Category: Western Australian Politics

Rockingham by-election live

Live coverage and some preliminary commentary on the by-election for Mark McGowan’s now former seat of Rockingham.

Click here for full display of Rockingham by-election results.

Final result (August 5)

Quicker than I would have expected, the WAEC has conducted its full preference count. My projection was correct in suggesting independent Hayley Edwards, who polled 15.9% of the primary vote, would overtake Liberal candidate Peter Hudson, on 17.7%, to make the final count. This she did with 4823 votes (22.1%) at the last exclusion to Hudson’s 4590 (21.0%). The final result was 13,412 (61.4%) to Labor’s Magenta Marshall and 8443 (38.6%) to Edwards, compared with the 10.8% winning margin projected by my preference estimates. The media feed still records an abandoned TCP count between Marshall and Hudson, which is reflected in what’s on my results page.

Live commentary

11pm. I have corrected a preference model that was significantly flattering Labor in its projected lead over Hayley Edwards, which I now have at 10.7% rather than 16.1%. Edwards rather than the Liberal candidate is projected to make the final count because the preference model has her ahead 23.1% to 21.9% at the final exclusion. Happily, the WAEC’s notional two-candidate count means the Labor-versus-Liberal two-party preferred is recorded for posterity, at least up to the present point in the count. For all the contingent factors that undoubtedly contributed to the 22.5% swing, it is notable that it exceeds Labor’s statewide winning margin in 2021.

8.31pm. The WAEC feed doesn’t seem to have updated for about 15 minutes, which might suggest that’s it for the evening.

8.24pm. My results page is updating again after a bit of a blip, and the two-party swing against Labor is now north of 20% — higher than they would like, but not a disaster of the scale intimated by the opinion poll. That’s if the Liberal candidate indeed finishes second ahead of Hayley Edwards, which remains unclear. In any case, Labor’s Magenta Marshall has at all times looked to be in the ballpark of 50% on the primary vote and in zero danger of actually losing.

7.56pm. The WAEC is now letting its TCP results into the wild, which show what I reckon to be a 17% swing against Labor. This would be a bad result for them under normal circumstances, but it may be noted that the Utting Research poll recorded a 24% swing, without the loss of a Mark McGowan personal vote being a factor as it presumably is here.

7.52pm. Types rows have been restored to my results table.

7.30pm. A huge 5037 votes that I thought were going to be counted under “Rockingham EVC” have been added as “Early Votes (In Person)”. That they don’t have their own line on my page at this stage due to the bug discussed below is disappointing, but the results are entirely in line with the norm in having Magenta Marshall with almost exactly half of the primary vote.

7.28pm. My probability gauge isn’t quite doing what it should be — “probability unavailable as preference count unclear” should only be appearing if the distinction could conceivably make a difference to result, and it is clear Labor will win regardless of whether Hayley Edwards or the Liberals make the final count.

7.22pm. Eight booths now, but the overall trends are so clear that distinctions between them individually are pretty fine.

7.15pm. The special hospitals, remotes and mobiles has reported, so I was wrong to say earlier that the “types” rows wouldn’t be needed this evening. This amounts to 129 formal votes, the results of which you can work out by comparing the difference between the “polling booths sub-total” and “total” rows.

7.12pm. The early voting centre has reported with only 688, which I’m puzzled by because nearly 11,000 early votes were cast and most of them would have been there. Perhaps the result there will be updated progressively. Since my projections assumed as much, they are now out of whack.

7.07pm. Five booths in on the primary vote, and either there are no TCPs reporting yet or the WAEC is sitting on the results because it’s not sure the Liberal candidate will come second.

7.05pm. The WAEC’s TCP count, for which we have no results yet, is Labor versus Liberal.

7.02pm. I’ve done an ugly fix on the big issue by removing the “types” rows, which we won’t be needing tonight anyway. Four booths now on the primary vote, and while Labor has dipped below 50% on the raw primary vote, I’m projecting them to make it just over when all the votes are in. Nothing to separate Hayley Edwards and the Liberal candidate for second, but this will ultimately be academic.

6.58pm. Making progress on the bug fixes, but not all the way there yet. Now we’ve got three booths in, and the projection continues to be for a Labor primary vote in the low fifties.

6.53pm. We have a booth in, and while my system has a bug of some description, the result you can see is Bungaree Primary School, where the swings are consistent with Labor scoring slightly over 50% of the primary vote.

6pm. Polls have closed, and with that the start of a nervous wait for both candidates and those of us who are hoping our live results pages will function smoothly. For the time being my set-up assumes the WAEC’s notional two-candidate count will be between Labor and Liberal, but it can’t be ruled out that they will have gone with independent Hayley Edwards rather than the Liberal. The WAEC has unusual practices on this count – if memory serves, it only publishes the results once it is satisfied the candidates it has picked are the correct ones. My own projection will make up its own mind as to who the leading candidates are, and will work off preference estimates unless and until the WAEC has numbers for the same pair of candidates as those determined by my system.

Saturday morning

Today is the day of the by-election for the Western Australian state seat of Rockingham, arising from the unanticipated retirement of Mark McGowan. Here I offer my customary overview of the by-election; here, my coverage of a state opinion poll this week that greatly increased the level of interest surrounding the by-election; and here, if you’re a Crikey subscriber, my account of the potential federal implications of a collapse in Labor support in Western Australia, if that’s indeed what we’re seeing. This post will supplemented with live coverage of the account from 6pm this evening, and the site will as usual feature its famed live results, offering projections, probability estimates and a booth results map.

The West Australian is reporting that Rockingham deputy mayor and independent candidate Hayley Edwards is emerging as an outside chance, after a straw poll it conducted at pre-polling found 22 out of 73 respondents saying they had voted for her, compared with 34 for Labor candidate Magenta Marshall (leaving only 17 for others, among them Liberal candidate Peter Hudson). Another report in the paper today breathlessly relates a late change in Labor’s how-to-vote card has moved Edwards from third to eighth, ahead only of obscure independent Peter D. Dunne. This is sold as a “sign the ALP is worried the election for the long-held and uber-safe seat will be decided on preferences”, though the logic behind this is unclear.

It is one thing for a result to be “decided on preferences”, which will happen in the seemingly plausible event that Labor’s primary vote falls from the 82.8% Mark McGowan received in 2021 to below 50%. But the preferences of those who vote Labor will only enter the equation if its candidate fails to reach the final count, which would require what Kevin Bonham described yesterday as “the worst result in the history of everything”. It should be noted that the change in Labor’s how-to-vote card is a response in kind to Edwards, a former party member whose own how-to-vote card equally has all comers but Peter D. Dunne ahead of Magenta Marshall.

Polls: Essential Research, WA Voice results, Ukraine support (open thread)

Essential Research records Anthony Albanese’s softest personal ratings since the election, plus more results from Utting Research’s eyebrow-raising poll from Western Australia.

Three batches of poll results, plus relevant news on the Indigenous Voice referendum and Victoria’s Warrandyte state by-election:

• The Guardian reports the latest fortnightly Essential Research poll has Anthony Albanese’s approval rating below half for the first time since the election, dropping six points in its monthly reading to 48%, with disapproval up six to 41%. Peter Dutton is up one on approval to 37% and down two on disapproval to 43%. The report does not provide the poll’s voting intention numbers, which should be with us later today. In other findings, 41% approved and 36% disapproved of the Victorian government’s cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, with support at 44% from the poll’s modest sample of Victorian respondents. The poll had a sample of 1150 and was presumably conducted as per usual from Wednesday to Sunday. UPDATE: The voting intention numbers are Labor 31% (down one), Coalition 32% (steady), Greens 14% (steady) and One Nation 7% (down one), with undecided up one to 6%. This is the first time the Coalition has led on the primary vote in this series since the election, and the 2PP+ lead of Labor 50% (down one) to Coalition 45% (up one), with undecided on 6% (up one), is equal narrowest. Full report here.

• The West Australian today brings further results from the Utting Research poll that credited the state Liberals with a 54-46 lead, finding 58% planning to vote no on the Indigenous Voice compared with 29% for yes and 13% undecided. With the latter excluded, the result is exactly two-thirds yes and one-third no. Since other recent polling from Western Australia has tended to suggest only a modest leaning towards no, it’s tempting to regard this as evidence that the poll struck a heavily conservative rogue sample, and to interpret the voting intention numbers accordingly. The poll further records 54% saying the state’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act had made them less likely to vote for the Voice, compared with 16% for more likely, 23% for neither and 7% for unsure.

• The Age/Herald had yet more results from last week’s Resolve Strategic poll on Sunday, showing 31% in favour of increased support for Ukraine, 45% support for retaining it at its current level and only 9% support for decreasing or withdrawing support.

• Tom McIlroy of the Financial Review reports 60,000 Indigenous voters have been added to the electoral roll since the end of last year, increasing the enrolment rate from 84.5% to 94.1%. This followed “sustained work” by the Australian Electoral Commission encompassing “special enrolment strategies, direct enrolment rules for remote communities, and changes to allow voters to enrol a Medicare card”. As noted here previously, the Indigenous enrolment surge has led to a proposed redistribution for the Northern Territory parliament being scrapped and started again.

• Tom Cowie of The Age reports Labor “looks increasingly unlikely to field a contender” at the Victorian state by-election for Warrandyte on August 26. The Greens have endorsed Manningham deputy mayor Tomas Lightbody. Other candidates include independent Maya Tesa, a past Liberal Democrats candidate who polled 7.0% as an independent at the Aston by-election on April 1.

Utting Research: 54-46 to Liberal in Western Australia

Amid a backlash over Aboriginal heritage laws, a game-changing set of state voting intention numbers from Western Australia.

The West Australian brings us the most remarkable poll result in many a long day, with Utting Research crediting the state Liberals with a 54-46 lead on two-party preferred. This reverses a 61-39 lead for Labor from the same pollster immediately after Roger Cook’s took the leadership in early June, to say nothing of the 70-30 result at the 2021 election. On the primary vote, Labor drops twenty points from the May poll to 32%, with the Liberals up nine to 37%, the Nationals up one to 6%, the Greens up two to 10% and “others” up eight to 15%. Roger Cook is down fifteen on approval to 27% and up eleven on disapproval to 37%. Liberal leader Libby Mettam is steady on 31% approval but down nine on disapproval to 24%, marking a significant move in favour of “unsure”. All of which suddenly makes Saturday’s Rockingham by-election a lot more interesting than it had seemed.

The West Australian’s report quotes pollster John Utting not unreasonably arguing that the backlash over Aboriginal heritage laws has likely contributed to the result. Interestingly, the report also says “polls by robocalling tend to skew towards an older, more conservative demographic, while Labor’s success under Mr McGowan had been with less engaged younger voters”, although it then talks up Utting Research’s track record. The poll was indeed conducted by robopolling, from Tuesday to Thursday with a sample of 1000.

Weekend miscellany: NSW Liberal preselections, Voice polling and more (open thread)

Four federal Liberals face preselection challenges as factional tensions in the NSW branch reignite.

It was noted here last week that the Liberals had opened nominations in eight of the nine federal seats they hold in New South Wales, making an exception for Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook so as not to put him in an awkward spot as the party gently persuades him to bring forward his retirement. The Guardian reports that challengers to incumbents have come forward in four of these seats, three of which have been gestating since before the last election. They were largely thwarted on that occasion by the designs of one of their targets, Mitchell MP Alex Hawke, who was able to clog up the process long enough to compel the party hierarchy to resolve the matter in favour of the incumbents just weeks before the onset of the campaign.

Hawke is a close ally of Scott Morrison and a leading figure in the centre right faction, which had been left marginalised by deals between moderates and conservatives, and was weakened still further by the election defeat. Relatedly, Hawke faces a conservative-driven motion before the party’s state council to expel him over his tactics before the election. A recurring theme of the current round of challenges is that conservatives who were thwarted last time are now hopeful that Hawke and his faction will be too weak to fend them off. The aspirant in Hawke’s own seat of Mitchell in Sydney’s north-west, then and now, is Michael Abrahams, a lieutenant-colonel in the Army Reserve.

Also under pressure are two senior front-benchers, including no less a figure than the deputy party leader, Sussan Ley. Ley had variously been associated with the moderate and centre right factions, and appeared to be under pressure in her rural seat of Farrer before the last election following a conservative recruitment drive in local party branches. On that occasion her prospective challenger was Christian Ellis, a public relations specialist noted locally as a campaigner for water rights, who like Abrahams was thwarted by the national executive intervention. This time she will reportedly be opposed by Jean Haynes, a Deniliquin school teacher who appeared to have a seat in the state upper house lined up in December after the party hierarchy intervened to dump three male incumbents and replace them with women. However, a revision to the plan saw her make way for Rachel Merton, in part due to moderate objections over her role in Ellis’s challenge to Ley.

The other senior figure who faces a rival nominee is Paul Fletcher, former Communications Minister and member for the northern Sydney seat of Bradfield, where he was run uncomfortably close at the election by unheralded teal independent Nicolette Boele. However, the challenge from Paul Nettelbeck, described by The Guardian as a “communications expert who previously worked for the Menzies Research Institute”, is understood to be “primarily a defensive manoeuvre to prevent Fletcher retiring and passing his seat uncontested to a NSW moderate”. In the wake of the Aston by-election defeat in April, Niki Savva of the Age/Herald related that both Ley and Fletcher, together with Dan Tehan and Angus Taylor, had been “openly displaying their wares” in anticipation of a possible move against Peter Dutton’s leadership.

Also facing a challenge is the centre right-aligned Melissa McIntosh, whose success in increasing her margin in the difficult seat of Lindsay last year has seemingly failed to mollify local conservatives. McIntosh is again opposed by Mark Davies, Penrith councillor and husband of state Mulgoa MP Tanya Davies, who called off his challenge before the last election under the terms of a factional deal.

Other news:

• The Age/Herald has published results on the Indigenous Voice from this week’s Resolve Strategic poll, which found no leading 52-48 on a forced response question, compared with 51-49 a month ago. When an uncommitted option was included, 36% opted for yes (down six) and 42% no (up two). State breakdowns had no leading 51-49 in New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia and 58-42 in Queensland, with yes leading 52-48 in Victoria and 54-46 in Tasmania (with caution due for small samples sizes particularly in the smaller states). The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1610.

• Roy Morgan conducted one of its “snap SMS” polls this week in the wake of the Victorian government’s cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, which credited the state Labor government with a 53-47 lead on two-party preferred, compared with an implausible 61.5-38.5 at the last such poll in May. The primary votes were Labor 33% (down nine), Coalition 35.5% (up seven) and Greens 12.5% (steady). Forced response questions found Daniel Andrews with 45% approval and 55% disapproval, but leading John Pesutto as preferred premier by 52.5-47.5; and a 58-42 majority in favour of cancelling the games, leaving unanswered the question of whether it was a good idea to take them on in the first place. The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 1046.

• As for the weekly federal voting intention numbers from Roy Morgan, which I don’t focus on much due to the haphazard manner in which they are published, Labor holds an unusually narrow two-party lead of 53-47, in from 54.5-45.5 last time. However, the primary votes suggest the movement is largely down to preference flows, with Labor on 35.5%, the Coalition on 35% and the Greens on 12.5%, suggesting a 54-46 lead to Labor based on previous election preferences.

• Niki Savva’s column this week in the Age/Herald related that data collated from 2500 households during door-knocking of the Kooyong electorate by teal independent MP Monique Ryan and her supporters found 58.5% in favour of the Indigenous Voice, 45.1% strongly; 30.6% neutral or unsure; and only 11.3% opposed. Recent poll results hawked by Liberal Senator James Patterson showing no with its nose in front in Kooyong were credulously reported by Sky News.

• Simon Benson of The Australian reports JWS Research polling conducted for the Minerals Council of Australia initially found 46% in favour of the government’s “same job, same pay” industrial relations reforms, with 19% opposed — but many were said to have had misapprehensions that the reforms related to the gender pay gap. After being shown business lobby advertising attacking the reforms, the results were 26% supportive and 47% opposed. When further shown union advertising supporting the reforms, the result came out at 31% for and 34% against.

• As related in the previous post, draft new state boundaries for Western Australia proposing abolishing a Nationals-held regional seat, one of only six out of 59 not held by Labor, and the creation of a safe Labor seat in southern Perth. This has naturally infuriated the Nationals and supportive interests, coming as it does on the heels of upper house reforms that abolish a scheme that divides seats evenly between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, despite the former accounting for three-quarters of the state’s population. In other redistribution news, I am indebted to Ben Raue at the Tally Room for paying attention to the redistribution for the Northern Territory parliament, which has been passing beneath my radar. An initial set of draft boundaries that was published in May has been scrapped altogether due to a surge of enrolment in remote communities ahead of the Indigenous Voice referendum, driven by a push in the Australian Electoral Commission’s direct enrolment campaign.

Western Australian draft state redistribution

Proposed new state boundaries for Western Australia abolish a Nationals-held regional seat to accommodate a new way in Perth’s southern growth corridor.

Draft boundaries have been published for a state redistribution in Western Australia, which happens roughly at the mid-point of every four-year parliamentary term. In a nutshell: the electorates of North West Central and Moore, both held by the Nationals, are to be merged into Mid West, and a new seat called Oakford is to be created in the outer southern suburbs, which would be fairly safe for Labor at a normal election. A substantially redrawn Carine becomes Padbury; Swan Hills is to be renamed Walyunga; Burns Beach becomes Mindarie; Mirrabooka becomes Girrawheen; Willagee becomes Bibra Lake; Warnbro becomes Secret Harbour. My preliminary estimates of the margins are posted below. I’ll be expanding on this post in detail over the coming hours.

UPDATE: Some general observations. By the distorted arithmetic of the 2021 result, this increases Labor from 53 seats to a notional 54, reducing the Nationals from four to three and leaving the Liberals on two. But to crudely balance things by deducting 20% from Labor in every seat, thereby approximating a 50-50 result, Jandakot would go from marginal Labor to marginal Liberal and Pilbara would go from marginal Labor to marginal Nationals.

The new seat of Oakford looks safe for Labor, taking a chunk out of their stronghold of Armadale together with the new suburbia of Piara Waters and Harrisdale from naturally marginal Jandakot and Aubin Grove and Wandi from Kwinana, plus semi-rural areas further south including Oakford proper. The changes cut 2.7% from the Labor margin in Jandakot and cause Kwinana to overtake Rockingham as Labor’s safest seat, since it loses the area east of the freeway that constituted its one weak spot.

The new northern suburbs seat of Padbury is created by redrawing Hillarys and Carine in such a way as to turn two roughly square-shaped coastal seats into elongated north-to-south ones, with Hillarys taking the entirety of the coast. This makes Hillarys a lot weaker for Labor and Padbury a lot stronger than Carine had been, which might make life interesting for the two Labor members for these normally Liberal seats.

Elsewhere in suburbia, the probable bellwether seat of Forrestfield becomes stronger for the Liberals by being pushed northwards, losing Kenwick and gaining Helena Valley; Riverton, which would be fairly comfortable for the Liberals at a normal election, becomes 2.0% stronger for Labor by trading Leeming for Parkwood; a number of minor changes make Scarborough, which will presumably be difficult for Labor to hold, 1.0% weaker for them; Balcatta awkwardly gains southern Gwelup on the western side of the Mitchell Freeway, slightly weakening Labor in a natural marginal; and Kalamunda, which had been marginal or perhaps Liberal-leaning, is pushed further to the east, adding a handy 3.3% to the Labor margin.

With the abolition of North West Central, Pilbara gains its northernmost territories including Exmouth, Onslow and the mining towns of Pannawonica, Tom Price and Paraburdoo, which cut 3.4% from the Labor margin in a seat that could go either way at a tight election. The regional city seats of Albany and Geraldton both become weaker for Labor by absorbing rural territory, the former gaining Mount Barker and the latter a large area that includes Northampton and Mullewa.

By-election latest: Fadden, Rockingham, Warrandyte

Candidates confirmed and ballot papers drawn for Fadden and Rockingham, and Liberal preselection determined for Warrandyte.

Candidates were announced and ballot paper orders drawn for two of the three looming by-elections, an occasion I have marked with guides to the two in question — the federal by-election for Fadden on July 15, and the Western Australian state by-election for Rockingham on July 29. As well as providing a dedicated comments thread for discussion of the by-election, this post offers a summary of the most recent developments from all three, the most notable of which are for the Victorian state by-election for Warrandyte, for which a date is yet to be determined:

• A Liberal preselection held on Sunday to choose a candidate for the Warrandyte state by-election in Victoria was won by Nicole Ta-Ei Werner, who ran unsuccessfully for the party in Box Hill at the November state election. Werner is the daughter of Malaysian Chinese migrants and a former youth pastor with Pentecostal church Planetshakers, who now works as the business development for Empower Australia, a food relief centre run by the church. She prevailed in the preselection vote amid a field of nine, which after progressive rounds winnowed the field down to Werner, Institute of Public Affairs director John Roskam, and 22-year-old law student Antonietta di Cosmo. Werner and Roskam were at this point tied for second, which was resolved with a special round of voting that determined the result for Werner. The majority of Roskam’s backers then fell in behind Werner, who defeated di Cosmo in the final round with 55 votes to 50 (with “some members leaving early”, according to The Age). Labor sources cited by The Age on Monday said Labor would decide if it would field a candidate by the end of the week, but I have yet to hear any further.

• Nine candidates have nominated for Rockingham, the Liberal candidate being Peter Hudson, a 21-year-old resources sector recruitment consultant who ran for the party in Brand at last year’s federal election, and was the only nominee for preselection. Also in the field is Rockingham deputy mayor Hayley Edwards, who was mentioned as a potential candidate for Labor but will instead run as an independent.

• With a crowded field of 13 candidates, Labor has had rather the better of the ballot paper draw in Fadden, their candidate Letitia Del Fabbro placed at the top while Cameron Caldwell of the Liberal National Party is second last.

Miscellany: seat entitlements, electoral reforms, by-elections latest and more (open thread)

Winners in losers in the carve-up of House of Reps seats between the states, Gerard Rennick’s Senate preselection under challenge, latest by-election developments, and more.

Recent electoral developments at the federal level:

• The population statistics that will be used next month to calculate state and territory House of Representation seat entitlements have been published, and as Antony Green reports, they establish that New South Wales and Victoria will each lose a seat, putting them at 46 and 38 respectively; Western Australia will gain one, putting it at 16; and the others will remain unchanged at Queensland 30, South Australia 10, Tasmania five, the ACT three and the Northern Territory two. The vagaries of rounding mean the total size of the House will be down one to 150. Redistributions will duly be required in three states – Antony Green has a further post looking at the specifics in Western Australia, where the new seat seems likely to be in the eastern suburbs of Perth.

• Matthew Killoran of the Courier-Mail reports a view that right-wing Liberal National Party Senator Gerard Rennick will “narrowly see off” challenges to his third position on the Queensland Senate ticket from Nelson Savanh, who works with strategic communications firm Michelson Alexander and appears to be an ideological moderate, and Stuart Fraser, director of a private investment fund.

• Jamie Walker of The Australian reports speculation that Pauline Hanson will shortly retire from politics, with her Senate vacancy to be filled by her chief-of-staff, James Ashby, who first came to public attention when he brought sexual harassment allegations against Peter Slipper, then the Speaker and Ashby’s boss, in 2012. Hanson spoke to The Australian of her frustration at being sidelined by a Labor government that prefers to negotiate with Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock to pass contested legislation through the Senate.

• The Guardian has launched an Indigenous Voice poll tracker. Meanwhile, academic Murray Goot has things to say about Newspoll’s recent result and The Australian’s presentation of it.

• Paul Sakkal of the Age/Herald reports the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters will shortly recommend donation and spending caps and bans on false information in political advertisements, which have the broad support of the government and the relevant minister, Special Minister of State Don Farrell. Labor’s new draft national platform says it will work towards reducing reliance on donations and move to an expanded public funding system, much of the impetus coming from Clive Palmer’s extravagant electoral spending. Donation caps are opposed by Climate 200 and the Australia Institute, which argue that donor-funded campaigns provide the only opportunity for new entrants to take on incumbents. Donation caps at state level of $6700 a year in New South Wales and $4000 in Victoria were seen as inhibiting teal independent efforts to replicate their successes at federal elections.

• This week’s federal voting intention numbers from Roy Morgan have Labor’s two-party lead out from 55.5-44.5 to 56-44, from primary votes of Labor 35%, Coalition 33.5% and Greens 13.0%.

State by-elections latest:

• The Victorian Liberals will choose their candidate for the Warrandyte by-election on Sunday. Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports the outcome is “far from clear”, with 22-year-old law student Antonietta Di Cosmo di Cosmo reckoned as good a chance as any out of the field of nine candidates. Conservative allies of Deakin MP Michael Sukkar are reportedly split between former Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam and former Pentecostal pastor Nicole Ta-Ei Werner, while the opposing factional claim is divided between KPMG director Sarah Overton, tech business founder Jason McClintock and former Matthew Guy staffer Jemma Townson. Meanwhile, The Age reports Labor MPs are pressing for the party to field a candidate. Confirmation of a date for the by-election is still a while off, with outgoing member Ryan Smith not to formally resign until July 7.

• In Western Australia, Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reports Labor’s administrative committee has confirmed party staffer Magenta Marshall as its candidate to succeed Mark McGowan in Rockingham on July 29. Rather surprisingly, the Liberals have committed to field a candidate in a seat McGowan won in 2021 by 37.7%.

Miscellany: by-elections latest (open thread)

Major party starters in place for Fadden, a date set for Rockingham, and nine candidates emerge for Liberal preselection in Warrandyte.

News to report on the three by-elections presently in view – one federal and two state, two with dates confirmed and one to be announced:

• The Liberal National Party candidate for the Fadden by-election on July 15 will be long-serving Gold Coast councillor Cameron Caldwell, who won a final round vote of 153 preselectors over Dinesh Palipana, with Fran Ward, Owen Caterer and Craig Hobart falling by the wayside in earlier rounds. Lydia Lynch of The Australian reports a meeting of Labor’s administrative committee last Friday unanimously endorsed Letitia Del Fabbro, a nurse educator who was also the candidate at the May 2022 election.

• Nine candidates have nominated for Liberal preselection in Warrandyte, expected to be held in about a fortnight, controversial former Kew MP Tim Smith not being among them. As reported by Rachel Baxendale in The Australian, they are John Roskam, former executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs; Sarah Overton, KPMG director; Nicole Ta-Ei Werner, who ran in Box Hill at the November state election; Jason McClintock, a tech business founder who ran in Eltham (and who donated heavily to the party’s state election campaign); David Farrelly, who ran in Pakenham; Jemma Townson, “energy industry communications director and former Matthew Guy and Katie Allen staffer”; Antonietta di Cosmo, 22-year-old “Ryan Smith staffer, champion rower and law student”; Allison Troth, “cancer campaigner and former John Howard staffer”; and Andrew Conlon, “Manningham councillor and maths teacher”. The report says factional conservatives are likely to back Roskam or Werner, while “an opposing factional grouping that coalesces around powerbrokers Frank Greenstein and Holly Byrne” might support Overton, McClintock or Townson.

• The Rockingham by-election to replace Mark McGowan has been set for July 29. The West Australian reports that Labor’s candidate will likely be Magenta Marshall, who has won backing from the Right, despite last week saying she was “not sure it’s my time”. Marshall is in her late twenties and works in a “specialised campaigning role” in party headquarters, having previously been an electorate officer to Balcatta MP David Michael.

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