by-election

Daniel Andrews resigns as Victorian Premier

Catching everyone by surprise today is the announcement by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews that he will resign as Premier tomorrow.

Earlier this year Andrews passed John Cain Junior to become Labor’s longest serving Victorian Premier, and earlier this month he passed Rupert ‘Dick’ Hamer to become Victoria’s fourth longest serving Premier.

I doubt Andrews has been hanging around just to pass Hamer. If he had waited another week he would have passed Sir James McCulloch to become the state’s third longest serving Premier.

There are plenty of media stories analysing Andrews’ time in office, trying to explain the sudden departure and examining who might replace him. I don’t think there is anything I can add to the speculation and the political obituaries.

I’m posting here to direct everyone to my just published background piece on the by-election that must now be held in Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave. He won Mulgrave with a two-party margin of 10.2% last November. The seat should be safe for Labor, but you never know in a suddenly changed political climate.

Since its re-election last November, the Andrews government has been announcing and dealing with bad news, mostly in relation to the budget. The most spectacular backflip was the announcement that the state would no longer host the Commonwealth Games in 2026.

You can find my profile for the Mulgrave by-election here.
Read More »Daniel Andrews resigns as Victorian Premier

North West Central By-election

I’ve published a profile on the ABC elections site for Saturday’s North West Central by-election in Western Australia. Results for the by-election are also at the site.

North West Central is the state’s largest electorate taking in 32.3% of the state. It covers 820,591 square kilometres, an area larger than New South Wales. While the state’s largest electorate in area, by enrolled voters North West Central is the state’s smallest. Just 11,189 electors are enrolled to vote at the by-election, just over a third of the state’s current electoral quota of around 30,000.

The by-election has been caused by the resignation of Vince Catania, the Labor turned National MP for the seat since 2008. In what was once a marginal seat, Catania’s two-party preferred vote in 2013, 2017 and 2021 was well in excess of the Liberal/National state-wide vote. Catania appears to have attracted a personal vote amongst Labor voters, shown in the chart below by the big gap in North West Central support for Labor and National between the upper and lower houses at the 2021 election.Read More »North West Central By-election

A Quick Guide to the Monaro By-election

The resignation of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has understandably triggered changes at the highest levels of the NSW government. This includes Deputy Premier John Barilaro announcing his decision to resign as Minister, Nationals Leader and Member for Monaro.

I’ve removed my blog post for the Monaro by-election as it has now been published on the ABC elections page. I’ve left this post here as a stub rather than break links on Google searches.

I also wrote a piece at the time of the resignations for ABC news on what’s happening with the by-elections.Read More »A Quick Guide to the Monaro By-election

A Quick Guide to the Bega By-election

The resignation of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has understandably triggered changes at the highest levels of the NSW government. This includes Transport Minister Andrew Constance announcing that he will resign from state parliament as member for Bega “later this year” to contest pre-selection for the Federal seat of Gilmore.

I’ve removed my blog post for the Bega by-election as it has now been published on the ABC elections page. I’ve left this post here as a stub rather than break links on Google searches.

I also wrote a piece at the time of the resignations for ABC news on what’s happening with the by-elections.Read More »A Quick Guide to the Bega By-election

A Quick Guide to the Willoughby By-election

The resignation of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her intention to resign from parliament means there will soon be a by-election for her safe seat of Willoughby.

I’ve removed my blog post for the Willoughby by-election as it has now been published on the ABC elections page. I’ve left this post here as a stub rather than break links on Google searches.

I also wrote a piece at the time of the resignations for ABC news on what’s happening with the by-elections.Read More »A Quick Guide to the Willoughby By-election

2021 Daly (NT) By-election

This is not so much a post as a pointer to my analysis of the Northern Territory’s Daly by-election held on Saturday 11 September 2021.

It has resulted in the governing Labor Party gaining Daly from the opposition Country Liberals. Daly is the 25th by-election for the NT Legislative Assembly, the fourth to produce a change of holding party, and the first to produce a government gain from the opposition.

Here’s a link to the results page, and the page includes links to my background on Daly and my analysis and running commentary on the results from Saturday night.

In short, the by-election saw a higher turnout in indigenous communities where Labor’s vote is strong, and a lower turnout in semi-rural communities closer to Darwin where CLP support is stronger. The net result was a 7% swing to Labor, the CLP’s 2020 victory margin of 94 votes turned into a Labor margin of around 400 votes. Read More »2021 Daly (NT) By-election

Analysis of Preference Flows at the Upper Hunter By-election

The NSW Upper Hunter by-election on 22 May was notable for the unusually low first preference vote for the two major parties. The Nationals polled 31.2%, Labor 21.2%, with the combined vote for the other 11 candidates an unusually high 47.6%.

The by-election was conducted under NSW’s optional preferential voting rules and 63.4% of other candidate ballot papers exhausted their preferences before reaching one of the final two candidates. At the end of the count, exhausted ballot papers represented 30.2% of the first preference vote.

With ballot paper data from the by-election now published, it is possible to examine more closely the two-party preferred flows of preferences from excluded candidates, to determine how many preferences voters completed, and to measure the influence of how-to-vote recommendations on preference flows.Read More »Analysis of Preference Flows at the Upper Hunter By-election

Eden-Monaro By-election – Preferences and Commentary on the Result

The final data dump of results from the Eden-Monaro by-election has been published, including the distribution of preferences and data on preference flows by party. You can find all the data at the AEC website.

In this post I want to look at final flows of preferences, were there differences caused by when people voted, how did the count unfold on election night, and was it a good result for Labor?
Read More »Eden-Monaro By-election – Preferences and Commentary on the Result

Eden-Monaro By-election – Regional and Vote Type Breakdown of the 2019 Result

To help in analysing the Eden-Monaro by-election results on Saturday night, I’ve broken down the 2019 results by region and by vote type.

In summary, the electorate has three broad regions. The largest by population is the Queanbeyan-Palerang council area with 32.0% of votes taken in 2019. The rural areas surrounding the ACT including Yass, Tumut and Cooma took 28.1%, while voting centres on the NSW far south coast took 25.9%.

Labor’s two-party vote versus the Liberal Party was strongest in Queanbeyan-Palerang (54.6% to 45.4%), then the South Coast (52.5% to 47.5%) and weakest in the rural areas (46.1% to 53.9%). The Liberal Party’s two-party vote was strongest in the reverse order to Labor’s, shown as the second figure in the bracketed numbers above.

Of first preferences support for minor parties, National support was weakest on the South Coast (2.5%) and strongest in the Yass-Tumut-Cooma area (11.1%).  Green support was strongest on the South Coast (10.0%).

Of all votes cast in 2019, only 50.6% were ordinary votes cast in polling places on election day. Another 35.4% were pre-poll ordinary votes cast during the campaign. There were another 5.8% of votes cast as pre-poll absent votes, 5.6% as postal votes, 1.9% as absent votes, and 0.7% as others including provisional and special hospital votes.

In descending order of Labor two-party preferred percent versus the Liberal Party, the results were absent (54.6% to 45.4%), polling places (52.8% to 47.2%), pre-poll absent (52.3% to 47.7%), pre-poll ordinary (48.9% to 51.1%)  and postal votes (42.9% to 57.1%). In summary, Labor won polling day, the Liberal Party won the pre-poll period, with Labor winning narrowly overall.

More detail can be found in this post below, with much more detail on the by-election, the candidates and polling place results at my ABC Eden-Monaro by-election guide.

Read More »Eden-Monaro By-election – Regional and Vote Type Breakdown of the 2019 Result