Final figures published to this post and commentary page updated.
Tonight and in coming days, this post will publish an overall summary of the results of the 2026 Farrer by-election. The page will be regularly updated on election night and in the days that follow. Tonight there will also be links below to commentary on the results and more detail on the results by polling place.
Links: Result Summary | Commentary | Swing Tables | Count Centre Results
- Last Update – Friday, 22 May 2026, 12:19 AEST (Final figures)
- Enrolment – 124,447
- Turnout – 87.5% of enrolment
One Nation GAIN Farrer from Liberal
Two-Candidate Preferred (2CP)
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | Swing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ONP | David Farley | 58,284 | 57.5 | +1.4 |
| IND | Michelle Milthorpe | 42,999 | 42.5 | -1.4 |
- Preference counts have been reported from all count centres.
- Vote and Vote % columns based on actual 2CP counts.
- The swing column shows the change in 2CP % compared to the overall result of the last election.
- By-election preferences are flowing 44.4% to Independent, 55.6% to One Nation.
First Preference Count
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ONP | David Farley | 40,039 | 39.5 | +32.9 |
| IND | Michelle Milthorpe | 28,442 | 28.1 | +8.1 |
| LIB | Raissa Butkowski | 12,571 | 12.4 | -31.0 |
| NAT | Brad Robertson | 9,902 | 9.8 | +9.8 |
| LCA | Aimee Lee Pearson | 2,357 | 2.3 | +2.3 |
| GRN | Richard August Hendrie | 2,345 | 2.3 | -2.6 |
| SFF | Peter Sinclair | 1,981 | 2.0 | -1.5 |
| FFP | Rebecca Scriven | 1,235 | 1.2 | -0.9 |
| IND | Gery Jean Pappin | 791 | 0.8 | +0.8 |
| GRPF | Jamie Bonnefin | 705 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| SAP | Lucas James Ellis | 594 | 0.6 | +0.6 |
| IND | Roger Woodward | 321 | 0.3 | +0.3 |
| ALP | …. | 0 | 0.0 | -15.1 |
| OTH | …. | 0 | 0.0 | -4.4 |
| Informal | 7,595 | 7.0 | -2.1 | |
| Total Votes / Turnout | 108,878 | 87.5 |
- First preference counts have been reported from all counting centres.
- Vote and Vote% columns are actual counts. Candidates are listed in descending vote order.
- Change column compares Vote% by candidate/party with Vote% at the last election.
- Change values only appear for candidates/parties that contested the last election.
Can’t wait to see what happens tonight Antony. Thanks for doing this blog and all your hard work.
Yep great analyst.
Always paints a picture of electorates.
Sadly missed on election nights.
how long till counting starts.
COMMENT: Voting ceases at 6pm. Ballot boxes are opened and counting begins shortly after that.
Absolutely agree
You always do a great job Antony, thanks.
Good work, appreciate it
Cheers Antony, love your work!
Reply from the West. Still laughing at this shambles.
Glad I found this site Antony, all the best
So relieved to see that you will be reporting the Farrer results. THANK YOU!
Elections in general are boring to me. Sometimes you have times where it is very interesting. I have been captivated by what is happening. It’s not in the class of Bradbury winning gold but sure has some likeness to it.
Thank you Antony
I miss your appearances on the ABC election night coverage. Thankfully you’re still here.
I’ll be checking in the ad breaks of SBS coverageof Stage 2 of the Giro tonight.
Just drove thru Farrer from Canberra to Melbourne. Lots of Milthorpe and ON tshirts at the towns I stopped through. Looking forward to seeing how this all turns out
We Trust You More than Any Politician. Thank You Antony for your work and service to our Democracy.
Very happy you’ve branched out. Always enjoyed your analysis. It’s even better through an independent lens.
Hi Antony, thanks for all your hard work. Makes it easy to follow the results.
Gail – Melbourne
Which Two-Party is being counted tonight? And will it be the correct one?
COMMENT: Milthorpe versus One Nation. We won’t know if it is the correct pairing until well into the evening.
Missing you Antony you ABSOLUTE LEGEND! Love your blog! Sad but fascinating chapter in Australian politics….
Your election analysis is very welcome, it’s sorely missing anywhere else
I’m sure there will be an absolute torrent of ‘analysis’ drawing very long bows to make inferences about what the results of this election mean nationwide. Seems way too complex to make macro conclusions from a microcosm indicator.
Must try and resist temptation to doomscroll (or doom refresh as the case may be).
Thanks so much Antony. Very informative and interesting.
Great work!!
Sure beats having to watch the ABC.
Thanks Antony for your analysis and comments
Certainly miss you on the ABC
Am I reading right?
Not a single vote for the ALP?
What a bloody ripper!!!
COMMENT: Given the Labor Party did not contest the by-election, it would have been an enormous surprise if it had received any votes.
Haha, good point.
Hi Antony. Thank you for your great analysis. Do you have an estimate on preference flows from the Liberals and Nationals to One Nation?
COMMENT: Overall preferences from the other 10 candidates in total were 54.5% to One Nation, 45.5% to Milthorpe. It will be a few weeks before we get more detail on the distribution by candidate. The flow to One Nation was weaker than I would have expected.
We will know the exact figures on preferences flows once the distribution of preferences is complete and the results are finalised. But my rough estimate is that only 63.3% of preferences from the Liberals and Nationals flowed to One Nation over IND Milthorpe, which I think it’s a pretty weak flow for a rural seat. Percentage of Liberal voters who preferenced Milthorpe could be as much as 40% or even higher.
Likely because so many conservative voters aren’t voting liberal; therefore the libs that are left aren’t conservative and will preference accordingly.
Wonderful analysis Antony, you are simply the best, and better than all the other commentators on all the channels. We miss you, and we no longer watch the ABC on election night. Thank you so very much for your blog.
Great work Antony. By far the most insightful and comprehensive summary of all coverage. Thank you.
Lets hope next time around the Liberal.Party actually have ads that espouse their policies and are not low swipes and false info about some of the candidates. That negativity from both Liberals.and Nationals will never win my vote.
Thanks for a top job, Antony?!
Given the very high ONP in the rural booths, do you think that National party seats might also be vulnerable to ONP?
COMMENT: Yes, every seat the party holds.
Is it possible to guess where the 15% primary vote of the ALP in Farrer in 2025 went in the 2026 Farrer By election due to there being no ALP candidate? None of it went to the Greens whose vote went down in the By election. Assuming the 2.7% decline in the Green vote went to the Independent is it possible that less than half (6% or less) of the 2025 ALP’s 15% 2025 primary vote in Farrer went to Miltthorpe in the 2026 by election with the rest (9% or more) going straight to One Nation? The net Primary vote loss of the LNP was 21.3% (31.3Lib – 9.8 National) a loss of over half of their 43.3 2025 result Add a 9% loss of the 2025 ALP primary vote (over half of the ALP 2025 Primary vote) going directly to One Nation both add up to approximately 30.3% of the primary vote gain of one Nation (out of their total primary vote gain of 32.8%) coming from the major parties. Has there ever been a by-election result containing such an enormous rejection of both of the major parties (even the one that didn’t even run) as this one?
Maybe it was a bad move by Labor of not running a candidate . it will be interesting to see if they can get at least 15% of the primary vote in Farrer in the next Federal Election and win back the voters they lost to One Nation in this by election. As for the Nationals Canavan might be crowing about their 9.8% primary vote and his swag and alleged hard yards in Farrer during the campaign but a similar result in the 2028 Federal election across the board in other rural seats would wipe them off the electoral map. is it possible that Barnably Joyce will not be the only Nationals mp to jump ship to One Nation? As far as the Liberals are concerned could this by election result be their 1943 United Australia Party moment that prompted a renaming of the party? Joel Fitzgibbon in the by election coverage said that the Liberals are wedged in that if they go to the right to chase One Nation voters they have no hope of winning back the Teal seats but if they move closer to the centre they will put at risk whatever regional and outer suburban seats they still have due to the dominance of One Nation in these areas. Maybe it is just that the electorate in times of rising inequality, declining living standards and governments of all stripes openly pandering to and governing for vested interests that the electorate has had a gutful of both ‘sides’ of politics?
COMMENT: It is impossible to know where the Labor vote went. Labor can be accused of being gutless for not running, but there was nothing in it for Labor to contest Farrer. Labor’s vote hasn’t reached 20% in a decade, hasn’t reached 30% in three decades and the seat has always been a safe Liberal or National seat. Labor contesting would only have got in the way of the Independent, and in post-election commentary allowed the Liberals and Nationals to say “Yes, but look how badly Labor polled”. Yes, perhaps disrespecting Labor voters in Farrer, but politically resulted in all the wreckage from the result being in the yard of the Coalition.
Bottom line is the parties of the Left got about 33%, Parties of the Right scored 64%.
Taking into account Milthorpe’s personal following in Albury perhaps similar to the 75/25 No result for The Voice in Farrer++
COMMENT: I’m not sure there’s much point raising the referendum. Trying to do a left-right analysis of the result, it looks pretty much like the result for Farrer at Federal elections going back 40 years. Except this time the traditional right parties have been badly defeated by One Nation.
Much appreciated, Antony.
Pardon me for failing to read all the comments by others here.
I wonder whether you can discern, even partly, to what extent the Liberals and the Nationals “shot themselves in the foot” by how-to-vote advice to give preferences to PHON, rather than to Milthorpe ??
In addition, to my way of thinking, the Liberals and the Nationals harmed themselves by each standing a candidate.
Strategically, could the Liberals have avoided some of their “loss of face” if only they had mutually agreed that no National should stand, AND as JW Howard decreed, cast their preferences away from PHON ??
(I appreciate that Tim Fischer was JWH’s top Nat., before Susan Lee.)
Their former gun-law coalition has self-inflicted wounds, today, in my understanding.
COMMENT: The view from some I have spoken to is that party members would have been furious if preferences had not been directed to One Nation. As its stands, I’m not sure Liberal preferences to One Nation appear that strong. We will find out in a few weeks when all the preference data is released.
Is this the biggest primary vote swing on record against a party defending a federal seat at a by-election? It’s much bigger than the historic swing against Labor at the 1975 Bass by-election – and that’s so even if you combine the Liberal and National Party first preference figures.
COMMENT: I think it is the sort of result that sits in a category of its own.
Checking elsewhere I’ve seen there was a slightly bigger swing against the ALP at the ACT by-election in 1970. But that was due in no small measure to the immense personal vote which had been enjoyed by the Labor MP Jim Fraser, who had died in harness, of cancer, after serving as the local member for 19 years. And the great bulk of the swing benefited two well-known local candidates, Alan Fitzgerald and Jim Pead. The Liberal vote only went up by 1.2%, despite the fact that they had a very credible candidate, local Magistrate Clarrie Hermes, who (according to Wikipedia), had been named Canberra Citizen of the Year in 1968.
Hi Antony, I have always valued your insight and commentary! It seems really clear to me looking at the individual location tallys that there’s a fairly stark divide between the more urban areas of Albury versus all the rural towns through the electorate (Albury and the majority of its suburbs voted for MM #1). It seems to me that Farrer is such a geographically huge area and I can’t see how candidates can fairly represent both sides of the aisle, so to speak – while it’s a very noticeable win for ON this weekend it seems pretty clear to me that urban areas are very unlikely to go for ON come election time. We may end up seeing an even bigger divide in the country between rural and urban areas in the coming years going by this. I know a lot of us in Albury are shocked by the result and feel very unseen. Thanks for all your work!
Have preferences in Farrer by-election been distributed yet. AEC website is “blank” on the topic.
COMMENT: Today 11 May is the final date for receipt of postal votes. Indicative preference counts continue to be reported but the actual distribution of preferences, where candidates are excluded one by one, will take place next week.