A by-election was held for the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presidin ...

seat of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

on Saturday 21 July 2012. This was triggered by the resignation of former minister and state

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

MLA Bronwyn Pike which she announced on 7 May 2012. Sixteen candidates contested the by-election, the Liberals declined to nominate a candidate.

Jennifer Kanis Jennifer Kanis (born 16 April 1970) is an Australian politician. She was the Labor Party member for Melbourne in the Victorian Legislative Assembly between 2012 and 2014. Kanis was born in Melbourne to migrant parents—a Greek father and Ital ...

retained the seat for Labor with a 51.5 per cent (–4.7)

two-candidate-preferred In Australian politics, the two-party-preferred vote (TPP or 2PP) is the result of an election or opinion poll after preferences have been distributed to the highest two candidates, who in some cases can be independents. For the purposes of TPP, ...

vote against Greens candidate Cathy Oke.

Dates

Background

The federal seat of

held by

was won by the Greens at the August 2010 federal election, where the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

s preferenced the Greens ahead of Labor. At the November 2010 Victorian state election where the Liberals preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens, the

National National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

Coalition won 45 seats and Labor won 43 seats in the 88-seat Legislative Assembly, resulting in a one-seat majority for the incoming Coalition government. Labor retained the state seat of Melbourne on a 56.2 per cent

vote against the Greens and a 64.4 per cent two-party-preferred vote against the Liberals. On the primary vote, Labor won 35.7 per cent, the Greens won 31.9 per cent, the Liberals won 28.0 per cent, and four other candidates won a combined 4.4 per cent. With the Liberals declining to field a candidate, there was an increased chance of the seat changing hands due to changed preference flows, such as at the 2002 Cunningham by-election (Federal) and the 2009 Fremantle by-election (WA State). Due to the voting patterns to the Greens across jurisdictions, this state by-election, unusually received national attention.

Candidates

The 16 candidates in ballot paper order were as follows:

Polling

*From 7 to 10 June 2012, 365 voters (5% MoE) in the seat were telephone polled by

Roy Morgan Research Roy Morgan, formerly known as Roy Morgan Research, is an independent Australian social and political market research and public opinion statistics company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. It operates nationally as Roy Morgan and internatio ...

. The Greens'

vote was at 54 per cent to 46 per cent for Labor. The Greens' primary vote was at 48.5 per cent, Labor on 37.5 per cent, and Mayne on 7 per cent, with "others including Gary Morgan and Kevin Chamberlain" on a collective 7 per cent. Morgan and Chamberlain did not nominate. *On 16 July 2012, 403 voters (5% MoE) in the seat were robocall polled by ReachTel with results published in

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

. The Greens' primary vote was at 38.1 per cent, Labor on 36.5 per cent, the Sex Party on 6.1 per cent, Mayne on 4.3 per cent, Family First on 3.8 per cent, with the remaining 11 candidates on a collective 11.2 per cent. While no two-candidate vote was produced, preference flows were said to be evenly divided between Labor and the Greens.

Preferences

How-to-vote card How-to-vote cards (HTV) are small leaflets that are handed out by party supporters during elections in Australia. Voting in the Australian lower house uses a preferential voting system. Voters must rank every candidate on the ballot in order for ...

s (HTVs) had six candidates recommending voters to preference Labor over the Greens: Ahmed, Family First, Nolte, the DLP, the Sex Party, and the Christians. Six candidates recommended voters preference the Greens over Labor: Perkins, Collyer, Toscano, Mayne, Borland, and Whitehead. Not recommending preferences were Schorel-Hlavka and O'Connor.

Results

, - , , , style="text-align:left;",

Independent Liberal Independent Liberal is a description allowed in politics to denote party affiliation. It is used to designate a politician as a liberal, yet independent of the official Liberal Party of a country. Those parties were the Liberal Party of Canada, ...

, style="text-align:left;", David Nolte , style="text-align:right;", 1,302 , style="text-align:right;", 4.66 , style="text-align:right;", +4.66 , - , - , , , style="text-align:left;",

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Socialist Equality , style="text-align:left;", Patrick O'Connor , style="text-align:right;", 162 , style="text-align:right;", 0.58 , style="text-align:right;", +0.58 , - , - , , , style="text-align:left;",

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

, style="text-align:left;", David Collyer , style="text-align:right;", 160 , style="text-align:right;", 0.57 , style="text-align:right;", +0.57 , - , - , , , style="text-align:left;",

Secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

, style="text-align:left;", John Perkins , style="text-align:right;", 162 , style="text-align:right;", 0.58 , style="text-align:right;", +0.58 , - Almost two-thirds of preferences went to Labor over the Greens. The two-candidate vote remained level during the polling booth count, however the postal vote count favoured Labor and put the result beyond doubt. The Greens conceded defeat on 24 July. The

Victorian Electoral Commission Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatu ...

(VEC) officially declared that Labor had retained the seat on 25 July. Results were final as of 31 July.

External links

2012 Melbourne by-election distribution of preference votes: VEC

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120606030253/http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/current/MelbourneDistrictByElection.html 2012 Melbourne by-election website: VECbr>@electionsvic VEC account: Twitter2012 Melbourne by-election: Antony Green ABCPoll Bludger pre-election

post-election

References

{{reflist, 2 2012 elections in Australia Victorian state by-elections 2010s in Melbourne