Cheryl Kernot improved her position in counting yesterday (Oct 8) and is now more likely than not to win the seat.
Ms Kernot is standing for the Queensland seat of Dickson, in suburban Brisbane. She needs a swing of 3.9 per cent. On Saturday night she accused the Labor machine of not providing her with a safe seat, in what was described as a dummy spit by many commentators.
After yesterday’s (Oct 8) count she may have to return the dummy. She is on 50.03 per cent to the Liberal’s Rod Henshaw on 49.97 on a two-party-preferred basis. That is only 40 votes ahead, but throughout the count since election night, the trend of postal, pre-poll and absentee votes has gone Ms Kernot’s way by 3362 to 3118. Big names tend to do well on postals, absentee and pre-poll voting.
Ninety per cent of the vote is counted, but typically four or five percent of those on the roll don’t vote.
Ms Kernot would have to be favoured to win.
The Australian Election Commission is counting preferences before all postal votes are in and issuing two-candidate-preferred percentages. It regards anything less than 50.5 per cent of the vote as doubtful and lists 11 doubtful seats including the safe Labor seat of Newcastle where a by-election is to be held because of the death of a candidate.
But the 11 can be pruned to six. Newcastle goes to Labor. So does the Tasmanian seat of Bass hitherto held by Family Services Minister Warwick Smith. Mr Smith is 300 votes down and the postal votes are only slightly favouring him. Mayo in South Australia looks very much like being held by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, despite a strong Democrat challenge. Mr Downer needs only a small preference leakage to win. Hindmarsh in South Australia will be held by Chris Gallus, Wide Bay in Queensland will be held by the National Party’s Warren Truss despite an early One Nation challenge and Parramatta looks like being held by the Liberals’ Ross Cameron who is 500 votes ahead.
That leaves the House at Coalition 75, Labor 66, Independent 1 and six doubtfuls. The figures for the doubtfuls are listed below.
The doubtfuls are: Dickson, Herbert and Hinkler in Queensland; Adelaide in South Australia; Eden-Monaro in NSW; and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
In addition to Dickson, Adelaide and Kalgoorlie are likely to go Labor’s way. In Adelaide Labor is about 290 votes ahead. Kalgoorlie will depend on the preferences of Independent Graeme Campbell, a former Labor MP.
Eden-Monaro is now more likely to be retained by the Liberals’ Gary Nairn as the postals continue to favour him. He has 1881 postals to Labor’s Steve Whan’s 1267. With 88 per cent counted Mr Nairn is 320 votes ahead. Hinkler is likely to stay with the National’s Paul Neville who is 525 ahead and who is picking up more postal and pre-poll votes.
Herbert, next to Dickson, is the closest seat of all, with the Liberals’ Peter Lindsay just 80 votes ahead.
If those seats go the way they are trending the final outcome would be: Coalition 78, Labour 69, Independent 1, a majority of eight.