9:45 – All election day booths have now reported, and the Liberal primary vote is on 57%, and the two-candidate-preferred vote is on 70.6%. The turnout so far is about 48% of the total enrolment, with a substantial early vote yet to come. I’m going to leave things there. It’s a comfortable Liberal victory, but doesn’t really tell us much beyond this by-election.
8:31 – We now have 7/11 primary vote booths and 4/11 2CP booths, plus postals for both. Werner is winning very comfortably, with 74.5% of the 2CP vote. No doubt about this, the by-election has been won easily by Greta Werner of the Liberal Party.
8:18 – We now have 5/11 primary vote booths (plus postals) and 3/11 2CP booths. The Liberal primary vote is on 60.9% (up from 47.3%) and the two-candidate-preferred count is on 69.1% (up from 54.2%). I haven’t done my own matched swing calculations so I’m hesitant to say “swing” on those total figures, but it looks like there will be a substantial swing to the Liberal Party on primary votes and their 2CP margin will be larger than their previous 2PP margin (which can’t really be fairly compared to calculate a swing).
8:07 – We now have primary vote figures from two booths: Ringwood Heights and Wonga Park. The Liberal Party has polled 46.5% and 63.7% respectively. Those are swings of 9.1% and 7.6% respectively. Overall the Liberal primary vote is on 63.7%, and looks set for a high single figure swing compared to 2022.
We only have two-candidate-preferred counts from Ringwood Heights, and the Liberal candidate is leading the Greens candidate 58.2% to 41.8%. This is quite a strong Labor booth, with Labor polling 54.7% in 2022, so I would expect consistent results elsewhere would lead to a much larger margin.
7:51 – After no updates for almost two hours, the 7:45 update just dumped almost 6000 votes. They are all postal votes, so don’t really tell us anything about the election day vote. In 2022, about 6300 postal votes were cast. This time we’ve had 5738 reporting. On this batch, the Liberal candidate is leading on 67.5%, followed by the Greens on 12.3%. Very strange that this is the first result, something is going on.
6:00 – Polls just closed in the by-election for the Victorian state seat of Warrandyte. I don’t expect it to be a particularly interesting outcome, and I haven’t prepared any kind of matched swings, but I plan to post here tonight.
Booth results look very strong for the Libs. The question is whether the Libs can maintain the momentum
In a byelection like this, where one of the major parries isn’t running, so turnout will be low, it is probably more useful to compare the number of first preference votes compared to the general election, rather than the percentage.
Interesting to note that the strongest swings to the Libs, both TCP and on primaries are in Doncaster East, the most multicultural part of the seat with the largest Chinese Australian population.
The problem is that Labor didn’t run for the seat and given a large immigrant popularity in the western part of the seat which voters are pretty much not interested in local politics so these voters only just assume only major parties are viable.
Labor didn’t run here so no one can say the LNP improved or Labor went backwards. I think a lot of the asian community that live in the electorate are ok with voting Labor or Liberal but would never vote Greens, hence the so called improvement of the Liberal party vote.
The Liberals have won a landslide here, a bit larger than I expected actually. I expected the Liberal’s TPP to be at least 60% but what we’re seeing here is almost 70% TPP. Werner may be a bit socially conservative in some ways but it’s fine because everybody in the party wins. The Right prefers more conservative candidates, they got one, while the party itself (particularly the Moderates) want more female and culturally diverse representation so it reflects our demographics better and they got that too. This result and the state elections in NSW and Victoria just go to show that Asians have not entirely deserted the Liberal Party.
@Dan M believe it or not the Liberals are actually the party that has had the best relationship historically with the Chinese community. Until the resignation of Arthur Calwell, the Labor Party still supported the White Australia Policy even when the Coalition was working to gradually reducing it under Menzies and then abolishing it altogether under Harold Holt (who also held the 1967 referendum where over 90% of Australia voted to allow Indigenous people to have equal rights and to stop the abhorrent practice of taking their children away), then later the Labor Party under Gough Whitlam made racism illegal with the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Many Chinese people (who flee China for freedom away from communism, for work, better living conditions, etc) are also conservative and many even socially conservative on issues such as same-sex marriage.
It was only recently that the Liberals lost the federal seat of Bennelong in Sydney (which has a large Chinese community) to Labor for just the second time in history, but Labor has never won the first preference vote there and in 2007 and 2022 when they won the seat it was still a marginal seat; they also lost Reid to Labor but they retained the seat of Banks (Banks, Bennelong and Reid all have large Chinese communities and are in Sydney). The NSW Liberals still hold seats like Drummoyne, Epping, Lane Cove, Oatley, Ryde, Willoughby, etc (which all have large Chinese communities). In Victoria the Liberals lost Chisholm to Labor which has a large Chinese community but that’s normally a Labor seat anyway; the party under Abbott didn’t win it in 2013 but under Turnbull in 2016 and Scomo in 2019 they did win it, just not in 2022. Currently the Liberals have declining influence in Melbourne so the Melbourne version of Sydney’s Hurstville or Ryde is Box Hill which is in the state Labor seat of Box Hill (though the Liberals did normally hold that seat before 2018). The Liberals hold the federal seat of Menzies (which has a large Chinese community and is named after a former Liberal PM, in fact he legit created the Liberal Party) and it’s a blue-ribbon seat but Labor came very close to winning it in 2022 (almost as close as they were to winning Deakin), plus Kooyong was blue-ribbon but now teal and has a large Chinese community. The state seats of Bulleen, Kew, Warrandyte, etc are all Liberal-held and have large Chinese communities though. It’s good that Pesutto and the Victorian Liberals are reaching out to Chinese communities in Victoria like how Speakman, Perrottet and the NSW Liberals reach out to the Chinese communities in NSW, but it’s particularly good in Victoria because Box Hill is still winnable for the Liberals, especially given that Victorian Labor Party like the federal Labor Party is being increasingly more influenced by the Left faction (the Left even has a majority of the Victorian Labor caucus).
Neither Portal, the reason why Liberal normally do better in the Chinese Community compared to other ethnic immigrant communities is a large proportion are small business owners and property investors living in wealthier areas. Muslim immigrants for example are strong Labor voters even though they are very socially conservative since it’s more due to social economic status.
@ Marh, I agree with you it more to do with SES. Some of the seats mentioned like Willoughby, Lane Cove, Kew and Kooyong are pretty much unwinnable for Labor anyway due to very High SES/Elite areas. Ethnic Chinese who arrived as refugees from Indochina or East Timor would be strong Labor voters due to being much less affluent than other Chinese communities. The Vietnamese/Lao/Khmer communities are strongly Labor voting (notwithstanding Dai Le/KK controversy) again that is because the suburbs with large Vietnamese communities tend to among the poorest in each capital city. This is despite the fact that many are staunchly anti-communist and it was the Fraser Government that opened the doors to them.
For those who live in the electorate, how long has North Warrandyte been a hippy/treechanger suburb? Did it always have a high Green or Labor vote?
Ian
Warrandyte and North Warrandyte have been like that since the 1970’s with Eltham and Kangaroo Ground they were known as the ‘mud brick belt’. If you recall – Marian the marriage celebrant in Kath and Kim – lived in a mud brick house in Warrandyte. Hard to tell if new residents adhere to the same vibe – or it is just residual from the Don’s Party era.
Warrandyte lies within a green wedge along the Yarra River (Eltham and the eastern parts of Jagajaga are the same on the northern bank), where development is restricted. So it does attract those artistic treechange ‘hippy’ demographics similar to the Dandenong Ranges or similar semi-rural hills communities in other cities.
It’s affluent but with a strong Green streak.
Why doesn’t Park Orchards and Wonga Park have a similar Green/Labor vote to Warrandyte? They all are green wedge areas. Is there a demographic difference?
i think Warrandyte (Manningham) booths state/federal as it draws from North Warrandyte as well. North Warrandyte does not have a primary school so many residents would send their children to PS in Warrandyte so probably vote at the Warrandyte booths as well. Manningham does seems to be much more socially conservative than Nilumbik despite both LGAs being quite similar socioeconomically. It makes sense in the Suburban part as Suburban Manningham has more socially conservative ethnic communities compared to the Eltham area. However, we look at semi-rural Manningham that explanation does not work as it is also quite Anglo like the Nilumbik Green Wedge and no real socio-economic difference. There are other Green Wedge areas in Melbourne that are Strongly Liberal: Harkaway, Upper Beaconsfield, Narre Warren East, Narre Warren North, Lysterfield etc. Even Nilumbik has some strongly Liberal Green Wedge areas such as Plenty, Yarrambat, Kangaroo Ground, Arthurs Creek so this probably raises more questions than answers.
Thanks for the info everyone; from what I understand, Warrandyte (which is all in Manningham LGA) is conservative while North Warrandyte (all in Nilumbik LGA) is progressive. The Yarra River which then divides the two suburbs. Doing more research, North Warrandyte was exclusively in the Shire of Eltham while Warrandyte was exclusively in the City of Doncaster & Templestowe. I think North Warrandyte belongs in Eltham rather than Warrandyte. Another comparison is Elwood being in Brighton when it should be in a seat with St Kilda due to historical ties.
I don’t buy the claim that Labor was too scared to run or front up. It’s not unusual for one of the majors to abstain from a by-election in Victoria. The Liberals abstained from Northcote in 2017 and Labor abstained from all three by-elections caused by LNP resignations in 2015.
Pesutto might see this by-election as an endorsement of his leadership and could quell the quell some of the naysayers especially after the controversies during the first half of the year. Remember – Peter Dutton even hinted at federal intervention in the Victorian Liberal Party. This victory could give a reason to unite the party, though technically they won in a blue-ribbon Liberal seat.
The Liberal win wasn’t emphatic. The turnout rate was low. Also, like someone above said – there’s a lot of Labor voters who would rather vote Liberal than Green. As it’s a by-election, many out-of-towners wouldn’t have voted.
@Votante Labor also didn’t run in the 2023 Narracan supplementary by-election because they couldn’t win.
The Greens actually had a decent showing when you compare to Narracan, North West Central etc. If Victorian Socialists didn’t run they would have cracked 20% which is not easy to do for Greens – remembering they nearly won Preston with 15% primary vote.
Disappointed it wasn’t stronger but as others point out there are plenty of ALP voters who don’t actually like the Greens and only preference them because the HTV says to, and there’s also informals and no shows to consider.
Was only ever a two horse race and one horse refused to turn up.
@Dan M The Doncaster East area like you said is more multicvultural than the rest of the seat which is very anglo. It has a large Chinese and maybe southern European population who may also be religious. These demographics aren’t really green friendly. The Doncaster East booths went from 50/50 Lib vs Lab to 70/30 Lib vs Greens.
@John Smith It’s probably a couple of things. Warrandyte probably has more of what I would say is a café culture that your tree changer types would like. The other thing and probably the main reason is that Wonga Park and Park Orchards is mostly just big houses on big blocks of land, Warrandyte has this but also has more middle class to go with it.
@Nimilan Good point about North Warrandyte people voting in Warrandyte but North Warrandyte also has a booth at elections except for this by-election.
@Ian I wouldn’t describe Warrandyte as conservative considering it has voted Labor at the 2022 and 2018 state elections although was 56% TPP for the Libs in 2014 so it may be a change in demographics or socially progressive Lib voters not happy with Vic Libs.
I also disagree that North Warrandyte should be in Eltham. North Warrandyte should be with Warrandyte who it has a community of interest with and goes to school there and uses facilities there.
@Votante The difference is that the Libs have never won Northcote and probably never got close. Labour have never won South-West Coast and its predecessor seats like Portland they hadn’t held since 1973 and Warnambool which they haven’t held since 1955. Labor have never held Polwarth or Gippsland South. This is different to this by-election, sure they haven’t held it since 1988 but it’s on a 4.5% margin. Labor said they would have spent $500,000 but surely it wouldn’t cost that much. A lot of Labor people seem to be saying “well this isn’t a Lib win because Labor didn’t run” well maybe they should’ve ran then.
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