Category: New South Wales By-Elections

Port Macquarie by-election live

Live coverage of a by-election for a regional New South Wales state seat in which the Liberals and Nationals go head to head in the absence of a Labor candidate.

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.

ACT election and NSW by-elections live

Live commentary on the count for the Australian Capital Territory election and the New South Wales state by-elections for Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater.

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.

ACT and NSW state by-election guides

Beginners’ guides to next fortnight’s election in the Australian Capital Territory, where the Liberals hope to end a decades-long drought, and three by-elections for blue-ribbon state seats in New South Wales.

With thirteen days to go in both cases, this site now offers a guide to the Australian Capital Territory election, and individual guides to the by-elections for the Liberal-held state seats of Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater in northern Sydney. The former finds Labor, which governs in coalition with the Greens, seeking a seventh successive victory and an extension on its 23 years in office, in circumstances that are seemingly more promising for the Liberals than those that prevailed when it suffered a dismal result in 2020. Labor has forfeited each of the New South Wales by-elections, but that in Pittwater is of considerable interest in offering a second chance for teal independent Jacqui Scruby, who came within 0.7% of winning the seat at the state election in March 2023.

Weekend miscellany: federal preselections and double dissolution chatter (open thread)

Federal election candidates lining up on both sides of the aisle, reporting on Liberal internal polling, and Labor to site out looming state by-elections in New South Wales.

It’s been a while since I last did an update of preselection and related federal election news, in which time the following has accumulated:

• Labor’s national executive anointed candidates a fortnight ago for three usually safe Labor seats in Melbourne whose incumbents will retire at the election. In Bill Shorten’s seat of Maribyrnong, Labor’s candidate will be Jo Briskey, national co-ordinator of the Left faction United Workers Union. Much has been made of the fact that Briskey moved to Melbourne in 2019 after an unsuccessful run for the Brisbane seat of Bonner, and has a backer in Queensland Left heavyweight Gary Bullock.

• The candidate in Brendan O’Connor’s seat of Gorton will be Alice Jordan-Baird, a water policy expert. Earlier reports indicated the preselection was developing into a contest between rival Right faction power bases, with Jordan-Baird the favourite of that associated with Richard Marles and the Transport Workers Union, while the Bill Shorten/Australian Workers Union axis favoured Brimbank mayor Ranka Rasic. State minister Natalie Hutchins, a Shorten ally who was earlier mentioned as a potential contender in Maribyrnong, said Jordan-Baird lacked a connection with the area and was chosen over an “experienced local” in Rasic.

• Basem Abdo, an adviser to outgoing member Maria Vamvakinou and fellow member of the Socialist Left, has been confirmed as Labor’s candidate for Calwell. Earlier reports indicated resistance among local party branches to a perceived factional fait accompli, reflecting general discontent around the fact that the party’s national executive has again taken over the Victorian preselection process.

• The Liberals have preselected Tom Venning, a Barunga Grains farming manager who formerly worked for the NAB and Deloitte, as their candidate for the regional South Australian seat of Grey, which will be vacated at the election with the retirement of Rowan Ramsey. Venning’s uncle, Ivan Venning, was a veteran state member of parliament. Other contenders included Suzanne Waters, a former United Australia Party candidate described by InDaily as “a regional paramedic who reportedly quit her job with SA Health over its COVID vaccination mandate”, who was endorsed by arch-conservative Senator Alex Antic. Also in the field were Kimba mayor Dean Johnson, Whyalla police officer Matt Sampson, and Rikki Lambert, chief-of-staff to ex-Family First Senator Bob Day.

• The Northern Territory Country Liberal Party has preselected Lisa Bayliss, police officer and senior vice-president of the Northern Territory Police Association, as its candidate for the Darwin seat of Solomon, held for Labor by Luke Gosling on a margin of 9.4%. Camden Smith of the Northern Territory News reports the CLP preselection for the other Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, which Labor came close to losing against the trend in 2022, “has been deferred and will be considered by the party’s management committee in coming weeks”.

• There was a brief flurry of early election talk last week after Anthony Albanese suggested a double dissolution election could result if the Coalition and the Greens persisted in blocking the government’s housing bill. The notion is complicated by the fact that a double dissolution cannot take place in the last six months before the term of parliament expires, the relevant date being January 25. To create a trigger, the government would need to follow a rejection of the bill this week with another attempt after a delay of more than three months, which would require that parliament be recalled in late December or January.

• Paul Sakkal of The Age reports Victorian Liberal sources saying their polling has them “in front or neck-and-neck in Aston, Chisholm, McEwen and Goldstein, with Kooyong and Dunkley less likely chances”.

• James Dowling of The Australian reports that Labor in New South Wales will not field candidates in the October 19 New South Wales state by-elections for Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater, respectively being vacated by Liberal members Dominic Perrottet, Matt Kean and Rory Amon.

NSW by-elections: Epping, Hornsby, Pittwater

Two long-anticipated state by-elections in New South Wales set to be joined by a rather less expected third.

There are now three state by-elections looming for blue-ribbon Liberal seats in Sydney, that latest arising after Pittwater MP Rory Amon promptly resigned from parliament after being charged with child sex offences on Friday. Michael Koziol of the Sydney Morning Herald reports it is “likely to be scheduled alongside other by-elections on October 19”, and that “most Liberals were resigned to losing the seat” – presumably to teal independent Jacqui Scruby, who came within 0.7% of winning the seat when Amon succeeded Rob Stokes at the 2023 election.

Megan Gorrey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Stokes has thrown his support behind Northern Beaches deputy mayor Georgia Ryburn, who was touted in a report last week as a possible challenger to teal independent Sophie Scamps in the federal seat of Mackellar, though she has not publicly identified herself as a contender in either case. Another name to have emerged is Michael Gencher, a council colleague of Ryburn’s and fellow victim of the party’s nominations fiasco. Others are familiar from the contest to succeed Stokes before the last election: Natasha Maclaren-Jones, an upper house member who withdrew as it became apparent she lacked sufficient support; and Claire Longley, EY consultant and daughter of former member Jim Longley, who was refused an exemption from a party rule barring nominees who had not been financial members for six months. (UPDATE: The Manly Daily reports Ryburn, Longley, Gencher and another Northern Beaches councillor, Bianca Crvelin, have nominated for Liberal preselection, while the Sydney Morning Herald reports Jacqui Scruby has confirmed she will run again).

As noted in a previous post, the other two by-elections will be held to replace Dominic Perrottet in Epping, where the Liberals have preselected Monica Tudehope, former policy director to Perrottet and daughter of Damien Tudehope, a former member for the seat who now leads the party in the Legislatve Council; and Matt Kean in Hornsby, where the new Liberal candidate is Corrs Chambers Westgarth lawyer James Wallace. Labor reduced the margins at the 2022 election to 4.8% in Epping with a 6.5% swing, and to 8.0% in Hornsby with an 8.8% swing.

New South Wales: Resolve Strategic poll, Hornsby and Epping by-elections, Liberal council candidates fiasco

Good news for the Liberals from a New South Wales state poll, amid very bad news for its council elections campaign.

The bi-monthly Resolve Strategic poll of state voting intention in New South Wales, produced from a combined sample of 1000 from its last two national polls, is a remarkably weak set of numbers for Labor, showing them on 30% of the primary vote – down two points on the last poll and seven on the 2023 election. The Coalition is up three on both to 38%, with the Greens 12%, up by one on the last poll and at least two on the election result. The pollster does not provide two-party preferred, but I would very roughly estimate 51-49 to the Coalition based on these primary votes. Chris Minns leads Mark Speakman 38-13, unchanged from last time.

I would normally be skeptical about such a result for a first-term government with no obvious reason to be listing so badly, and suspect that the Sydney Morning Herald might feel the same way, as its report leads with a finding that 56% support the government’s proposal to prevent “no grounds” evictions with 23% opposed. However, the only other state poll this year from a pollster other than Resolve Strategic, a RedBridge Group poll conducted from two waves in February and May, likewise suggested a close result on two-party preferred, though with substantially higher primary votes for the major parties (especially Labor).

Clarity could perhaps be provided by two looming by-elections should Labor choose to contest them, on which I have no information. These are for the seats of Hornsby and Epping, which are respectively being vacated by the erstwhile leader and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean. The date for both has been set at October 19, the same date as the Australian Capital Territory’s election and a week before Queensland’s. A Liberal preselection for Epping on Saturday was won by Monica Tudehope, daughter of Damien Tudehope, who held the seat from 2015 to 2019 and is now the leader of the Liberals in the Legislative Council. Monica Tudehope is a former policy director to Perrottet and unsuccessful contestant for last year’s preselection to fill the Senate vacancy created by the retirement of Marise Payne, which was won by Dave Sharma. Tricia Rivera of The Australian reports Tudehope was an easy first-round winner in the party ballot with 89 out of 115 votes.

The Liberal candidate in Hornsby will be Corrs Chambers Westgarth lawyer James Wallace, who won a preselection vote a fortnight ago after receiving forceful endorsement from Matt Kean and equally vehement opposition from many at the conservative end of the party. The latter included Tony Abbott, who endorsed Hornsby deputy mayor Michael Hutchence and accused Kean, newly appointed chair of the Climate Change Authority, of having “left the parliament to take a job with the Labor party”. Linda Silmalis of the Daily Telegraph reports Wallace won in the first round of a preselection ballot with 123 votes to 36 for Hutchence and 28 for a third candidate.

The other big electoral news out of the state is the Liberal Party’s failures to meet last week’s noon Wednesday nominations deadline for the September 14 council elections, estimated to have involved around 140 candidates across 18 council areas. Ben Raue at the Tally Room analyses the implications, finding the blunder has excluded the Liberals from at least 50 winnable seats across 16 councils. A request from the Liberal Party for an extension has been denied by acting Electoral Commissioner Matthew Phillips, who “was not satisfied that it is possible to lawfully extend the nomination period in line with the request and, even if it were, it would not be appropriate to do so given the very significant ramifications it would have for the conduct of the elections”. The party now says it will pursue action in the Supreme Court. The blunder resulted in the party’s state executive sacking Richard Shields as its state director on Friday, with Sky News reporting the party “had to scramble to get an interim acting state director in place so that the Epping by-election preselection could take place on Saturday”.

Weekend miscellany: NSW by-elections, Fatima Payman polling, electoral reform, preselections (open thread)

A second NSW state by-election looms in a traditionally safe Liberal seat; a mixed bag of polling concerning Fatima Payman; and the government gears up for long-delayed electoral law reforms.

Newspoll should be along from The Australian this evening if it follows its usual three-weekly pattern, and we’re also about due for a Freshwater Strategy poll overnight from the Financial Review. For the time being, there’s the following electorally relevant news from the past week:

• Former New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet announced his resignation from parliament on Friday to take up a position as US head of corporate and external relations for BHP. This will necessitate a by-election for his safe northern Sydney seat of Epping, presumably to be held concurrently with that for former Treasurer Matt Kean’s nearby seat of Hornsby.

• Nine Newspapers reports further numbers from last week’s Resolve Strategic poll showing 41% believe Fatima Payman should relinquish her seat to a new Labor Senator, compared with 29% who support her course of remaining as an independent. However, 54% believe Labor should allow caucus members more freedom to vote in parliament as they wish, with only 16% holding the contrary view.

• It has been widely reported that the government will introduce a package of electoral reform legislation next month, although Michelle Grattan of The Conversation reports it will not include the blockbuster proposal to increase the number of territory Senators, which has failed to find support, and is unlikely to be in place in time for the next election. What will be featured are truth-in-advertising laws on the South Australian model; a reduction of the threshold for public disclosure of donations from the current $16,900 to $1000, together with much stricter time frames for disclosure, reducing to daily at the business end of the campaign period; and a system of spending caps limiting the amount that can be spent on campaigning in any given electorate to $1 million. The latter is most obviously targeted at Clive Palmer, but teal independents have complained of their potential to hinder crowd-funded campaigns against major party incumbents, with Monique Ryan and Allegra Spender’s respective campaign spends in Kooyong and Wentworth at the 2022 election each having exceed $2 million.

Federal preselection news:

• Warren Entsch has confirmed he will not recontest the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, which he has held as a Liberal for all but one term since 1996. The Australian reports Labor’s candidate is Matt Smith, former professional basketballer turned Together Union organiser, who was preselected unopposed last week.

• Deloitte director Madonna Jarrett will again be Labor’s candidate for the seat of Brisbane, which Stephen Bates won for the Greens from the Liberal National Party in 2022.

• Jack Dietsch of The West Australian reports that Liberal preselection contests loom for the Labor-held Perth seats of Swan and Hasluck, both of which were won by Labor in 2022, with respective margins of 9.6% AND 10.7% under the proposed new boundaries. The candidates in Swan are Nick Marvin, former chief executive of the Perth Wildcats basketball and Western Force rugby league clubs; Matthew Evans, an army veteran who now works for Mineral Resources; and Mic Fels, a grains farmer. The candidates in Hasluck are Philip Couper, a contracts and procurement consultant and former adviser to state One Nation MLC Colin Ticknell; David Goode, a Gosnells councillor; and Ashutosh Kumar, a credit assessor at Westpac. Pearce, which was gained in 2022 and has a margin of 9.1% on the proposed new boundaries, and Cowan, which Anne Aly has held for Labor since 2016 with a new margin of 9.7%, have each attracted one candidate: respectively, Jan Norberger, who held the state seat of Joondalup from 2013 to 2017, and Felicia Adeniyi, manager at St Luke’s GP Medical.

• Jack Dietsch of The West Australian reports Labor has preselected the top three candidates for its Western Australian Senate ticket: Ellie Whiteaker, the party’s state secretary, who is aligned to the Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; Varun Ghosh, a Right-aligned former barrister who filled the vacancy created by Pat Dodson’s retirement in February; and Deep Singh, a staffer to Cowan MP Anne Aly aligned with the Left faction United Workers Union. The party’s two members elected in 2019 to terms that will expire in the middle of next year were the aforementioned Pat Dodson and Left-aligned Louise Pratt, who announced in February that she would not seek re-election.

Northern Tablelands by-election live

Live coverage of the count for the New South Wales state by-election for Northern Tablelands.

Click here for full display of Northern Tablelands by-election results.

6.50pm. There being nothing to discuss as regards the result, a technical point worth observing is that the New South Wales Electoral Commission uniquely publishes full ballot paper data, which enables a meaningful Nationals-versus-Greens based on comparison with the general election, despite the Greens having finished third behind Labor. This currently records a swing against the Nationals of around 2%.

6.31pm. Six booths in on the primary, three on TCP, and my system is well and truly calling it. Shooters still second, but these are rural booths.

6.23pm. There are two booths in, with the Nationals as expected on around three-quarters of the primary vote. Only 216, but my system is projecting that Shooters rather than Greens will finish second.

6.10pm. Polls have closed for the New South Wales state by-election for New England region seat of Northern Tablelands, which shows no sign of being anything other than a walkover for Nationals candidate Brendan Moylan in his bid to succeed Adam Marshall. His competition consists of Shooters Fishers and Farmers, the Greens and two independents. You can follow the results through the above link, including swing and probability calculations and detailed results tables and maps. The New South Wales Electoral Commission is conducting a two-candidate count between the Nationals and Greens – the above display is geared for Nationals versus Shooters, which I’m presently scrambling to fix.

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