Late counting continues in several seats, with Goldstein and Melbourne among those too close to call
- Written by The Conversation
With 78% of enrolled voters counted, the ABC is calling 85 of the 150 House of Representatives seats for Labor, 39 for the Coalition, zero for the Greens and 10 for all Others, with 16 still undecided. The Poll Bludger has Labor ahead in 94 seats, the Coalition in 41, the Greens in one and all Others in 14.
Undecided seats can be sorted into several categories. In some seats, the Australian Electoral Commission selected the incorrect final two candidates, and is slowly redoing this count with the correct two candidates. From the small number of votes that have been realigned, the ABC has estimates of what the two candidate vote will be when all current votes in that seat are realigned.
This category applies to Greens leader Adam Bandt’s Melbourne, and he’s currently estimated to be trailing Labor’s Sarah Witty by an estimated 2,896 votes. The ABC says the sample of votes counted so far may be skewed against Bandt.
Other seats in this category are Labor-held Fremantle, where a teal is estimated to be ahead by just 196 votes, Labor-held Bendigo (Nationals lead Labor by an estimated 1,285 votes) and Labor-held Bean (an independent leads Labor by an estimated 206 votes).
This election was a disaster for the Coalition, yet they are likely to gain Bendigo, which Labor won by 61.2–38.8 at the 2022 election.
Bradfield, Goldstein and Kooyong are teal independent vs Liberal contests. The Liberals have surged on postals in all three, and Liberal Tim Wilson will regain Goldstein if the remaining postals behave like current postals. The teals look better in Bradfield and Kooyong.
Bullwinkel, Menzies and Longman are standard two-party contests. Labor should win Menzies, and is more likely than not to win the other two, once left-leaning absent votes start being counted.
Calwell is currently undecided because both major parties’ primary votes slumped. It’s possible that an independent could win from third or fourth by getting ahead of the Liberals then using their preferences to beat Labor.
In Monash and Flinders, the Liberals are beating Labor, but a teal independent is close behind Labor and may move ahead of Labor after preferences from the Greens and other minor candidates. The Liberals will probably defeat the teal if these are the final two.
Ryan and Wills are Labor vs Greens contests. In Ryan, the contest is to finish second, then beat the Liberal National Party on the other left party’s preferences. The Greens are just ahead of Labor in Ryan at the moment. Wills is a standard two-candidate contest that Labor is currently winning comfortably.
Current national primary votes are 34.8% Labor (up 2.2% since 2022), 32.1% Coalition (down 3.6%), 11.8% Greens (down 0.4%), 6.2% One Nation (up 1.3%), 1.9% Trumpet of Patriots (down 2.3% on United Australia Pary’s 2022 vote), 7.6% independents (up 2.3%) and 5.6% others (up 0.5%).
The Coalition does best and the Greens do worst on early postals, which have been added since election night. Absent votes need to be posted back to their home electorate before they can be counted. On these votes, the Greens do best and the Coalition does the worst.
As the major parties’ primary votes are low, there are many seats where Labor and Coalition candidates will not be the final two. There are currently 28 “non-classic” seats, where one of the major parties did not make the final two.
The electoral commission’s first priority is to determine which candidate has won every seat. Once this is finished, they will conduct a second count in all non-classic seats between the Labor and Coalition candidates. When all such counts are completed, we will have a final official two-party result, but this won’t happen for at least a few weeks.
The ABC’s current estimate for the two-party vote is a Labor win by 55.0–45.0, while The Poll Bludger estimates a Labor win by 54.1–45.9. The electoral commission’s current figure of 54.7–45.3 to Labor excludes all non-classic seats.
