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Wednesday night
It is now acknowledged that John Pesutto has won Hawthorn for the Liberals, and Mornington continues to drift away from the only other teal independent in the hunt, Kate Lardner. In the latter case, today’s early votes broke 902-726 to Liberal candidate Chris Crewther, who now leads by 353. In Pakenham, the two-party votes were added for the early voting batch that appeared in the primary votes count only yesterday, and it broke to the Liberals less heavily than I had anticipated — 1135-907, turning a Labor leading of eight votes into a Liberal lead of 220. There’s evidently a complex mix in the race for the final seat in South-Eastern Metropolitan region, because the ABC’s projection now has it going to Legalise Cannabis, overtaking the Liberal Democrats who in turn overtook the second Liberal yesterday.
Tuesday night
I had a paywalled piece in Crikey today noting where the result for Labor in swing terms was particularly good (the same Chinese-heavy eastern suburbs that turned against the Liberals at the federal election) and particularly poor (the party’s northern and western Melbourne heartlands, which likewise were relatively soft for the party at the federal election). I also joined Ben Raue of The Tally Room to discuss the results on his podcast.
Turning to the count: it was a better day for the Liberals in Bass, where Aaron Brown went from 225 behind to 53 ahead after early votes broke 835-663 his way, and Mornington, where Chris Crewther’s lead went from 177 to 337 on a 747-588 break in early votes. The Liberals also got a strong batch of early votes in Pakenham, and while they are yet to be added to the two-party count, the primary vote results have boosted my Liberal two-party projection there from 50.0% to 50.8% and left my system not far off calling it for them. My system also no longer rates Benambra as in doubt.
Labor’s one good show was in Hastings, where the latest early votes batch broke 747-660 to Paul Mercurio, boosting his lead from 470 to 557. The fresh two-candidate preferred counts in Albert Park, Brighton, Melton, Point Cook, and Werribee yesterday caused by projections in those seats to go haywire yesterday, but this is fixed now.
While I still haven’t taken a serious look at the upper house count, I note that the ABC’s projection now has Adem Somyurek taking the last seat in Northern Metropolitan for the DLP ahead of Fiona Patten of Reason, though I have a notion that Somyurek may do less than brilliantly on below-the line votes. David Limbrick of the Liberal Democrats also has his nose in front of the second Liberal now in South-Eastern Metropolitan.
Monday night
There was no significant progress today, which was spent mostly on rechecking. That will continue today, but more interesting will be the addition of as-yet-uncounted early votes that were cast outside the home district. As noted below, new indicative two-candidate preferred counts are being conducted in five seats where the wrong two candidates were picked for the count on election nights, but in no case is the result in doubt. Happily, the Victorian Electoral Commission has a page on its website where such news is related in detail on a daily basis.
Sunday night
I spent yesterday fixing bugs in my results system, and now this is done to a reasonably satisfactory level, it should resume updating promptly, at least when I have an internet connection. Most of today’s activity will involve rechecking, but fresh two-candidate counts will be conducted in seats where the initial counts picked the wrong candidates – Albert Park, Brighton, Melton, Point Cook, and Werribee – although in no case is the result in doubt.
My system is giving away 45 seats to Labor and has them ahead in a further 11, which would result in the extraordinary achivement of an increased majority if it stuck. Seats my system is not yet calling but almost certainly soon will are Bayswater, Footscray, Pascoe Vale, Glen Waverley and Yan Yean, which get Labor to 50; Caulfield, Polwarth and Rowville, which get the Liberals to 12; and Mildura and Shepparton, which get the Nationals to not far behind the Liberals on nine. I still have nothing to offer on the upper house result, but that will hopefully change over the next day or two.
Bass. Labor’s Jordan Crugnale needed an 0.8% swing to retain her seat after the redistribution, and after looking gone on election night, a 5.0% swing in her favour on early votes puts it at 1.4%. However, the early vote count of 15427 formal votes is nearly 6000 shy of the number cast, which presumably means one of the three centres hasn’t reported yet. If the outstanding centre is more conservative than the other two, the swing on early votes — which is not broken down between individual voting centres, as would be the case at a federal election — will drop considerably when it reports, perhaps taking Crugnale’s lead with it.
Benambra. The ABC has Liberal member Bill Tilley marked down as holding off two-time independent challenger Jacqui Hawkins, but my more conservative system only gets his probability to 85.9%. He leads by 1.1% on the raw two-candidate preferred count, which is all you’ll get from the ABC — I’m still using a method that presumes to project a final result, which narrows it to 0.8%. Booth and early votes came in about where Hawkins needed to knock off his 2.6% margin, but he’s picked up a 5.3% swing on 2354 postals, about as many of which are still to come.
Croydon. Liberal member David Hodgett had a slight swing against him on ordinary and early votes in a seat where he was defending a 1.0% margin, but the first half of around 8000 postal votes have swung 4.4% his way and he will more than likely get home.
Hastings. Paul Mercurio looks likely to gain a seat for Labor that had no margin at all after the redistribution, and which was being vacated with the retirement of Liberal member Neale Burgess. Ordinary, postal and early votes have all swung slightly his way, leaving him 470 votes ahead with most of the outstanding vote consisting of around 3000 postals and 2000 absents.
Hawthorn. My projection has John Pesutto’s current lead of 0.7% (480 votes) narrowing to 0.3% at the last, mostly because the Liberals did poorly on absent votes in 2018 (36.5% by my post-redistribution reckoning, compared with 44.7% all told), of which I would expect about 2000. However, his primary vote is up 6.1% on the 3055 postal votes counted, compared with about 3% down on ordinary and early votes, and my projection method doesn’t presume that offers any guide to the 4000 or so outstanding. If it does, he will get home fairly comfortably.
Mornington. The teals could emerge empty-handed after a promising start in Mornington fell foul of a 2635-1553 break in favour of Liberal candidate Chris Crewther on postals, leaving him 177 votes ahead with about 3800 further postals still to come. On the other, the Liberals did poorly in 2022 on absent votes, of which there should be about 2000.
Northcote. The Greens’ lower house performance failed to match expectations set to at least some extent by a media determined to hype any anti-Labor narrative to hand, most notably in their likely failure to win Northcote. The first 1651 postals have broken 1027-624 to Labor, a swing in their favour of 5.7% with about 3500 still to come, but the Greens handily won absents in 2018, of which there should be about 3000.
Pakenham. Labor had a notional 2.2% margin in this essentially new seat, and their candidate Emma Vulin ended Sunday with a lead of eight votes over Liberal rival David Farrelly. Labor lost the first 2121 postals by only 1104-1017, a swing of 4.8% in their favour. The question is likely whether an advantage to Farrelly on 3500 or so remaining postals outweights absents, which on my post-redistribution calculation favoured Labor 1230-828 last time.
Preston. Labor’s 1306 vote lead on the two-candidate preferred count will assuredly be enough to see off the Greens. But at Inside Story, Tim Colebatch offers a “scoop”: the final count will in fact be between Labor and independent Gaetano Greco, and it’s not inconceivable he will win. Labor is on 38.1% of the primary vote to Greco’s 14.9%, raising the question of how many voters for sundry left-wing concerns (Greens, Victorian Socialists, Animal Justice and Reason Australia) moved promptly to Labor after their first preference over Greco, a “long-time Darebin councillor and Labor activist”.
Ripon. Liberal member Louise Staley needed a 2.8% swing here post-redistribution, currently has only 0.7%. Labor’s raw lead is 1358, but there are around 8000 early votes outstanding and Staley won the first batch of postals 1814-1272 with about 4500 still to come.