8:41 – We now have the two-party-preferred from every election day booth and I’m led to believe that’s all we’ll get tonight. Labor’s 2PP is now sitting on 60.6%. This compares to 47.5% on the election day vote in 2022, a swing of 13.1%. Now it seems quite possible that swing will be moderated by the addition of pre-poll and postal votes, but it remains a huge swing towards a government. In general swings towards governments are rare in by-elections. I’m not sure I’ve seen many as definitive as this one.
That’s it for me tonight. I will be going back to my current project of finishing my federal election guide tomorrow, but in December I’ll be back with complete datasets of all the late 2024 elections. Thanks for joining me!
7:37 – The only reason to hesitate calling this race for Labor is that there is the potential that the gap between the election day 2PP and the pre-poll/postal 2PP could widen, as it has done in a number of other elections including the Dunstan by-election earlier this year. If that’s the case, the final Labor margin could narrow. But at this point it doesn’t seem possible for it to narrow enough. So this is a Labor win.
7:35 – Five election day booths have reported figures and Labor has a primary vote of 44.6%, plus a Greens primary vote of 16.8%, while the Liberal primary is just shy of 33%.
Those five booths are reporting two-party-preferred, with Labor on 59.4%. This looks very good for Labor.
7:04 – Just a reminder that the Liberal margin in Black is just 2.7% so they can’t afford much of a swing.
7:00 – Antony points out the turnout at the first booth was down quite a bit. We won’t get any pre-poll or postal votes counted tonight.
6:28 – And now Sheidow Park has Dighton on 50.1%. The ALP polled 39% there in 2022, so that’s another big swing to Labor.
6:57 – The first booth to report is Seacliff South. Labor’s Alex Dighton is on 40.6%, and Liberal Amanda Wilson is on 35.0%. The nearest booths in 2022 had the Liberal primary vote around 49-51%, and Labor’s primary was around 35%, so that looks like a big swing to Labor.
6:48 – Yes I’m still watching, but we have no data yet.
6:00 – Polls have just closed in the South Australian state seat of Black for the by-election triggered by the resignation of former Liberal leader David Speirs. I will be tracking the results here tonight, but while we wait for results you can check out my by-election guide.
I’m tipping a narrow Labor victory.
I mean I *was tipping a narrow one but the first two set of results are showing big swings.
I’d be cautious about projecting big swings in election day booths to pre-polls. In Dunstan the gap between pre-polls and election day results grew greatly as compared to the election.
But certainly a bad sign for the Liberals.
The gap in the 2024 by-election as compared to the 2022 election* I should clarify
@Adda, I agree. So far not good for the Liberals. Their primary vote has crashed. I don’t think there’ll be a swing to them on declaration votes, or let alone a big one that could save them.
This is catastrophic for the SA Liberals. Most booths have massive swings to Labor, even the usually Liberal ones. Postal and declaration votes will need to break 60-40 for the Liberals for them to have a chance of holding on. Antony Green’s called it already for Labor and he was predicting that we won’t get a result tonight like Dunstan.
Yeah, it suffices to say that even if there were to be no swing in the pre-polls, this would be a huge swing and clear win for Labor.
Seems like that 60-40 2PP poll a couple of months back was on the mark.
We could well be looking at a scenario where the full blue map of the 2022 election becomes a full red map in this by-election.
If these figures for Seacliff, Brighton and Marino are repeated federally Labor will comfortably retain Boothby next year. Nicolle Flint is more of a liability more than an asset and the Liberals will have a hard time winning that seat back.
The liberals have lost 2 seats in bi elections. Unheard of
By-elections where the government has won the seat of an outgoing opposition leader, since WW2 or thereabouts:
Gascoyne, WA – 1951
Earlwood, NSW – 1978
Burwood, Vic – 1999
Dunstan, SA – 2024
Black, SA – 2024
It’s rare enough for oppositions to lose by-elections, rarer still to lose them to the government, and even rarer than that to lose the seat of their former leader (literally once a generation). The SA Libs have now managed to do this twice in one year with successive leaders.
Even rarer is a double-digit swing to the government, assuming there won’t be a spectacular turnaround in postal or pre poll votes.
Given the circumstances in don’t see why people are surprised
That’s on top of a 6.5% swing at the 2022 election, too. Combined, that’s nearly a 20% swing to Labor compared to 2018.
Expect the libs to win both dunstan and black back in 2026
Once you take out his personal vote that’s enough to .one the seat.then you take in the people who are voting against the libs because of the circumstances of the by election did anyone actually expect them to hold on?
No Surprise to me. I am a voter in the seat of Black. David Speirs had a big personal following, and then the white substance scandal. He appeared in court and on all the news services on the eve of the election. Vincent Tazia appears slimmy, and I suspect he has been knifing Speirs in the back for the last 2 years. On top of that, one of the Liberals former members has recently been found guilty of fraudulently claiming on his allowances. No one but an idiot would think that currently, The Liberals are in a fit state to govern in South Australia. Tazia is trying to treat the electorate as idiots, and we are not Vincent!! Finally, the current Labor Government are performing quite well. The economy of the state is good, the unemployment is low, and they have attracted big events to the state and reinstated those which The Libs previously cancelled. The Libs in S.A. are in deep shit!
@john agreed even the vic liberals are in a better standing
It seems to be some kind of truism that by-elections have a swing against the government / to the opposition, but that actually hasn’t happened in any SA by-election contested by both major parties since 1994. (I’m not counting safe govt seats where the opposition didn’t run, such as Port Adelaide 2012.) Here’s the Libs’ results in those by-elections:
Black 2024: big swing to ALP, lost seat.
Dunstan 2024: 1.4% to ALP, lost seat.
Bragg 2022: 2.5% to ALP, retained.
Davenport 2015: 5% to ALP, retained.
Fisher 2014: 7.3% to ALP, notionally lost seat.
Frome 2009: 1.7% (notional) to ALP, bigger swing to ind Geoff Brock. Lost seat.
(weird 15 year gap with no by-elections at all)
Elizabeth 1994: 1.3% to Lib, didn’t win. (Safe Labor seat.)
Torrens 1994: 8.6% to ALP, lost seat.
That’s a really horrible run for the SA Libs. Three seats lost, plus another notional loss (Fisher) out of six in the recent past, and a 2pp swing to Labor every time. To rub salt in the wound, the last time a “standard” swing from govt to opposition happened (Torrens), it resulted in yet another loss for them. I realise they’re losing a personal vote in most cases (Fisher being the obvious outlier), but there’s still a pattern here.
This was last night? Shit I was so focused on other stuff (heaps of women’s soccer was on yesterday and early this morning, one game went as planned but the other didn’t), so I literally forgot about this. Let me have a look at the results and assess.
Jesus Christ just had a look and it’s catastrophic.
The SA Liberals really messed up after Steven Marshall. They moved further rightwards and became less credible. Swings like this would see the Liberals wiped out in Adelaide.
Vincent Tarzia needs to reassess and make sure he can hold back ground in Adelaide. They need to make gains in Adelaide to even be a credible opposition after the next election.
Np I think it’s more to do with loss of personal vote here and the circumstances
I see it as a mix of reasons. There’s the loss of personal vote of Speirs coupled with Malinauskus’s and Labor’s popularity (I think he’s the most popular premier in the country). Based on federal figures, Black would be a Labor seat and the margin was quite thin so a gust of wind would’ve tipped the seat to Labor.
There is also the hard right takeover. This has pushed many teal and moderate liberals to Labor. I mentioned in the general thread several weeks ago.
@John except the margin is now as much as the federal one (maybe not that much I’m not sure) where Amanda Rishworth has a personal vote.
@Votante yes, but the swing should not have been –13.3%.
Steven Marshall will be missed in the SA Liberal Party. They have no option but to either hope Labor messes up and they don’t or do a drastic cleanup. Debating about abortion, electoral laws, etc are not good ideas, especially in a city like Adelaide which overall is almost as progressive as Melbourne if not just as progressive, it’s just that the inner-city of Adelaide isn’t solidly red or green, it’s got blue in there too (the state seat of Adelaide was a Liberal seat from 2010 until 2022, so even when the Liberals were in opposition they held it, they also haven’t held the federal seat of Adelaide since 2004).
Oh and the other option for them is to lose the election, which they will.
Swings in federal by-elections with both major parties contesting, grouped by governments (back to Howard):
=======
Albanese:
Dunkley 2024, 3.6 to Lib
Fadden 2023, 2.7 to Lib
Aston 2023, 6.3 to ALP
Average is literally zero. The odd one out of course is Aston.
=======
Abbott / Turnbull / Morrison:
Groom 2020: 3.3 to ALP
Eden-Monaro 2020: 0.5 to Lib
Braddon 2018: 0.1 to ALP
Longman 2018: 3.7 to ALP
Mayo 2018: 0.3 to Lib (notional)
Bennelong 2017: 4.8 to ALP
New England 2017: 7.2 to Nat
Canning 2015: 6.5 to ALP
Griffith 2014: 1.2 to Lib
Mainly thanks to the Section 44 weirdness, there’s plenty here. Average swing 1% to ALP. In the four Labor vacancies, average swing 0.5% to ALP. Swings to the govt were Griffith when Rudd quit after losing the 2013 election, New England (S44) with Barnaby Joyce recontesting, Mayo (doesn’t matter, independent retain) and Eden-Monaro.
=======
Rudd / Gillard:
Gippsland 2008: 6.1 to Nat
*shrugs*
=======
Howard:
Aston 2001: 3.4 to ALP
Ryan 2001: 9.7 to ALP
Lindsay 1996: 5.0 to Lib
Average 2.7% to ALP. The odd one out was just after the 1996 landslide when the defeated ALP MP got a rematch on a technicality.
=======
So, looking at the seats that swung to the government:
Aston 2023, Griffith 2014 and Lindsay 1996: soon after a change of government with the new party in honeymoon mode. Compare also some state ones: South Brisbane (Qld 2012), Burwood (Vic 1999), Helena (WA 1994). Dunstan and Black probably fall into this category – the swing in Black is still a big outlier though.
Eden-Monaro… I guess Mike Kelly had a decent personal vote? New England was weird because Tony Windsor ran in 2016; also most of those S44 ones had a swing to the incumbent, whoever it was.
@Bird of Paradox good analysis, but I would just like to point out that the Eden-Monaro by-election was held during COVID when state governments were getting re-elected usually with increased seat totals (the NT is an exception). The federal government was polling really well at the time despite the previous bushfires (this seat and Gilmore were hit hard by the fires).
I describe the following state elections and any in between as being COVID elections:
* 2020: NT, ACT, Queensland
* 2021: WA, Tassie
* 2022: SA, federal, Victoria
So NSW didn’t have a COVID state election but everywhere else did. Even though the 2022 elections had other issues COVID was still a big one whereas after Christmas in 2022 we were in the post-COVID era.
*by this seat I meant to say Eden-Monaro
2444 declaration votes counted: the Libs got clubbed just as hard as they did on booth votes. This’ll be a double-digit swing for sure.
That’s insane that the declaration vote swing is also double-digits. Black has gone from marginal Liberal to fairly safe Labor.
NP: Ah yep, that weird time. Funny how my brain keeps editing out memories of those couple of years. (Although pretending to be our own country was fun while it lasted. 2021 was certainly an election.)
Similar analysis to the above, for NSW.
O’Farrell etc:
Bega 2022: 12.0 to ALP
Monaro 2022: 6.4 to ALP
Strathfield 2022: 0.8 to ALP
Upper Hunter 2021: 3.3 to Nat
Wagga Wagga 2018: 13.0 to ALP (notional)
Cootamundra 2017: 10.0 to ALP
Murray 2017: 15.3 to ALP (notional)
Gosford 2017: 12.3 to ALP
Orange 2016: can’t find a notional 2pp swing, presumably large to ALP.
Miranda 2013: 26.1 to ALP
Northern Tablelands: 4.9 to Nat (notional)
Clarence 2013: 16.3 to ALP
=======
Carr etc:
Penrith 2010: 25.7 to Lib
Ryde 2008: 23.1 to Lib
Lakemba 2008: 13.5 to Lib
Cabramatta 2008: 21.8 to Lib
Macquarie Fields 2005: 12.4 to Lib
Tamworth 2001: no 2pp count.
Auburn 2001: 11.1 to Lib
Sutherland 1997: 0.2 to ALP
Clarence 1996: 14.0 to ALP
Orange 1996: 13.8 to ALP
Pittwater 1996: no 2pp count.
Southern Highlands 1996: no 2pp count.
Strathfield 1996: 2.3 to Lib
=======
Good grief you have a lot of by-elections in NSW.
The only swings to govt were Upper Hunter and Northern Tablelands (coalition) and Sutherland, Clarence and Orange (Labor). Most of them were shortly after a change of government, including Labor winning Clarence off the Nats (the last time a Black / Dunstan style result has happened in NSW). Odd one out is Upper Hunter, which was seen as such a bad result for Jodi McKay it ended her career. Then again, (a) it was in the middle of Covid and (b) it may have been a correction for the huge swing in 2015. There’s also a bit of a Covid effect for Strathfield (but less in Monaro and none in Bega, which all happened on the same day).
Side thought: people who live in the overlap of Monaro or Bega (NSW) with Eden-Monaro (federal) voted six times between 2019 and 2023. Anyone wanna find somewhere that beats that? (Hint: seven times in five years.)
@Bird of Paradox interesting, that could be a record, though I’m not sure.
As for Upper Hunter, you can see that there was a swing to the Nationals during COVID. A poll conducted on 16 May 2021 (six days before the Upper Hunter by-election) conducted by Resolve Strategic (which tends to skew left) found that Gladys Berejiklian’s net approval rating was +33%, and she led Jodie McKay as preferred Premier by 57% to 17%. The same poll had the Coalition’s statewide primary vote at 44%, compared to Labor’s 28% and the Greens’ 12%.
NP: nope, not a record. I actually had something in mind: the shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale. It’s in Darling Range (WA) and Canning (federal), so between 2013 and 2018 they had two state and two federal elections, a by-election at each level (Don Randall’s death and Barry Urban’s expulsion), and the 2014 senate by-election.
Upper Hunter
A mystery to me.the sitting mp was forced out due to his misconduct. This was an own goal and the result should have been like Wagga. But a swing to the nats of a couple of percent.
This was unheard of……
Mick, a difference between Wagga Wagga and Upper Hunter was the intraparty dispute/conflict about whether the Liberals or Nationals should run in Wagga Wagga. Upper Hunter did not have that sort of contest, with the Nationals free to run their candidate only.
Also, there was not the backdrop regarding the leadership tensions federally (Wagga Wagga was held amidst the dying days of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, whereas Wagga Wagga was held when Scott Morrison was still performing decently during the COVID-19 recovery phase.
Correction – should be Upper Hunter which was held during the COVID-19 recovery phase.
@Mick Quinlivan @Yoh An the Upper Hunter by-election was in the middle of COVID though, and as I said before Gladys was one of the most popular Premiers in the country.
Regarding by-elections
I mentioned in the Gippsland thread, Labor in hindsight made a mistake to contest the Gippsland 2008 by election eventhough it was during its honeymoon. The Nats underperformed in the area due to the Gun Law reforms after Port Arthur but after that was forgotton it started to drift back rightwards. Also the decline in Coal in La Trobe valley has helped give the seat the biggest state adjusted shift to the Coalition since 2007. If there was a by-election in a seat like Dunkley, Boothby, Gilmore in 2008 during the Rudd Honeymoon they could have picked up a crucial seat and retained it in 2010.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/archive/aus2022/gippsland2022
“Gladys was one of the most popular Premiers in the country”
Here is a quick summary of by-elections in the country while St Gladys was premier.
Cootamundra 2017 – 10% 2pp swing against coalition
Murray 2017 – 19.3% 2cp swing against coalition
Wagga Wagga 2018 – 22.5 2cp swing against Liberal Party
Upper Hunter 2021 – Coalition Primary vote 31.2% their lowest ever primary vote in the seat.
2019 state election – lost Barwon, Lismore & Murray – all long term safe Coalition seats.
Was Abortion the silent issue in Black? Did potential Liberal voters send the Party a message?
Otherwise, what explains the swing to the Government in a safe Liberal seat?
Don’t know what was the issue in Black. I think it was infighting in the sa libs and the circumstances of Mr Speirs resignation and labor had their act together
@Mick Quinlivan – Bullseye!
Definitely agree with you on all points. SA Liberals are struggling with infighting and conservative takeovers, Labor and Malinauskas were seen as competent and very popular and down-to-earth. And obviously, Speirs went in disgrace having drug charges and having been seen as an awful leader of the party. That’s why many moderate/small-L Liberals are holding their nose and voting for SA Labor, especially in the by-election. But the Liberals aren’t trying to win them back for now.
@James @Mick Quinlivan both great points.
As of now (a lot can change, Malinauskas might resign for all we know though it’s unlikely), I think the SA Liberals are on the nose in Adelaide. Whatever the weather (unless it’s an absolute landslide) I would expect them to hold onto Bragg, but at the moment they risk losing all of their other seats.
people didnt actually expect voters to reward the party whose member just got done (allegedly) for drug supply? fortunately for the libs federally sa has very few seats. statewise the party has got to pull their heads out because they are starting too be like the vic liberals who now actually have a shot at winning.
@Nether Portal Even in a landslide they’ll keep their rural seats like Flinders, Mackillop, Hammond, Schubert, Chaffey, Frome etc but every other seat is a tossup, even the more affluent ones like Bragg, Morphett, Morialta, Colton, Finniss and Unley, even Hartley, which is Tarzia’s own electorate (and my own) isn’t particularly safe at the moment, and Heysen is probably more likely to go Green out of all the seats.
So we could see the Liberals in SA being reduced to a 2-bit country party than a mainstream party in the state.
i think once Malinauskas goes thy will begin to recover
@Tommo9 I don’t think Heysen will go to the Greens, especially since they’ve started to become less relevant outside the inner-city areas where student politics reign supreme. They even lost South Brisbane. However, I would like to ask is the Adelaide Hills full of hippies or something? Why is the Greens primary nearly as high as Labor’s in Heysen?
As for the Liberals losing all their Adelaide seats I don’t think that will happen. They will surely at least hold Bragg.
@John that depends if the Liberal Party is back on track by then.
@ NP
The Adelaide Hills are not full of hippies. It is a Tealish Small l Liberal area. It is was the heartland of the Australian Democrats. The Greens often outpoll Labor in such areas in the absence of a Teal like the Northern Beaches/North Shore.
Fun Fact the Adelaide Hills maybe the least diverse area in Australia as the table you did for LGAs shows it among the highest % of English speakers.
@NP – I have thoughts on the Heysen Greens vote:
– This area in recent years has become quite affluent. A lot of the Adelaide foothills suburbs are quite affluent, and it’s clear they’ve spread to a lot of mansions in the area. Many affluent voters are beginning to trend progressive, and thus, more Greens votes.
– This area is also very popular with tree-changers, just like the foothills. A lot of tree-changers have moved to places like Mount Barker (which has seen enormous population growth in the past few years), and also Bridgewater and Stirling.
– I also presume a lot of voters, especially those who are affluent and well-educated, are quite environmentally-conscious, and as such, vote Greens as they want more protection for the environment.
Take it with a grain of salt, I don’t live in the Hills so I’m making an assumption.
@Nimalan @James thanks for clearing that up.
Speaking of the most and least English-speaking seats, I actually just completed my table. I will upload it very soon and share it but for now I’ll post some stats.
James (Ireland) – would the Adelaide Hills area be comparable to other ‘mountain’ type regions that are favoured by those seeking a lifestyle change (sea/tree changers). Some other areas that may be similar include the Blue Mountains (more Labor leaning compared to the Adelaide Hills) and also the Sunshine Coast Hinterland (Maleny) which is Liberal leaning similar to the Adelaide Hills.