Two days to go until the Farrer by-election, which as always is the subject of a Poll Bludger election guide and will be covered here on election night and beyond with live results and projections (see the Nepean results page for an idea of how that will look) and attendant commentary.
The only opinion poll to have emerged during the campaign came from independent Michelle Milthorpe’s camp, and in showing her almost level with One Nation candidate David Farley on the primary vote it suggested she was not quite where she needed to be, given that Liberal and Nationals preferences will assuredly favour Farley. As for the Coalition’s own prospects, the Sydney Morning Herald’s CBD column spoke last week of “anecdotal reports” of Liberal polling that put its support “in the low teens and falling”, while former Nationals leader David Littleproud said in March that he expected the party to finish last (which he presumably meant out of Farley, Milthorpe and the Liberals).
A Liberal source quoted by Sky News struck a still more encouraging note for Farley in saying he would win “even without preferences from the Coalition”. James Campbell of the Herald Sun reports the Liberals’ decision to favour Farley over Milthorpe on their how-to-vote cards has “Labor hardheads stumped”, given the imperative for the Coalition to deny One Nation a foothold in the lower house. In her column in Nine Newspapers today, Niki Savva notes two explanations: that conservatives in both parliament and the party membership “would have gone nuclear” if they did not favour One Nation (also the view of Campbell’s Liberal sources), and that Milthorpe once elected would prove impossible to dislodge, “whereas One Nation MPs tend to implode and quit”.
For all the high expectations surrounding his prospects, Farley has had a troubled campaign. Reports over the past few weeks have noted he made a donation to Milthorpe’s campaign for the 2025 election, describing her at the time as a “straight shooter”, and had expressed interest in running as a Labor candidate at the 2022 election. Farley has departed from key points of his party’s script, telling a candidates’ debate last week that the number of migrants coming to Australia was “not too high”, and saying one advantage of better economic management would be in allowing for “more generous” foreign aid.
For her part, Michelle Milthorpe has sought to distance herself from the “teal” label, invoking as her model Cathy McGowan and her successor Helen Haines, independent members for Indi on the other side of the Victorian border. Milthorpe told The Australian earlier this week that net zero by 2050 was “untenable”, that coal and gas must “play their part”, and that Australia should consider opening more oil refineries. The Australian last week reported that Milthorpe’s claim that Climate 200 had provided only 2% of her campaign funding was complicated by the $60,000 she has received from Regional Voices Fund, whose donors largely overlap with Climate 200’s. She has also indirectly benefited from the more than $500,000 raised by progressive campaign group GetUp! to target One Nation during the campaign.
I should add, my daughter recently finished school and went off to university. We’re wealthy, and can afford the rent. But a lot of her friends had to alter their university preferences simply around the cost of rent. So they got high ATARs, despite being at poor performing schools, got into fancy city universities. And then they realised they couldn’t afford to do the program they had got into because of the cost of rent. That completely sucks and is not right. They had to alter their education plans around the cost of rent. It was a problem when I was a kid, it’s much, much worse nowadays. It’s completely reasonable for country people to be really angry about this, whilst at the same time the universities are taking in large numbers of students from overseas, which is a large part of the reason the rents around our universities are so high.
Nadia – put me down for a Milthorpe win. Not because I think she will win necessarily, but I don’t want to feel dirty by backing in One Nation!
Guardian with some (more) dirt on Farley. He certainly seems to like playing the field. However this probably won’t affect his chances too much as people are likely to be voting for ON rather than the man himself.
Nadia: I’ll go with Milthorpe.Damn if I want any of those rwnj getting a leg up anywhere in Australia.
Ok. Better put a prediction (guess) out there
I’m hoping Milthorpe tops the primary vote with her 20 from last time + 10 from Labor. Would put her on 30
I think the One Nation candidate will be putting a few people off with his past positions etc but how many would be blissfully unaware? I see him getting mid 20’s, including a chunk from Labor voters say 3 or 4
What happens to the Libs and Nats will be fascinating. 20 between them imo with the Nats being closer than many think but they will finish 3rd and 4th
Greens will get around 5 again, sadly. Finishing 5th
10% spread amongst everyone else
So it’ll all come down to how the preferences play out
Milthorpe gets 90% of the Greens, 50% of the others, and 40% from the Libs and Nats which gets her to….
Around 47.5
Sadly I think One Nation will win because of the Labor voters who vote for One Nation instead of The Greens, Milthorpe or even Others
I hope I’m wrong but Nadia, it’s One Nation for me
There’s quite a bit of data in this article:
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/can-one-nation-really-flip-farrer-yes-and-here-s-why-in-five-charts-20260506-p5zudm or https://archive.is/2BisE
HBG 4.4pm
A convoluted piece of Green skulduggery!
Based on what happened in Nepean Goll
The Wombat says:
Friday, May 8, 2026 at 2:38 pm
I should add, my daughter recently finished school and went off to university. We’re wealthy, and can afford the rent. But a lot of her friends had to alter their university preferences simply around the cost of rent. So they got high ATARs, despite being at poor performing schools, got into fancy city universities.
My daughter solved the problem by renting next to a train line some distance away. In Melbourne that option has improved with the Parkville station. They miss out on the campus experience which I think is sad.
Yeah, and there’s other options, Fred. Quite a few kids will do a gap year, and we know quite a few who’ve used the ADF gap year program to allow them to get together the funds they’ll need. The ANU also makes sure they always have sufficient accommodation that’s affordable on Austudy and commonwealth rent assistance. But i completely understand why this creates a lot of animosity towards immigration and international students for people from rural Australia.
“Sadly I think One Nation will win because of the Labor voters who vote for One Nation instead of The Greens, Milthorpe or even Others”
So over Hard Being Green and The Wombat teaming up together taking a swipe at Labor not running a canidate. They are strange bedfellows but share the same objective to attack Labor. The Liberals never get attacked for not running canidate though. What can you do?
The Wombat says:
Friday, May 8, 2026 at 7:24 pm
Yeah, and there’s other options, Fred. Quite a few kids will do a gap year, and we know quite a few who’ve used the ADF gap year program to allow them to get together the funds they’ll need. The ANU also makes sure they always have sufficient accommodation that’s affordable on Austudy and commonwealth rent assistance. But i completely understand why this creates a lot of animosity towards immigration and international students for people from rural Australia.
My son took the country option. Part of the campus experience now is meeting people your age from all over the world. I suspect that is one of the reasons why the Liberals have a problem with the young demographic. If that is the case attacking immigrants is not going to help them much.
Why should Labor run a candidate in a by-election they can’t win? Just let our three right-wing populist parties slug it out amongst themselves. The few Labor supporters in Farrer can decide for themselves which of One Nation, the Nationals or “Liberals” they want to put last, second last and third last, while giving their first preference to Ms Milthorpe or the Green. Probably best to vote tactically for Ms Milthorpe, who has the best chance of beating One Nation.
I hope Milthorpe wins tomorrow but I concede One Nation may well win on LNP preferences. This si despite the rambling of their candidate, who does not actually seem to have much in common with Pauline.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/08/one-nation-candidate-david-farley-farrer-byelection-independents-ntwnfb
Some will complain that Labor not running put One Nation in the box seat. Yet the real story is surely that neither Liberals nor Nationals appear to have any chance of holding one of their heartland rural seats.
Sussan Ley was not the problem. The whole Liberal party is the problem.
What ON needed to do this week was to disendorse Farley for a slightly younger candidate, possibly a woman (Pauline should have even thought about parachuting her daughter Lee) who shared acceptable views on immigration with party leadership and doctrine.
If Farley does get elected, he needs to toe the line like most of the Republicans did with Trump despite their previous records. This might include Pauline getting him to sign a legal waiver to immediately resign from Parliament or be terminated from his job if he leaves One Nation voluntarily or involuntarily.
Timmy – who are you picking?
Tally of predictions. Will cut this off at 6PM.
DR.D. MILTHORPE
MALCOLM MACKERRAS O.N.
BOERWAR O.N.
GRANNYANNY MILTHORPE
BEEN THERE MILTHORPE
KIRSDARKE LIBS
DINGBAT MILTHORPE
MOSTLY INTERESTED O.N.
LUIGI SMITH MILTHORPE
BLUDGEONED WESTIE O.N.
MABWM O.N.
NEWY BOY MILTHORPE
ASHA O.N.
SCOTT MILTHORPE
SPROCKET_ O.N.
DOUGLAS & MILKO O.N.
LANDLORD OF THE YEAR O.N.
GOLL MILTHORPE
DR FUMBLES O.N.
CAVEATOR O.N.
ARANGE O.N.
SUBGEOMETER MILTHORPE
BIRD OF PARADOX MILTHORPE
MACCA RB MILTHORPE
MABWM O.N.
LANDLORD O.N.
FARGO61 O.N.
KAGE MILTHORPE
WOMBAT O.N.
SCRUFFY MILTHORPE
HUGOAGAGO MILTHORPE
GRIMEE MILTHORPE
H.B.G. O.N.
PB vox pop tally
O.N. 51.5%
MILTHORPE 45.5%
LIBS 3%
Socrates says:
Friday, May 8, 2026 at 11:50 pm
I hope Milthorpe wins tomorrow but I concede One Nation may well win on LNP preferences….
============
Socrates, I’ve got you down for both a Milthorpe & O.N. win (from previous posts)
Can you clarify pls. O.N. was your most recent pick.
Add me for One Nation (although Farley might not last long).
Scott should change their first name to Polyanna. Should have done that years ago.
https://x.com/AusElectoralCom/status/2052861111297597587
“59,000 people in Farrer have already voted (roughly 47% of enrolment).
– 47.5k early voting centres
– 978 mobile
– 10.5k postal votes returned
This means around 65,000 people need to vote today.”
The desolate Liberals!
They aren’t given a chance in Farrer with no Labor candidate in the pack!!
If by chance One Nation gets the verdict, the flogging the Liberals have impaled themselves on will be held aloft by the Red Haired warriors as their ultimate victory.
Millthorpe can’t lose as the Liberals have claimed that prize.
nadia
I’m not sure if it was deliberate or not, but I think you removed your ONP prediction from the list.
New South Wales has endured its second driest April on record.
Parts of the state are being drought-designated.
It rather looks as if the father of all El Ninos is in prospect.
It is a dry, warm and sunny day in Farrer.
But for FFS do not mention global warming.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2026/05/farrer-by-election-live.html Farrer By-Election Live
Intro post up now, live comments from 6 pm.
Farley is yet another in a conga line of ON candidate, mp and senator bugger ups.
As for parachuting Lee… Pauline is just that lucky to have a plane on hand…
ON Air: Fly now, pay later.
Final PPVC numbers
https://www.aec.gov.au/farrer/downloads.htm
2 week period
Albury PPVC – 12586
Barooga PPVC – 1456
Griffith PPVC – 7141
Lavington PPVC – 8857
Moama PPVC – 3444
Mulwala PPVC – 1474
1 week period
Buronga PPVC – 1256
Corowa PPVC – 3302
Deniliquin PPVC – 3001
Leeton PPVC – 3045
Narrandera PPVC – 2029
Total – 47591
Currently 10008 postal votes have been returned from a total of 15801 valid postal vote applications.
Dirty tricks on polling day. This booth recorded 473 votes at the last election.
https://www.aec.gov.au/media/2026/05-09.htm
I think One Nation wins today.
Holy crap. That poster. Get on that immediately.
Which candidate and/or party and/or individual and/or printer thought this would be a smart idea.
Federal JSCEM have another public hearing coming up in a few weeks. Stunned if it didn’t come up, particularly as there are active ongoing discussions about “truth in advertising” at voting centres.
I doubt that would be legal.
Nadia, Thankyou for compiling the list of predictions.
There are a lot of active discussions and ongoing / forthcoming implementations of electoral material restrictions outside voting places – VIC, QLD, NSW, Federal. Others already established.
That poster should become a textbook scenario for making sure the legislation is rigorous and enforceable – “This poster appears at a voting place on busy day of voting. What does the EC do?”
Zzzzzz….
“This might include Pauline getting him to sign a legal waiver to immediately resign from Parliament or be terminated from his job if he leaves One Nation voluntarily or involuntarily.”
Would not be enforceable.
I’ve spent a bit of time around One Nation campaigning in rural Australia, whilst wearing blue. That’s meant I’ve had a chat to a few One Nation candidates and volunteers. I’ll make an observation. I do not believe One Nation actually really exists currently as a recognisable organised political party. I’m not sure it’s ever has. I think something may be coalescing around the money Gina Rinehart has put up, but i dunno that I’d call it a political party as yet.
The Farrer campaign has only further convinced me of this.
“What ON needed to do this week was to disendorse Farley for a slightly younger candidate, possibly a woman (Pauline should have even thought about parachuting her daughter Lee)”
@Timmy
This has a chance to backfire big time on One Nation. The nepotism card and the carpet bagger card would be definitely be played hard by their opponents. Liberals throwing away Gilmore by parachuting Warren Mundine and Labor throwing away Fowler parachuting Kristina Keneally in Fowler being case point. Liberals poor result in the Aston bye-election was also aided by parachuting their candidate too.
Timmy – “What ON needed to do this week was to disendorse Farley for a slightly younger candidate…”
With voting well under way, can you point me to the place in the Commonwealth Electoral Act – https://www.legislation.gov.au/C1918A00027/latest/text – where the possibility of this scenario takes place?
The Wombat at 2.08 pm
“I do not believe One Nation actually really exists currently as a recognisable organised political party. I’m not sure it’s ever has.”
Yes, that is why I call it the Hanson cult. It is what you might call, at the most, just a “quasi party” run by Hanson and Ashby with advice from Barnaby, but even that is too generous.
Some of the experienced journos have assessed Farley’s campaign as a shambles, even before the argy-bargy between Hanson and Ashby over excluding the regional ABC TV crew from a public political meeting. It is significant that Ashby made the decision, and Hanson accepted it.
So the Hanson cult is run by a small clique with Ashby as the key player. Whatever happens with the Farrer results, the nature of the clique won’t change. There was more transparency under Dubya Bush, when Chaney was the key decision-maker, than in the Hanson cult.
What is the widespread expectation of a Farley win based on? The vibe, via an extrapolation from the SA results, without considering the voting pattern in Farrer in 2025, or the conduct of the campaign. Here is one small comment from some experienced journos:
‘A One Nation source said: “If Farley wins this race, it will be because Pauline’s brand is impenetrable at the moment. The win will be in spite of him.”
Another {ON} source said that it would be wise for Farley to use Hanson’s new plane, donated by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart last week, to take a holiday during the last week of the campaign.
Liberal senator James Paterson said on Sky News Australia last week that Farley had “turned out to be quite a disaster”.
“I imagine One Nation having serious second thoughts about him,” Paterson said.
Farley was contacted for comment. He wrote on social media on Monday: “I’ve never seen anything quite like this campaign. Every time you turn on the telly or open the computer, there’s another attack ad.”’
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/infighting-erupts-in-one-nation-over-farrer-candidate-s-campaign-20260504-p5zthe.html
Generally, the history of Australian campaigning shows that good attack ads are effective.
The only seat poll is a month old, before the Farley shambles began. The main conclusion from that poll is that there will be a very big fall in the Lib primary, from 43% to below 20%.
Hence, while Lib preferences will be significant, what is more significant is what happens to the 25% or more of erstwhile Lib voters who backed Ms Ley but won’t vote Lib. If you add that to the 15% who voted Labor in 2025, you have 40% or so of the electorate.
If Milthorpe retains the 20% support she had in 2025, and she gets only half of that combined 40% that puts her on a primary of around 40%, significantly ahead of Farley.
Note that the informal vote was 9% in 2015 with only 9 candidates, so it could be even higher.
More than 12% of the electorate voted in 2025 in the Albury pre-poll, which Milthorpe won with 52.6% in 2025. She has highlighted the hospital issue, while Farley has said little about it.
Postal votes will be significant. Milthorpe won only 38.4% of postals against Ley, but it is likely that she will increase that significantly against Farley.
https://results.aec.gov.au/31496/Website/HouseDivisionPage-31496-118.htm
Ben Raue, The Tally Room: Farrer by-election – election day livestream
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/64794
“I won’t be posting any analysis during the day tonight, but please bookmark this YouTube video and join us from 6:30pm when we will be livestreaming the results. Tonight I’ll be joined by William Bowe, Phoebe Hayman, Kevin Bonham, and Emily Foley.”
The thing is, I think people may not understand the local response to the chaos of the One Nation/Farley campaign. David Farley sounds very typical of other One Nation candidates I’ve met.
I don’t not believe there is any real One Nation grass roots in Farrer. And if anything, that actually makes Farley more electable. People will broadly agree with aspects of the One Nation policy agenda, but perhaps not much more than objecting to legislated emissions reductions and immigration policy. Beyond that, they are just voting for a local bloke. It’s really not very dissimilar to the Millthorpe campaign.
One Nation will win this unfortunately. Almost perfect demographic for them.
Casey Briggs on Bluesky at 3.41pm: “The Federal Court has issued an interim injunction to allow the AEC to remove the sign of concern found at polling places in Farrer. The AEC says it has also tried to contact the source of the signage, without response.”
@political nightwatchman
How is making a point about how the Labor votes will flow as a result of the objective fact that Labor did not run a candidate and “attack on Labor”?
Hard being Green’s point was clearly psychological. One is allowed to use objective facts in a public forum.
Arange says:
Saturday, May 9, 2026 at 11:24 am
nadia
I’m not sure if it was deliberate or not, but I think you removed your ONP prediction from the list.
======
Yep for me def One Nation. I don’t know how my name got dropped from the list.
I’ll tally the final list when WB drops the election thread.
At the risk of more egg on my face, I want to specify a bit more on my prediction for the Farrer by election. It’ll be a bit of a general prediction rather than specific numbers because there’s not many materials I could use to get an accurate view on that.
The order of primary votes would probably turn out like this:
– ONP in a narrow 1st place, mainly due to Hanson’s branding.
– Milthorpe
– Liberals in a distant third place. However, I would not be surprised is they are overtaken by the Nationals. If candidate quality is crucial to this election, then their candidate does not give the impression of being a good communicator. In the CSU debate, their answer to why the Liberals are preferencing ONP was subjected to ridicule from the debate audience and their responses to questions in the 7.30 report felt awkward.
– Nationals in fourth place, from what I’ve heard in an earlier debate (not the CSU one), he was a confident speaker who made a good impression with the audience.
– Greens
– Everyone else
I predict a ONP v IND (Milthorpe) 2pp with ONP winning. 2pp is likely to have narrowed up due to Farley’s breaks from One Nation policy and the impression that he is likely a party shopper with his previous attempts to get the endorsement of Labor and the Voices of Farrer movement. However, if the majority of Farrer has voted early, then these controversies may be mitigated considering Farley’s past with Labor and his dissenting opinions began to catch the ire of public scrutiny on the day early voting began.
The Wombat at 3.25 pm
The difference is that Milthorpe has been significantly more open with the media. For a longer interview with her (17 mins) see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sifLC1JAhQU
Farley has been reluctant to do interviews, perhaps because the Hanson cult does not want that.
D. Speers has found a couple of ex-Labor-voting-drongos who believe the current level of immigration is “250,000 a month”, in what he calls “hardly a scientific survey”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDRz8llatJs
However, the main issue raised by voters in Albury seems to have been the hospital.
Thanks Dingbat and Casey.
AEC update: Signage of concern in Farrer
https://www.aec.gov.au/media/2026/05-09b.htm
Earlier today, the AEC issued a statement regarding a sign of concern outside of a polling place in Farrer.
Since that initial statement, the AEC has:
– identified further copies of the sign in question,
– endeavoured to contact the source of the signage (without response), and
– sought an urgent injunction.
The Federal Court has now issued an interim injunction preventing the individual from displaying copies of the sign and permitting the AEC to remove copies of the sign. This allows the AEC to remove the signs, which is occurring.
How the hell does it require a court order to remove a blatantly misleading sign with an incorrect authorisation that has clearly illegally used the name & logo of the AEC?
Ghost Of Whitlam
“How the hell does it require a court order to remove a blatantly misleading sign with an incorrect authorisation that has clearly illegally used the name & logo of the AEC?”
Because it’s not a scenario covered under the Commonwealth Electoral Act, so the EC’s powers are limited outside of “Has this sign been authorised correctly or not”.
250,000 a month.. so 15 million in 5 years?
These idiots shouldn’t be allowed to vote.