Australian By-Elections (Federal, State, Territory, Local) 2016-19

[Barnes]

While federal by-elections come along in rather mercurial spurts (mostly following a coup, so not too infrequent), there is usually a general stream of races on the state level, so I thought it'd be best to group these by the life of the 45th Parliament.

There were three contests in New South Wales on Saturday with some amusingly large swings against the state government, so I'll get posting on those soon enough.

[lilTommy]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-09/nsw-by-election-premier-grateful-despite-swing-to-labor/8428916

http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/gosford-by-election-2017/results/

Gosford:
1st Pref:
Labor - 49% (+11)
Liberal - 30% (-11)
2nd Pref:
Labor - 62% (+12)
Liberal - 37% (-12)

Manly:
1st Pref:
Liberal - 43% (-24)
Indie (Kathryn Ridge)- 22% (+22)
Green - 18% (+1)

North Shore:
Liberal - 42% (-15)
Indie (Carolyn Corrigan) - 24 (+24)
Greem - 16 (+1)

[Lachi]

LOL @ those swings, but to be fair, that's what you usually see in by-elections. They'll probably go back to normal at the next election

[lilTommy]

LOL @ those swings, but to be fair, that's what you usually see in by-elections. They'll probably go back to normal at the next election

What i find interesting is that Labor didn't field a candidate at all in Manly or North Shore. Now they seem to be dead zones for the party but still, that feels odd to my Canadian eyes.

[Barnes]

LOL @ those swings, but to be fair, that's what you usually see in by-elections. They'll probably go back to normal at the next election

Well Gosford was the most marginal seat in the state with Labor holding it on a 0.2 margin. Gladys Berejiklian's numbers are still very high from her honeymoon period but lingering distaste from Baird is stilll having a considerable impact.

It's difficult to glean much from Manly and North Shore since those were uncontested by Labor leading to an asymmetrical preference flow.

LOL @ those swings, but to be fair, that's what you usually see in by-elections. They'll probably go back to normal at the next election

What i find interesting is that Labor didn't field a candidate at all in Manly or North Shore. Now they seem to be dead zones for the party but still, that feels odd to my Canadian eyes.

Parties will rarely put up a candidate in the other party's heartland for a by-election as there is basically no possible chance of victory--Labor has come in third behind independents in Manly since 1991.

The main reason for running a full slate of candidates at a general election is to get votes for the Legislative Council or for the Senate federally.