This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
Eden-Monaro byelection: polls close in a tightly fought contest – follow live
Eden-Monaro byelection: counting begins after polls close in a tightly fought contest – follow live
(31 minutes later)
Follow all the results, news and analysis as Labor’s Kristy McBain attempts to retain seat for ALP and the Liberal party’s Fiona Kotvojs hopes for a once-in-100-year upset. Latest news
Follow all the results, news and analysis as Labor’s Kristy McBain attempts to retain seat for ALP and the Liberal party’s Fiona Kotvojs hopes for a once-in-100-year upset. Latest news
But that is not to say the polling booths today didn’t have some colour
Postal vote applications more than doubled for Eden-Monaro, compared to the 2019 federal election.
Obviously, a lot of that has to do with Covid-19.
Labor also ran a very big postal vote campaign.
It makes it almost impossible to compare the booth count to what came in just over a year ago.
Given the number of Covid-19 infections today, the number of police who are involved, and the fears of what it could do in terms of spread to the rest of the country, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise if this happens:
About 50 % of the electorate has voted ahead of the election.
That is going to make the poll count a little more difficult – postal votes won’t be counted for a while. By law the AEC has to wait 13 days for votes to come in by post, and pre-polling isn’t counted until after the day’s votes are counted.
Asked about the NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro’s admission that he voted for Labor at the last election, Zed Seselja says:
Asked about Barilaro’s criticism of the ABC cuts (and yes, Paul Fletcher’s office, they are cuts), Seselja says:
Speaking to the ABC, the Liberal senator Zed Seselja is also managing expectations.
Asked if the government’s bushfire response has been adequate, he says:
There are people who are living in shipping containers – and they are some of the lucky ones. There are a lot in tents. With no hot water, and no way to rebuild their jobs.
The Shooters and Fishers party decided to preference Labor at this byelection. That vote could prove to be very, very important.
Here is part of why the party decided to preference away from the government:
The popularity of Labor’s former MP, Mike Kelly, accounts for about 3% of Labor’s vote in Eden-Monaro.
Both the major parties are playing it fairly cool – as reported earlier, neither is willing to take the favourite tag.
The count is slowly starting to come in but it is only a few polling places.
So far, Labor’s primary vote is down, but it is too early to show any trend.
The early booths tend to be the smaller ones and the votes are too small to make any early guesses.
It has been a huge day in Victoria – and this is the news that is going to be dominating Australian headlines for the next week. If you need to catch up, you’ll find all the information here:
It has been a huge day in Victoria – and this is the news that is going to be dominating Australian headlines for the next week. If you need to catch up, you’ll find all the information here:
Scott Morrison won’t be appearing during the byelection, we are being told.
He has been focused on the pandemic response.
Anthony Albanese is in town though.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone (that John Barilaro won’t say who he voted for).
The NSW Nats leader has not ruled out having a tilt himself at the next election. Having a Labor MP will make that a lot easier for him, in terms of internal Coalition politics.
The count is going to be slightly different for AEC counters at this election:
That’s it – the polls have closed.
Let the counting begin.
For those wanting to follow along with the count, you can follow it here:
Polls are open for a little while longer.
The big news though is in Victoria where 108 new cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed in the last 24 hours. Two more postcodes have been placed into lockdown, accounting for the suburbs Kensington, Flemington and North Melbourne.
And, of course, it has been as chilly as my cold dead heart out there today, as Mike Bowers found out:
And as a catch-up on what you might have missed, this piece by Katharine Murphy and Paul Karp gives a pretty excellent run-through of what has gone on:
Paul Karp has taken a look at the campaign so far:
Welcome to our live coverage of the Eden-Monaro byelection.
As with all byelection campaigns, it has been a slightly weird one – more so this time around because it has been carried out in the midst of a pandemic. So it’s been a little strange even for a byelection.
Mike Kelly, whose retirement for health reasons sparked the contest, won the seat for Labor in the 2019 election with a reduced margin of 0.9%.
So just a handful of the 114,000 or so voters changing their mind would flip the seat to the Coalition.
In terms of actual impact, the result of this byelection is fairly low stakes.
If Labor’s Kristy McBain wins, it’s the status quo. If the Liberals’ Fiona Kotvojs wins, the government gets another backbencher.
There is, of course, the normal pundit talk of “what will this mean for the opposition leader’s leadership” but the answer there too is fairly shrug-worthy. Labor has been “managing expectations” from the beginning, pointing out that the byelection has been carried out in a once in 100-year pandemic. Also, the Victorian branch of the Labor party has been suspended, and is under the administration of the federal executive. Given the changes to the Labor leadership rules, changing a leader these days is not as easy as creating rumblings in the party room.
And of course there are other candidates. The Nationals candidate, Trevor Hicks, has been pulled in all sorts of directions by the never-ending drama between the NSW Liberals and the NSW Nationals. The Greens and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers parties are also fielding candidates, and their preferences will be crucial. Labor received criticism for striking a preference deal with the SFF but has returned fire over the internal drama between the Coalition partners.
Throw in the size of the electorate (it’s about the size of Switzerland) and the vastly different experiences of voters – while Queanbeyan is focused on business and recovery from the pandemic, much of the south coast communities are still struggling to get housing and running water after the summer bushfires destroyed their towns – and you have an electorate with a lot of different priorities.
The shared experience though is the suffering. Eden-Monaro is doing it tough. Very tough. And if you have seen people living in shipping containers, making one-hour round trips to have a hot shower, you know exactly how tough I mean.
Whichever candidate wins has a massive job ahead of them.
So stay with us, as we run through the night’s events. We may not get a result tonight – pre-polling numbers are very high and postals could prove crucial.
But, like every election, no one really knows what is going to happen until it happens.
You have Mike Bowers on the ground and I’ll show you some of what he has captured over the last day of campaigning.
You have Katharine Murphy watching the result, so keep an eye out for her analysis – and you have me, Amy Remeikis, keeping you updated through the night.
Polls close at 6pm – so grab yourself something nice to drink, pull up a comfy chair and get ready for wherever the night takes us.
Thanks for joining us – you can always join the conversation by hitting me up on Twitter, if you so feel the need.
