Recounts here and there

The Bradfield recount finally came to an end yesterday, with Teal candidate Nicolette Boele declared the winner by just 26 votes. While no sane person would describe that as a comfortable margin, it’s rather bigger than had seemed likely over the preceding week and will probably be enough to deter any legal challenge. The House of Representatives therefore finishes with 94 Labor, 28 Liberals, 15 Nationals and 13 others.

Note again that close seats don’t necessarily mean close elections, or vice versa. In 2022, when Labor scored a much narrower victory, no individual seat had a margin of less than 373 votes (Gilmore was the closest). This time there were three: in addition to Bradfield, Goldstein came down to 175 votes and Longman to 269.

The other interesting thing is the shortage of traditional Labor-Coalition contests among the very close seats. Out of seven seats decided by less than a single percentage point, only two (Longman and Bullwinkel) met that description: the others were all Teal wins (Bradfield and Kooyong) or losses (Goldstein, Bean and Fremantle).

At the other end of the table, very safe seats are also more numerous, as you’d expect with a landslide victory. Eighteen members were elected with more than two-thirds of the vote after preferences, compared to 11 in 2022: 13 of them Labor, four Nationals and one independent (Andrew Wilkie in Clark). The safest Liberal seat was Herbert, on 63.4%.

Results as close as Bradfield are relatively rare in Australia, but in this year’s Canadian election (as Adrian Beaumont has been tracking) there were four of them. Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore was initially decided by 77 votes, Terrebonne by 44 votes, Milton East—Halton Hills South by 29 and Terra Nova—The Peninsulas by 12.

All were recounted; two of the results changed, with the Conservatives taking Terra Nova—The Peninsulas by 12 votes and the Liberals taking Terrebonne by just one vote. Milton East—Halton Hills South dropped to 21, and the Conservative margin in Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore came down to only four votes. Granted that Canadian electorates are smaller and there are more of them, even so that’s a remarkable run.

Terrebonne will almost certainly be sent back to the polls, but in the meantime the total figures sit on 169 Liberals, 144 Conservatives, 22 Quebec Bloc, seven NDP and a single Green.