Labor gains a Senate seat from the Liberals in South Australia, while Jacqui Lambie is re-elected
- Written by: Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
Buttons have been pressed to electronically distribute preferences for the Senate in South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. Labor gained a seat from the Liberals in SA, with the other two unchanged. There’s also been further counting in close lower house seats.
Six of the 12 senators for each state and all four territory senators were up for election on May 3. Changes in state senate representation are measured against 2019, the last time these senators were up for election.
Senators are elected by proportional representation in their jurisdictions with preferences. At a half-Senate election, with six senators in each state up for election, a quota is one-seventh of the vote, or 14.3%. For the territories, a quota is one-third or 33.3%.
Labor has won three of the six SA senators, the Liberals two and the Greens one. This is a gain for Labor from the Liberals since the last time these seats were contested in 2019. The left has won a 4–2 split from the SA Senate.
Final primary votes in SA gave Labor 2.66 quotas, the Liberals 1.93, the Greens 0.90, One Nation 0.37 and Legalise Cannabis 0.20. On the distribution of preferences, the second Liberal and lead Green achieved quota, with Labor’s third candidate winning the last seat against One Nation by 1.00 quotas to 0.80.
Analyst Kevin Bonham said the final gap of 0.20 quotas in Labor’s favour was smaller than the 0.25 quotas in The Poll Bludger’s Senate model from May 18, but most of the change was explained by a smaller primary vote gap between Labor and One Nation than when this model was last updated.
In Tasmania, Labor won two of the six senators, the Liberals two, the Greens one and Jacqui Lambie was re-elected, with no change in standings from 2019. Final primary votes gave Labor 2.47 quotas, the Liberals 1.65, the Greens 1.14, Lambie 0.51, One Nation 0.36 and Legalise Cannabis 0.24.
Both Lambie and the second Liberal achieved a full quota on the distribution of preferences. Final standings were 1.05 quotas for Lambie, 1.01 for the second Liberal and 0.80 for Labor’s third. At the previous exclusion point, One Nation was eliminated 0.16 quotas behind Labor’s third.
The Poll Bludger’s model had the final Tasmanian seat close between the major parties. Bonham said Lambie’s share of One Nation preferences was about the same as in 2022, but the Liberals had a much bigger share than expected and Labor a much lower share.
In the NT, Labor and the Country Liberal Party (CLP) each won one seat, unchanged from 2022. Final primary votes gave Labor 1.05 quotas, the CLP 0.98, the Greens 0.33 and One Nation 0.23. The CLP crossed quota with several other candidates still in the count.
We are still waiting for Senate results from Victoria, the ACT, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. In Victoria, NSW and WA, Labor is leading One Nation on primary votes in the contest for the last seat. If The Poll Bludger’s models are correct, Labor will win all these seats and the left will hold a large Senate majority.
House updates in Bradfield, Goldstein and Calwell
In the ABC’s seat count, Labor has won 94 of the 150 House of Representatives seats, the Coalition 43 and all Others 12, with one seat still undecided (Bradfield). Labor has won Calwell.
After the completion of the distribution of preferences last Friday, the Liberals led Teal candidate Nicolette Boele by just eight votes in Liberal-held Bradfield, a reversal from a 43-vote Boele lead last Wednesday. A full recount started Monday and is expected to take two weeks to complete. The Liberal’s lead has increased to ten votes in the recount.
The Poll Bludger said formality checks on votes received as preferences by the two leading candidates were mainly responsible for the Liberal’s gain, as votes previously counted were ruled informal. During the recount, all primary votes are subject to formality checks, and this could help Boele.
The Liberal won 38.1% of the primary vote to Boele’s 27.0%. The Poll Bludger said if primary votes for the Liberals and Boele are excluded in rough proportion to primary votes for other candidates during the distribution of preferences, the Liberal will lose 65 votes and Boele 45. If this occurs, Boele would gain a net 20 votes and win by 12 votes.
In Goldstein, several errors were found during the distribution of preferences. Correcting these errors mainly helped Liberal Tim Wilson, whose lead over Teal incumbent Zoe Daniel surged from 135 to 444 votes on Friday before finishing at 260 votes on Saturday. A partial recount of all Wilson and Daniel primary votes and informals will start on Wednesday.
In Labor-held Calwell, which has 13 candidates, final primary votes were 30.5% Labor, 15.7% Liberals, 12.0% for independent Carly Moore, 10.7% for independent Joseph Youhana, 8.3% for the Greens and 6.9% for independent Samim Moslih.
On the distribution of preferences, Moslih’s preferences flowed strongly to the Greens, and the Greens overtook Youhana. On Youhana’s exclusion, Moore overtook the Liberals. The Greens had 16.6% at their exclusion, and 69% of their preferences flowed to Labor. After this exclusion, Labor had 48.0%, Moore 29.7% and the Liberals 22.3%. Labor defeated Moore by 55.1–44.9 at the final count.
Tasmanian upper house election results
Every May two or three of Tasmania’s 15 upper house seats are up for election for six-year terms. On Saturday there were elections in Liberal-held Montgomery, Labor-held Pembroke and Nelson, held by left-wing independent Meg Webb. No postal votes have been counted yet and there are no two-candidate votes, just primary votes.
In Nelson, Webb led the Liberals by 51.8–34.0 with 14.2% for the Greens. In Pembroke, Labor had 44.1%, the Greens 21.1% and an independent 20.6%. In Montgomery, independent Casey Hiscutt led the Liberals by 31.8–29.4 with 21.6% for the Greens and 13.0% for the Shooters.
Preferences won’t be distributed until after postals are counted from Thursday, but analyst Kevin Bonham has called Nelson for Webb and Pembroke for Labor, and he expects Hiscutt to easily defeat the Liberals in Montgomery on Greens preferences.
If this occurs, the Liberals would lose a seat to an independent, so the upper house standings would become three Liberals out of 15, three Labor, one Green and eight independents.
Authors: Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
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