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Election night commentary
12:20am. The Secret Harbour Early Voting Centre has reported its two-candidate numbers, which closes proceedings for the night. One Nation have a 7.0% margin on both the two-candidate count and my projection, the latter of which I’ll shortly be turning off. The preference flow in favour of Labor has faded a little to 55.2-44.8, now that I’m including all vote types and not just booth votes.
10:20pm. Whatever doubt might have remained has been demolished by the 13,000 votes that have reported on the primary vote — which, contrary to earlier indications, can only be both its early voting and election day results — and it turns out to be One Nation’s best result, at 42.3% of the primary vote, and only an average one for Labor. I’m now projecting a One Nation winning margin of nearly 6%, and I believe that will increase when I have a more definitive preference flow calculation.
10:00pm. The WAEC advises says it “anticipates” that the Secret Harbour Early Voting Centre will report this evening, which it has until midnight to do.
8:49pm. Bit of a lull in the results. We are yet to hear from Coastal Lakes College, from which we can probably expect about 1000 formal votes, or from Secret Harbour Early Voting Centre. The latter, be warned, will report in two stages, starting with about 1000 votes actually cast there on election day. The early votes will come later — probably quite a lot later, and perhaps not tonight. The WAEC reports 12,869 early votes were cast, which “includes mobile polling and Interstate voting”. The former includes 217 votes that have reported their results, which may be the lot, and it also includes the 60 votes cast at the WAEC centre in Perth. Interstate votes I don’t know about, but I’m guessing it’s not many. So presumably there will be upwards of 10,000 Secret Harbour Early Voting Centre early votes in due course. If they break upwards of 53-47 to Labor, we’re looking at a different result.
8:39pm. If you’re enjoying the coverage, please consider rewarding all the hard work that goes into my results system (and everything else) with a donation through the “become a supporter” buttons at the top of the page and the bottom of the post.
8:29pm. Presumably because the ABC has switched off booth-matching and is now reporting the raw TCP as its projection. My own system tries to do something more elaborate with non-booth vote types.
8:22pm. The ABC’s estimate now aligns with my own in giving One Nation a margin of about 3%.
8:19pm. As ever, one remaining wild card: many thousands of early votes still to come. Though a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest Labor won’t do particularly well out of them.
8:10pm. I note that my system’s projection is very close to the raw TCP result, whereas the ABC earlier projection of the One Nation margin has come down only modestly — 2.7% raw, 2.8% from me, 6.5% at the ABC. Despite what my projection says, Labor wouldn’t be conceding quite yet, but it’s undoubtedly not looking good for them.
8:09pm. There are now five booths in on TCP, and contrary to what I said two updates ago, that 60-40 split in favour of Labor is sticking.
8:03pm. Six booths in now on the primary vote, and the more recent ones have been even worse for Labor than the earlier ones. Nothing further on TCP though.
7:56pm. I suspect that 60% flow of preferences to Labor will fade as more results come in: a big component of it is Port Kennedy Primary School, which was a particularly strong result for the Greens relative to the Liberals.
7:56pm. My system is still calling a One Nation win, but the margin has been slashed, and prima facie the call looks too aggressive for my tastes.
7:52pm. The preference flow is a surprise: 60-40 in favour of Labor. With the next update my system should start using that flow instead of an estimate that was going nearly 55-45 the other way, and there’s a good chance my call of a One Nation win will be retracted.
7:48pm. The WAEC has released the hounds on the TCP count, which it is correctly conducting on a Labor-versus-One Nation basis.
7:47pm. A second batch of postals has been added, the total thereof being up from 1277 to 2597, and it does nothing to change the picture.
7:40pm. There is a consistent picture of a 20% drop in the Labor vote. The One Nation swings are more uneven — the mobile result is the big outlier, probably because it’s attending different places from last time.
7:37pm. It’s all happening now: my 90% ceiling is off and the call for a One Nation win is back on. That’s with a projected margin of 7.7%, which is a lot gentler for Labor than the ABC’s 10.5%. Both of us are applying speculative preference flow estimates, and there are lots of things we might be doing differently in terms of getting swings out of the postals.
7:36pm. I just slapped an arbitrary 90% ceiling on the One Nation probability, just in time for the first polling booth to report from Port Kennedy Primary School, which turns out to be consistent with the impression of One Nation leading on the primary vote and therefore very likely to win.
7:34pm. No, these are “mobile polling” results — I think the WAEC temporarily added them to the wrong row. My point still stands: I will want to see some polling booth results before I have confidence in my projections.
7:31pm. The Western Australian Electoral Commission booth is on. My system is calling it, but I wish it wasn’t — neither of the two results that are in are easy to match to the last election. Uniquely, this booth wasn’t in operation at all then, so I just allocated it 5% of the absent votes cast in 2025 for booth-matching purposes.
7:24pm. My preference flow estimates are more bullish for One Nation than the ABC’s — they’ve got the margin at 6.9%, I’ve got 8.7%.
7:16pm. We finally have results: a batch of 1277 postals, which are hard to booth-match with, so I’d add a note of caution to my projections. Early batches tend to be more conservative but my swing calculation doesn’t accommodate that — Labor had better hope that that’s what’s causing my projection of One Nation winning by an 8.7% margin.
6pm. Polls have closed for Western Australia’s Secret Harbour by-election. As always, the best place to follow the results as they come in is through this site’s second-to-none results facility (see link above), featuring swings, projections and probability estimates, a table recording results and swings at booth level, and – when you press the “activate” button at the bottom of the page – a map display that does likewise. I presume the Western Australian Electoral Commission will be conducting a notional two-candidate count between Labor and One Nation, despite what the relevant table on my results page shows. However, I believe that will be in the realms of mystery until they start publishing results from it, which the WAEC uniquely does not do until it’s convinced it has picked the right two candidates. With 16 candidates, first results could be a while coming.
nadia
The Lib to ON pref flow is interesting. I thought it would be much higher. I think KB might have calculated it at around 53%
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Would expect similar preference flows in the Victoria election, ON has eaten into a big chunk of the Liberal Party’s more conservative wing, leaving behind Liberal Party voters whom are more progressive.
Ahh thanks KB. I saw 52.8% on your blog but just rechecking, a misread on my behalf. Apologies.
Trent
I’m not so sure it will help the Labor Party, if the Labor Party is also losing ground to ON.
Thanks Landlord – fair assessment and most likely correct.
@Landlord, that’s also what I think will happen to. The composition of the remaining Liberal vote will lean a lot more moderate than it typically does because the more conservative & populist leaning Lib voters will likely have already jumped ship to ONP.
That, and multicultural Lib voters who may be socially conservative but feel threatened by ONP.
@nadia, I’ve had Pakenham written off for years anyway and all that I think has become clear is that ONP are more likely to gain it than the Libs. Same goes with Bass and Melton.
I think Labor will protect their margins in the Narre Warrens, especially if ONP do knock LIB out of the 2CP. They are pretty multicultural seats where I think their ~9% margins vs LIB will turn into ~14% margins vs ONP and they will be marginal Labor retains. The Narre Warrens have also benefited from a lot of investment by Labor too.
Cranbourne lacks the investment & infrastructure that the Narre Warrens got, and is also less diverse, so I’m tipping it will be much closer contest that could go either way.
I don’t think the relatively low Liberal to ON preference flow is unexpected, in fact I’d said as such prior to the results coming out. The ALP in WA is generally a bit further to the right than in the east of the country, but you’re in Andrew Hastie country. Many of those who remain loyal to the Liberals there will never, ever vote One Nation. One Nation, particularly what we might now call the BRS faction or OG One Nation group, is the enemy in a way a relatively centrist ALP government will never be. This is not true in the eastern states, and I don’t think you can necessarily extrapolate those preference flows to Victoria or NSW. Definitely not to Victoria.
As someone who’s spent a bit of time handing out Liberal how to vote cards, I don’t think Liberal preferences follow how to vote cards because of loyalty or obedience. They flow according to how to vote cards because the how to vote cards tend to reflect the intentions of those taking the cards in the first place.
Agree with Pakenham (and Labor having to replace the incumbent MP won’t help). It was widely written off last time but Labor held on unexpectedly – it probably didn’t hurt that a Monash Freeway upgrade project that had been disruptive for years was completed a few weeks before the election.
One seat I don’t write off as much for Labor as some is Hastings – partly because of an incumbent MP with a decent profile, and partly because the 2022 result in both Hastings and Nepean incorporated a certain element of lockdown backlash (there was a lot of local discontent that the Mornington Peninsula was included in greater Melbourne for Covid purposes when the Bellarine wasn’t) and one might expect that to unwind this time.
I think Bendigo West is a serious chance for One Nation (more so than Bendigo East) now that the incumbent MP is retiring – the Liberals/Nationals don’t seem to be putting in serious effort there and probably won’t make the final two, and the part of the seat that’s in Bendigo itself is predominantly the sort of white working-class profile that’s One Nation-favourable (different story at the Castlemaine end, of course).
The Wombat @ 1.04pm – LNP voters can be quite disciplined though with their preferences. I remember the Division of Melbourne 2010, where their Head Office asked Libs to preference the Greens ahead of Labor, which they did and helped to elect Mr Bandt. Fair point you make though.
Very interesting the Lib pref flow in Secret Harbour.
On a side note, just on Federal implications – do you (or anyone) think Hastie needs to put his leadership ambitions on hold for a while. Looks like he’s in a lot of bother in Canning (Madeleine King in Brand isn’t looking to flash either.) I don’t think Hastie is in any position to mount a leadership spill this year. Surely he’d be laughed out of the Fed Lib partyroom. I think he’ll cop criticism too for his lame duck appearance at the booths (he turned up for 30 minutes yesterday morning apparently) plus the bickering between he and Zempilas this past fortnight is hardly mature.
BT re: Bendigo East.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Hanson doesn’t field a candidate there and leaves it to Lethlean (the Nat candidate) to fight it out with Labor & the Libs.
I think regarding the Lib to ON pref flow being surprisingly low at an estimated 53% might be due to Ben Roberts Smith given Andrew Hastie testified on the BRS case. This virtually made him overnight went from being a last hope to a toxic brand within the Lib-ONP voter circle. This as a result made Right-wing Liberal Voters shift to One Nation but also made the remaining Liberal Voters more moderate.
I do wonder how the greens are going to respond to a 2.2% swing against them. In this current moment they should be doing much better.
Nadia, I think Hastie did just that prior to the last election, he could see the campaign was running off the rails and focused on his local seat.
I’m a huge Hastie fan boy, I might be biased. But here’s the thing. The reason Andrew Hastie is such an effective politician and potential leader is because he’s a really good local MP, who spends a lot of time talking to people. I don’t know the bloke, though my mum and dad know him a bit, chat to him every few weeks. They say he is very approachable, very happy to have a chat, not at all like other members of the political class they might know. I also think Hastie will probably not recontest his seat, but that’s just a guess.
Hastie helped increase the abandonment of the LNP to ON by racist bogans because he voted in favour of the anti-hate speech laws.
Hastie was the reactionary Liberals last hope. He was their guy. He would sweep aside the woke DEI hire Susssssan and the boring non-macho man Angus Taylor (Angus hasn’t fought in a war, what a libcuck), take over, return the LNP to a new White Australia policy, kick out all the bloody forrinas and beat that commie-nazi Albo in a landslide. Dan Andrews, tear down those windmills, 5G towers & transmission lines! Nuclear reactors for all!
Instead Hastie “betrayed them for Israel” over the hate speech laws and Hastie openly attacked them back making the reaction even worse.
It was another example of how the LNP, having decided to use the Bondi massacre for political gain in the rush to Get Albo, had it backfire on them.
“I do wonder how the greens are going to respond to a 2.2% swing against them. In this current moment they should be doing much better.”
Their view seems to be “the Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice voters will come back to us in preferences anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
Marh: As noted above the 53% was confusion based on something I said about the expected overall preference flow. The Liberal to ON flow has not been estimated but would be a fair bit more than that, I’d expect at least mid-60s.
I must say, it’s the first time I’ve heard rubbish bins being a state government thing.
One Nation did better on primaries but worse on preferences than I was expecting.
I would be cautious of overgeneralising the results of a WA by-election to the upcoming Victorian state election, though I agree the Secret Harbour result highlights how weak Liberal preferences can flow to One Nation, which might suggest to Victorian Labor that they could successfully sandbag demographically similar Melbourne seats where the final contest is expected to be between Labor and One Nation.
The breakdowns for outer metro in recent state polls highlight how different the political climate is in Victoria and WA.
Victoria (August), outer metro:
– Redbridge – ALP 21%, L/NP 29%, ONP 27%, GRN 13%, OTH 10%.
– DemosAU – ALP 20%, GRN 12%, OTH 10%, ONP 23%, L/NP 35%.
WA (August), outer metro:
– DemosAU – ALP 34%, GRN 12%, OTH 12%, NAT 3%, ONP 23%, LIB 16%.
The same Victorian Redbridge poll had Coalition preferences splitting 65-35 ONP-ALP across Victoria, which you would expect to vary significantly seat by seat.
I would be curious to know the “true” rate of informality without the inclusion of “some ballot papers with non-consecutive preferences can be formal” – Section 140A, WA Electoral Act, https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/statutes.nsf/law_a242.html. I take it there may be no way of ever knowing this number.
Following on from a different conversation of yesterday, WA also scan for part of their results. I believe this webpage is from the 2025 State Election.
Check the Facts this State Election
FALSE: The WA Electoral Commission uses voting machines to count votes.
Answer: Votes are counted by hand. The Legislative Council ballot papers where people have voted below-the-line or with multiple marks above-the-line will be counted via Optical Character Recognition scanning. This technology promotes greater accuracy as it reduces the need for manual data entry into counting software.
https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/check-facts-state-election
I think that makes NSWEC and VICEC with some data entry for results. AEC, WAEC and ACTEC with some scanning for results. Unsure about other jurisdictions.
Legalise Cannabis had an even bigger swing against them than the Greens, from a lower base. Australian Christians, Animal Justice, the informal vote — all down. Excepting the latter, which should in theory have been higher, all of this is what you tend to get when you go from seven candidates to 16. And all of that including the fall in the informal vote represents anti-system votes being caught up in the One Nation vortex.
Very interesting. Thanks for that, William.
Evads – good tipping for this byelection
https://www.pollbludger.net/2026/08/27/western-australia-demosau-poll-and-secret-harbour-by-election/comment-page-2/#comment-4762247
“I also think Hastie will probably not recontest his seat, but that’s just a guess.”
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I’ve been thinking the same thing The Wombat.
He might even go a bit earlier. I would if I was him.
I understand there have been some issues with family security/threats etc. ie: filth directed at him.
Is this worth it?
Looks like the Federal Redbridge Poll looms in the next few hours.
Phil Coorey posted an article an hour ago here:
Link: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/wa-byelection-shows-one-nation-is-not-just-a-threat-to-the-coalition-20260830-p60sqs
Quoted in the article, he says…
“The latest The Australian Financial Review/Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll, shows that nationally, Labor and One Nation have swapped the lead for the fifth time in as many months.”
Just checking Bludgertrack, Labor & One Nation have swapped the lead on the last 4 polls (not 5).
So looks like Labor has retaken the lead on the upcoming poll – hopefully soon to be published in the AFR.
Pardon my ignorance…. The way out of this shit hole of ON is for Hastie to roll Welldone, that way he saves hi seat, the Liberal Party & the country … for this to happen Albo needs to look in the drawer for his balls & go after Pauline.
I note that in the last week Albo has used the term “ xxxxx will not happen while I am Prime Minister”.. so retire then, why wait any longer.. make a good excuse.. “ I need more time to walk the dog”…. I can still see etched in my mind Albos weedy weak expression when filmed by the ABCs Rats in the Ranks..
I believe you are imagining things.
The prisoner vote is quite small.
In terms of the tipping I believe I may have been the wrongest the mostest.
Wilson was out of the blocks very early on red bins. For a while it seemed to be the ONLY significant policy changes she was going to put in place. But the policy offer has broadened considerably since then.
The commute from Perth must be a killer. Plus a young family.
Sceptic
I sense the ability of Hastie or anyone on the Liberal side to save themselves went down the gurgler at this by-election. Labor has been hit but not mortally whereas one has to ask just where can the LNP regain relevance at the Federal level?
Big Baz threw the towel in early and the Libs are likely to not be able to rely on the 10 or so National seats usually picked up with about 3% of the LNP vote.
The game is turning into one of stable Labor government versus popularist guff from ON.
The Liberals have nowhere to go.
I am no fan of Liberals but at least they have had some experience of being in office and having policies – quite often crap ones – but at least formulated rather than off the top of the head.
I would prefer a shit LNP government to the potential chaos ON may bring – and that is saying something.
Wilson was out of the blocks very early on red bins.
====================
Arange was out of the blocks very quickly picking a One Nation pickup for Secret Harbour.
He’s a very good poster on this site. Knows his politics.
William Bowe says:
Sunday, August 30, 2026 at 4:51 pm
I can still see etched in my mind Albos weedy weak expression when filmed by the ABCs Rats in the Ranks..
I believe you are imagining things
Absolutely not… I’ve tried to find the video, not available from ABC, I think Australian film & tv archives have it..
Albo was sitting in a dim office plump round face white shirt.. a big no comment when questioned by interviewer… sheepish grin… he knew full well how the Rats were gnawing at Balmain Mayor.. just a young Labor apparatchik .. not unlike the Opus Dei characters appearing at ICAC now
Tricot says:
Sunday, August 30, 2026 at 4:59 pm
Sceptic
I sense the ability of Hastie or anyone on the Liberal side to save themselves went down the gurgler at this by-election…….
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I fully agree with this Tricot.
I think Mr Hastie is in a bit of strife, not just with his Federal Seat, but the clashing with Basil Zempilas and the moaning from the sidelines that Zempilas had “given the seat away”.
I didn’t see Hastie actively campaigning for the Lib candidate except for a token appearance yesterday morning. Even Senator Michaela Cash was down there handing out HTV cards during the week.
I think Hastie may have run out of puff. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him leave Parliament at the next election. I doubt very much there will be any “leadership spill” against Taylor this year.
WB.. it was probably before your time…
Impact on the Film
Documentary Appearance: Albanese’s involvement in the election is a notable part of the documentary, highlighting his early political engagement.
Reception: Initially camera-shy, he later embraced the film, attending its 10th and 20th anniversary screenings, indicating his appreciation for the documentary’s portrayal of political life.
Significance of the Documentary
“Rats in the Ranks” is celebrated for its authentic depiction of the complexities of local governance. It has won multiple awards, including a Logie Award, and is regarded as a classic in Australian documentary filmmaking. The film’s success is attributed to the filmmakers’ ability to gain the trust of the political figures involved, allowing for an intimate look at the electoral process.
Well, I did find the video (it’s on Docplay through Prime), and you have entirely imagined every last bit of that. Relevantly:
https://youtu.be/vEprzNxt7Bk?si=fvTvG3NFW_pVhUm_&t=202
ETA: It was not before my time. I watched it on multiple occasions, still possess a videocassette copy, and always remembered the bit about Albanese’s refusal to be filmed as part of it.
Madeleine King (Brand) is on a margin of 16.9%.
She’ll be getting the horrors too over this by-election, especially if the “trend” flows into her Division.
nadiasays:
Sunday, August 30, 2026 at 4:11 pm
Evads – good tipping for this byelection
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thanks Nadia, I had the advantage of some local knowledge with many close family members living in the electorate. Even then, I wasn’t that close in the end.
G: all of NSW, Vic, SA, WA and federal use data entry for their upper house ballots. ACT does it for its sole house, Tasmania is working on it for its lower house and might do it at the next election if (and it’s a big if) current parliament goes anywhere near full term. NSW uses it for lower house. Vic used it for lower house in several seats in 2022, I am unsure to what extent that is or isn’t repeating this year.
Sceptic stop relying on AI slop for your posts. It makes you look stupid when it becomes clear you’ve posted something that an AI has hallucinated.
Nadia….
Regarding Hastie, I think he would be a more forthright leader than Angus for the Liberals.
There is no doubt that Labor has to recognise the impact of ON but despite Pauline’s arrogance about who she will “go after” I doubt she will ever be PM in Oz or even Leader of an Opposition – with the proviso, the Liberals do not disintegrate and form some kind of marriage with ON. Who knows?
Labor has to manage government – all else is subsidiary.
The real test for ON will be in a Federal election where there is nowhere to hide and the Whinge Factor will just be not enough in itself.
In my small world I have met one committed ON voter – and it is depressing talking to him – but I have yet to find anyone who claims their vote for ON is more than a “give them a kick in the ass” reaction.
It astounds me that so many of fellow voters are so casual about voting for an outfit that has nothing by grievance on their agenda (fair enough) but close their eyes to the realities of political life.
This time next year, do the voters in SH who opted for ON actually think their candidate will make one iota of difference? If this do, then they are more misguided than I thought.
According to this, turnout was only 74%. I have no idea about the possible psephological implications of such a low turnout. Motivation to get out and vote at all might become increasingly important.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_district_of_Secret_Harbour
A comment from my son on the Secret Harbour result: who is surprised people from South Rockingham voting One Nation?
I’m sure Western Australians will understand.
William Bowe says:
Sunday, August 30, 2026 at 5:42 pm
Your link isn’t for the entire program..
AI…
“Yes, Anthony Albanese appeared in the documentary “Rats in the Ranks.” He was featured as a shadowy figure involved in the Labor Party’s internal politics during the 1994 Leichhardt Council mayoral elections.
He initially refused to be filmed when approached by the documentary crew, expressing concern about their presence during a sensitive meeting.”
Key word “initially”
Docplay : I’ll do the 14 day free trial & see if my memory was correct, AI seems to think I am..
You’re about to be disappointed.
Ghost Of Whitlam says:
Sunday, August 30, 2026 at 6:14 pm
I’m sure William can get a 6 pack of Hawkes Lager ..a comfy chair & rewatch his videocassette copy & let us know.
And yes I did say Albo “said no comment” when approached.. as any good apparatchik would.. the program makers appeared confident he was pulling strings in the background..
WB.. I’ll gladly donate the cost of the 6 pack if I am. Cheers
So to confirm , you are saying Albo didn’t appear on screen?
All the committed and motivated One Nation supporters I have met have been deeply homophobic and racist, particularly anti-Indian (or anyone brown really) and anti-Muslim, with weird obsession about transgender people. Different people, same algorithm.
Before anyone chimes in no I am not claiming 1/3 of the voters are homophobes or racist.
Sceptic, the documentary shows the incumbent mayor, Larry Hand, who was not a member of the Labor Party, manoeuvering his way to another term courtesy of a split between the Labor councillors. Albanese’s involvement, which the documentary was unable to show because he refused to be filmed, was to suggest to the two warring Labor camps that they resolve their difference over who their candidate should be by drawing a name out of a hat, which shows you how invested he was in the matter. “He knew full well how the Rats were gnawing at Balmain Mayor” is another of your phantasms.
ETA: No, Albanese does not appear.
Boerwar: turnout is not final yet, there are still some more postals and provisionals to come, that said I doubt they’ll add more than a few points. Turnout in by-elections is commonly down several points on the general election in the same seat.
Boerwar
Now that is an interesting insight into the election.
The data you make mention of shows the electorate of SH was 34,284 in 2025 (and maybe a little higher now) yet the turnout figure is 27,137, so one has to ask where are those 7,147 voters, and why they have not voted?
Is this the usual ‘poor’ turn out at such a by-election or is this blight catching up with events in the UK and US of non-turnout?
According to your arithmetic this means 26%of the electorate – that is 1 on 4 voters – did not front?
This might just call into question how much the election means in the greater scheme of things.
We have no idea how this cohort might have voted but clearly, they did not flock out to support ON or anyone else for that matter.
Thanks, KB. FWIW, from the same link, the turnout for the same seat in the previous election was 84%.