Labor is set to form government, but the results have proven to be extremely complicated. At the moment, Labor is only guaranteed to win 44 out of 88 seats, although they are leading in three other seats. In this post, I run through the breakdown of seats that are still close, and which seats Labor regained.
If you’re interested in the results of the Victorian election, you might want to listen to the podcast of the Election Nerds show on 2SER from Saturday evening. I joined the program towards the end of the hour to discuss the results.
At the time of writing, there are still a number of seats where the result has not been locked down.
The ALP has effectively ‘regained’ four of the five seats that were held by Labor MPs but redistributed into Liberal seats: Bellarine, Monbulk, Wendouree and Yan Yean. In addition, Labor has gained Mordialloc.
At the moment the only Labor seat the party has not retained is Melbourne – the Greens are leading, but are not currently certain of victory.
This brings Labor to a total of 44 seats, which is one short of a majority.
Labor is then leading in three other seats on the Frankston line: Bentleigh, Carrum and Frankston.
After early scares, the Coalition appears to have held on in Morwell, Ripon and South Barwon. In Ripon, the Liberal Party has in practice gained the seat, which was redistributed from a Labor seat into a Liberal seat.
The Greens’ chances in Northcote, Richmond and Brunswick have disappeared, but the race is still entirely up in the air in Prahran. The Labor candidate is 52 votes ahead of the Greens candidate, with 912 votes for other candidates that could change the balance. The Liberal Party is leading the ALP after preferences by only 178 votes, assuming Labor comes second.
In the following table, I’ve run through the eight closest seats. In each seat, I’ve estimated how many votes are left to count, based on the 2010 turnout figures, and then used that to calculate what two-candidate-preferred (2CP) vote would be needed by the party coming second for them to overturn the current outcome.
| Seat | Votes so far | Remaining votes (est) | Leading party | Current 2CP | 2CP necessary for change |
| Bentleigh | 26,655 | 11,756 | ALP | 51.21% | 52.59% |
| Carrum | 25,872 | 15,813 | ALP | 52.09% | 53.25% |
| Frankston | 24,387 | 14,037 | ALP | 51.29% | 52.07% |
| Melbourne | 22,745 | 15,331 | GRN | 50.74% | 51.05% |
| Morwell | 25,385 | 16,977 | NAT | 51.70% | 52.41% |
| Prahran | 22,717 | 16,470 | LIB | 50.92% | 51.21% |
| Ripon | 31,420 | 10,973 | LIB | 51.46% | 53.94% |
| South Barwon | 23,722 | 18,685 | LIB | 51.76% | 52.16% |
Update Monday 10:40pm
I’ve added in updated figures. I’ve also added in an assumption that some of the remaining votes will be informally (obviously) which makes it slightly harder for the trailing candidate to win. There has been no update in Carrum, but in every other seat a large proportion of the remaining votes have been counted.
The Coalition has strongly solidified their holds on Morwell, Ripon and South Barwon. This gives the Coalition 38 seats in the Legislative Assembly.
Labor has also solidified their hold on Bentleigh, Carrum and Frankston – none of these seats are completely out of the reach of the Liberal Party, but the gap is widening substantially. It’s also likely that the next update from Carrum will push that seat out of reach. These three seats bring Labor to 47 seats.
Today’s updates in Melbourne have also made it much harder for Labor to win that seat, and it’s hard to see Labor winning.
Prahran remains extremely close. Labor has regained the two-party-preferred lead by the slimmest of margins. In addition, Labor is not certain of coming second after preferences. Labor’s lead over the Greens is now over 600 votes, but will likely shrink with the addition of absentee votes. This is not likely to be enough to put the Greens in second place on primary votes, but the Greens are also likely to benefit from Animal Justice Party preferences that could still push them into second place.
It’s almost impossible, without a Liberal-Green two-candidate-preferred count, to predict whether Labor’s preferences would break to the Greens in sufficient numbers to give them the seat.
| Seat | Votes so far | Remaining votes (est) | Leading party | Current 2CP | 2CP necessary for change |
| Bentleigh | 34,096 | 4,315 | ALP | 50.46% | 53.63% |
| Carrum | 25,872 | 15,813 | ALP | 52.09% | 53.43% |
| Frankston | 32,853 | 5,571 | ALP | 50.32% | 51.86% |
| Melbourne | 27,288 | 10,788 | GRN | 50.96% | 52.43% |
| Morwell | 39,757 | 2,605 | NAT | 51.76% | 76.85% |
| Prahran | 30,328 | 8,859 | ALP | 50.02% | 50.08% |
| Ripon | 35,629 | 6,764 | LIB | 51.69% | 58.88% |
| South Barwon | 35,637 | 6,770 | LIB | 53.34% | 67.58% |
Jon Faine on ABC radio said early this morning that the Greens may be in trouble in Melbourne too as the pre poll and postals are favouring the ALP strongly. How he knows this I dont know.
If Denis Napthine can increase his vote and Liberal Louise Staley can take Ripon of the ALP it appears that some other Liberal candidates did not work hard enough before and during the campaign.
I think the Greens with get past ALP in Prahran – Animal Justice HTV has them 2nd in front of ALP – this will put Greens second. Not think enough to get past Liberal in the end though. Thoughts?
The Greens have a small advantage in Prahran in than they get Animal Justice Party preferences* and the Liberals, rather than the ALP, get Family First preferences* (not that there were many of them). The other 3 candidates had not registered hot to vote cards and have a very small vote each anyway and will probably scatter around.
* Except for leakage, which will probably be quite low.
I did not see any Family First helpers handing out in Albert Park District (I checked 4 polling places). Were there any in Prahran? Looking at all the churchy and fundamentalist parties generally there vote is very weak.
Not that it’s on the watch list, but I’ve been checking in on the Brunswick vote and Jane Garrett is pulling away there and will probably slightly increase her 2PP margin from 3.5% to about 4%.
Ben, of the remaining votes, do you know what percentage are postal and what are pre-poll?
Nonsense. It’s not unusual for a politician with a heightened profile to get a disproportionate vote increase in their own seat. Napthine wasn’t even leader at the last election, let alone premier.
As for Ripon, it was an open seat and the swing was towards Labor.
Ripon was a rural electorate with a 15-year sitting member retiring. Personal votes are a big deal in Victorian state rural electorates, with sitting member retirements being worth 4% 2PP on average. My election model with an expected Labor 2PP of 51.7% predicted the fall of Ripon with 55% probability and I thought the chance of it falling even for that 2PP was probably higher.
I am trying to make sense of Prahran here:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/victorian-election-postcount-prahran.html
All three relevant issues (Newton-Brown vs Pharaoh 2PP, Newton-Brown vs Hibbins 2PP, Pharaoh vs Hibbins to make the final two) are now very much up in the air.
Comments are closed.