as two weeks, increased Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian’s lead over independent Nicolette Boele from eight votes to ten.
Hanson in the last 2 years had:
– 3 defections in NSW Upper House (Latham, Roberts and Mihailuk all quit the part)
– 1 defection in WA Upper House (though won back at the last state election; “Aussie Trump” was not re-elected)
– 1 seat lost in Queensland Parliament (after the candidate was disendorsed by Hanson/Ashby)
– 1 defection in SA Upper House (Sarah Game quit the party)
Not the best track record with loyalty but noting the Greens and Lambie have also had similar issues.
Libs 1 ahead of sleaze.Abc now.
It was Postals. Blue lost 2 x TCP, Teal None
I wish I new what the size this Postal re-checks are.
@HN: American politics is stupid and evil to a degree very difficult to explain (much less adequately convey) to anyone not immersed in it. It would be beneath contempt if it wasn’t so critical to world affairs. For me, auspol is like a vacation in a magical fantasy world where stunning twentysomethings who look like they just stopped off on their way home from the surfwear catalog shoot win elections running on climate change being real.
And, then it’s back in the shit the next day. But a little escapism can be a good thing. It reminds me that people could choose to be better if they wanted to. Maybe they will someday.
Yep Kapterian now leads by 1 vote. No update in any of the booths so I’m assuming it was either postal, absent or pre-poll.
Postal
TB Exchange now posts the odds as
Boele: $1.40
Kapterian: $2.80
Tie: $4.50
Postals again – +1 to Blue
Probably would have been better for Labor if they had needed someone else to get a majority with the Greens. Greens supporters insist that they want negotiated consensus outcomes and don’t believe that parties negotiate unless they’ve already mentioned a position before the negotiations with them begin. At the moment, they’ll enthusiastically run the anti-consensual majoritarian line that a negotiation is between party leaders, not between groups of senators each with their own opinion.
Further counting in Groom and Kennedy, each with minor swings to Labor but overwhelmingly LNP to begin with, has cut Labor’s nationwide 2PP down to 55.46.
2PP swings in rural NSW are all over the place, from -3 in Riverina to +5.2 in Parkes, so I really have no clue what Cowper is going to look like once the numbers get crunched. Overall it seems the broadbased center and left have done better in Cowper, though I have no idea where to classify second-tier independent Zeke Daley (and, knowing nothing whatsoever about his candidacy, I somewhat suspect he doesn’t either). I’ll go with a guess of 57-43 to the LNP in that one, 55-45 in Goldstein and 53-47 in Bradfield. If so it should result in a final national 2PP right around 55.27.
@ Paul Thomas: I must be missing something as in Bradfield the TCP is 50-50 and unlikely to change (down from 53.4-46.6 last election)?
Edit : I’ve no idea on this, but how would they even calculate a LNP Vs Lab TPP for a seat where one of the two parties is not in the final 2?
Nathan says:
Friday, May 30, 2025 at 3:54 pm
@ Paul Thomas: I must be missing something as in Bradfield the TCP is 50-50 and unlikely to change (down from 53.4-46.6 last election)?
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Paul is talking about the TPP, not TCP.
Stop posting on this thread please, Pied Piper.
Sorry, worked that out…. then added my edit about how would that calculate the TPP?
@Nathan, for all seats where the TCP isn’t ALP v LNP, the AEC conduct a supplementary ALP v LNP 2PP count as well.
For example in the ALP v GRN seat of Wills, they have now published an ALP v LIB 2PP (80.86-19.14) in addition to the 59-41 ALP v GRN 2CP. Same for Melbourne (73.97-26.03).
Thanks – do they do a full preference distribution again knocking out the Teal at the end to keep ALP (for example in Bradfied)… or?
Zoe Daniel’s last hope in Goldstein is that something big gets uncovered in the Brighton and Hampton prepolls. If that doesn’t happen, looks like Tim Wilson’s got it there.
I assume it would be more like what they do on election night, just allocating all ballots where ALP or LNP aren’t #1 to either ALP or LNP based on who is placed higher. There wouldn’t be any point going through the preference distribution.
Nathan @ #415 Friday, May 30th, 2025 – 4:07 pm
I think the procedure is that they just sort out the ballots according to which ones preferenced Labor or Coalition above the other.
Thanks all – that makes sense and pushed back a bit of the darkness of ignorance for me.
The TPP [Two Party Preferred] count comes after the full distribution is complete. In the legislation, it’s called “Scrutiny for Information”.
It’s not a full recount or distribution process.
It’s a standard TCP count process (aka. election night) where all the ballot papers are distributed to the higher preference of the two major parties (candidates). I believe it’s only conducted in divisions where the final two candidates are not the two major parties.
Maybe job share if it is a tie.
I imagine the LAB will be very interested to see what the Bradfield TPP looks like ahead of any potential subsequent election.
Bradfield Team Blue have picked up 1 more vote in Pymble, making their lead +3.
It is a med size booth 1274 and moderately blue – Gain came from an extra Vote
I get the feeling there are some big booths yet to drop today as we have only had 5K counted so far
TB Exchange shows a plunge on Kapterian as the lead blows out to 3. She hasn’t been headed for weeks now and like a true champion, stays in front when it matters.
Boele – $1.80
Kapterian – $1.90
I do love it!
Counting should go on till around 6:30 pm if past days is any guide. Hopefully we get another PPVC tonight to satisfy the cravings (for more info). Does anyone know if AEC counts on the weekend for recounts?
I hope you are right on some bigger drops.
The AEC did say they would count Goldstein into the weekend, but did not mention Bradfield.
The NSWEC site has a cool feature where you can look up any possible 2cp pair of candidates in a seat, no mater how silly (like Liberal vs One Nation in Newtown, or Labor vs Greens in Murrumbidgee). It frequently spits out strange results due to OPV, but it’s still interesting. I wonder if that’ll ever take off outside NSW.
Back when SA had its “fairness clause” for redistributions, they had to figure out notional ALP/Lib figures in the independent-held seats just so they could make sure the party with a majority of 2pp vote from the last election had a majority of notional seats (which never worked in practice – I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time).
If the HoR votes were all just digitally counted then it would not only be a button press, but you could slice and dice the data as you wanted. Plus I’d have less issues with flat arse and cross eyed syndrome.
Edit – why do I happen to live in the most marginal seat?
New update from Pymble North. No change in margin, Kapterian leads by 3 votes. Mid sized booth and Lib primary of 40% so good for Kapterian I guess
Nathan – I live in neighbouring Berowra, and this is an ultra marginal seat after May 3, not that you’d know it, this always feels to me like a very conservative area. The Labor candidate in this part of the world did virtually no campaigning, and surfed to a 2PP result of 48% by scooping up all the preferences from the Greens and the Teal lady.
Julian Leeser, my local MP, he’s a good bloke, you can’t not like him even if you are not a Liberal supporter.
Pymble North – Yup – should have been a good Teal hunting ground 1P was 671 vs 480, both lost 1 TCP
@Democracy Sausage – That is kinda my feeling in Bradfield. Likeable Blue, a Red I know nothing about (or saw nothing from), and a Teal that wallpapered the place.
I’m in Reid and I miss the days of it being a marginal seat. My part of Reid doesn’t feel like a 62% Labor seat but the other more heavily Asian areas most certainly do. I still can’t believe Berowra and Mitchell are so marginal now. Dutton really was that hated there’s no other compelling explanation.
Melissa McIntosh did a very fine job in maintaining > 3% margin in Lindsay. She definitely has quite the personal vote. And Cook is … Cronulla so that’s that.
I don’t want to downplay Dutton’s influence, but in Bradfield we have also seen big demographic changes with the boundary pushing further down the train line & the construction of a lot more apartments in what was once the “leafy” upper north shore. Under the TOD it will get more Team Red.
Nathan – which part of Bradfield do you live in? I have family members who live in Pymble and Killara – hardly hotbeds of radicalism.
I live in Thornleigh, which is almost on the dividing line between Berowra and Bradfield, I could easily be in Bradfield if the AEC adjusted the boundary somewhat.
Something else I was thinking about the whole Bradfield situation – Boele’s primary vote is 27 or 28%. That’s really too low to score a clear victory, she really needed to be in the low 30s at least.
Postal update: +2 to Teal (1 TCP up for Teal, 1 down for Blue). Blue leads by 1
Yes I can’t believe she had all that advertising and couldn’t even crack 30% primary. Really says something about her especially in this national environment with no incumbent in Bradfield. Nathan did you vote for Kapterian or Boele? If Kapterian, would you have voted for Warren Mundine had he won preselection?
I can’t believe Warren had the gall to run for Bradfield.
And my voting experience this time – I went up to the local Chinese Baptist Church, I was the only one pre poll voting that afternoon, which suited me fine – not a fan of queueing up for anything. The Liberal volunteers were there in force, nobody from Labor or the Greens, one person for Tina Brown, the Teal candidate. I had a chat with a couple of nice Liberal blokes, all very good natured.
I never get a good feel for the overall election result where I live, there are no shopping centre visits by the candidates or door knocking or railway station early morning appearances. The corflutes you see around are very few and far between.
What I do know in these parts, and it would apply to Bradfield too – the Liberals can always rely on the over 50s to vote solidly for them, and that’s mostly through pre polls and postal votes. Labor and the Greens do better with the under 50s.
That overall landslide win to Labor surprised me big time, didn’t see that one coming at all.
@ Democracy Sausage – We are in Roseville and the local grinding of teeth is all about the TOD. The local council has had it’s head in the sand for so long it is embarrassing. It’s the hot topic around here. I’d not be surprised if LAB decide to pull their finger out and take Bradfield seriously. I’d rather LAB than Teal, and I’m a Blue.
Hmm I always had the impression that voters were either gonna completely reject Dutton or embrace him. No in between. He seemed like that kinda politician. It was the former.
HN – Reid will be a Labor seat for a long time to come, Sally Sitou is a very solid MP and probably a future minister or assistant minister. I doubt the Liberals this time put too much effort into the campaign in Strathfield/Burwood/Ashfield etc.
The swing to Labor in those Sydney seats like Reid, Parramatta and Bennelong was about 8-9%.
Swing to Labor in Hughes was 7%, that redistribution made it easier for Labor to score a victory there.
Nathan – Roseville is a very pretty part of Sydney.
Libs didn’t campaign in Strathfield (my area) as it’s a safe (or was, now it’s 55% Lib) Lib area. Burwood and Ashfield Libs would’ve campaigned there but it was just too hostile this time round with the second consecutive big swing to Labor amongst Asian voters. Areas like Drummoyne are normally friendly to the Libs but not this time round. Libs had a good candidate here in Reid who was a veteran and quite polished & of Chinese background IIRC.
But really the big explanation for seats like Bennelong, Reid, Parramatta & Banks – large Asian (mainly Chinese) populations that swung bigly to Labor again.
@HN – I think the “strategic” ALP voters blew wind into the Teals sail thinking Bradfield was a step to far. I don’t think the ALP will do that next election. I voted for Kapterian. I think she is the sort of candidate that LNP needs. It was a very easy choice. Warren…. maybe… I guess so… not given it any real thought as it did not eventuate – I say this as I don’t like the minor parties as a rule, and then there was “what’s her name” from the ALP (apologies, I should not be disparaging but I really can’t recall it even now).
Lol no need to feel shame in not remembering the Labor candidate who ran in Bradfield of all places.
Boele hits the lead
Betting suspended
Snives ppvc has dropped
Hawkes Lager just cracked open. Tho I’d be happy for Nathan if he gets his win
Finally we’re here – Boele leads by 1 vote. AHHHHHHH It was St IVES PPVC and Boele only leads by 1 vote.
AHHHH again.
I’m assuming that’s it for St Ives PPVC?
Ghost of Bradfield has done his patriotic job.