Labor is certain to win two of Super Saturday's five by-elections - Perth and Fremantle - as the focus and fight remains on three seats in the east - Longman, Braddon and Mayo.

The Liberal party decided against contesting Perth and Fremantle, leaving it clear for the Labor candidates to almost certainly win but raising concerns of a poor voter turnout.

Fremantle Labor candidate Josh Wilson, who forced the by-election when he had to quit over dual citizenship issues - hopes to improve the 41 per cent primary vote he secured at the last federal election.

"I certainly had people who identified as Liberal voters saying that they weren't sure what to do," he said on Saturday.

"I sympathised with them, I pointed out the fact that I've been a very hard working local member in the past, that I've grown up in this community, that I haven't got horns, that maybe they need to make an exception and it will be our secret." </s> Leaders make last-gasp push for every undecided vote in Braddon and Longman • Super Saturday elections: Shorten passes test as Labor wins ‘four from four’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten hit the hustings in Tasmania on Saturday morning for a last-minute blitz as voters headed to the polls for five byelections in four states that will set the course for federal politics for the remainder of 2018.

With backroom strategists saying the critical contests in the marginal seats of Braddon and Longman were too close to call, the federal Labor leader bookended Saturday by campaigning in Queensland as the major parties pushed for every undecided vote.

Despite earlier signs the Liberal party could end a 98-year drought of governments winning seats from oppositions at byelections, polls were pointing to Labor retaining the knife-edge seats of Longman and Braddon, while comfortably hanging on to Perth and Fremantle.

Super Saturday byelection guide – five seats go to the polls Read more

“Let’s be fair dinkum about it, Labor should be miles ahead,” Turnbull told reporters in Braddon, saying the ALP had run a dishonest campaign on health funding and other issues.

“What that tells you is that many (people) ... are disgusted and appalled by Labor’s lies. They really are.”

Shorten, however, was underplaying the latest Newspoll figures, published in Saturday’s Weekend Australia.

“Labor started these campaigns well behind,” he told reporters in Devonport where he was campaigning with candidate Justine Keay.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Labor party candidate for Perth, Patrick Gorman, casts his vote along with his wife Jessica and son Leo at Highgate primary school on Saturday. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

“Anyone who tells you they know what’s happening is having a lend of you.”

The latest Newspoll puts the two-party preferred figure in Longman and Braddon at 51-49 in Labor’s favour.

The Newspoll found Labor’s primary vote would have risen five points to 45% in Longman if Anthony Albanese was leader rather than Shorten.



In Braddon, the figure was 47%.



In two-party terms, this would translate to a comfortable lead of 55-45 to Labor in both seats.

Shorten dodged direct questions on his future if Labor lost any of the byelections saying the message would be “we didn’t get enough votes. Beyond that, let’s not give up yet”.

Turnbull, who was also in Devonport, took another swipe at candidates who caused the byelections because of dual citizenship issues.

“They’ve got candidates who sat in parliament for months drawing parliamentary salaries at public expense when they knew they were not entitled to be there and now they are running again the same lies they ran in 2016,” he said.

Labor has poured resources into Longman in the closing week of the contest, with a substantial television and radio advertising buy that has made the Liberals anxious. The ALP also secured a late endorsement from Queensland Catholic schools over school funding, and activists were reporting more positive sentiment at pre-poll over the closing days.



While the Coalition is hopeful of engineering an upset in Longman or Braddon – a development that would boost internal morale, rattle the opposition and put Shorten’s leadership under pressure – the Liberals have written off their chances in the South Australian seat of Mayo.

The Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie is widely expected to retain her seat despite a challenge from star recruit Georgina Downer, whose father, a former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, held the electorate from 1984 to 2008.

Given their weak political position in Western Australia, the Liberals did not contest the two seats up for grabs in Western Australia, Fremantle and Perth, in order to stockpile resources for the federal campaign and minimise any negative political fallout for Turnbull.

No Australian government has picked up a seat from an opposition at a byelection for close to a century. The average two-party-preferred swing against an incumbent government at a byelection is between 4% and 5%.

Historically, byelections triggered by MPs with constitutional issues have attracted something of a sympathy vote for the incumbents, but given the spate of contests triggered over the past 12 months, both sides suggest voter fatigue and resentment has ticked up.

The national focal point on Saturday night will be the result of the contests in Longman and Braddon. The outcome in the two seats is complicated by what is expected to be a substantial protest vote.

Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) Apparently Mr Turnbull was missing me today. After nearly three months on the campaign trail in every by-election seat, I decided to be a dad first on school pick-up duties for my youngest daughter and her best friend. See you on the polling booths tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/SRARYpj85C

The independent Craig Garland is tipped to be kingmaker in the Tasmanian electorate of Braddon, with the major parties anticipating he could pick up a substantial chunk of the vote – and One Nation’s support in Longman also seems to have held up despite the absence of Pauline Hanson on an overseas holiday, and questions about its candidate Matthew Stephens and his business dealings.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Liberal candidate Brett Whiteley (centre) talk to a voter in Devonport, Tasmania on Saturday. Photograph: Sarah Rhodes/AAP

Labor grabbed Longman at the last federal election with the help of One Nation preferences, but it is possible that Labor could improve its primary vote in Longman in Saturday’s contest but lose the seat if the preference flows from One Nation benefit the Liberal candidate, Trevor Ruthenberg.

Major party strategists regard the One Nation vote as not directable, which means voters do not necessarily follow how-to-vote cards, which increases the degree of difficulty in predicting results.

Underscoring the closeness of the contests, Turnbull in the closing days of the byelections has emphasised the importance of a first preference vote for the government’s candidates in Longman and Braddon.

Turnbull spent Friday on the ground in Longman. Shorten was absent from the hustings to spend time with his daughter.

The contests, triggered by the last vestige of federal parliament’s dual citizenship crisis, have dragged on for 11 weeks, draining party resources and voter patience. Shorten has made eight visits to Longman and Turnbull has been to Queensland five times. </s> Labor senator Katy Gallagher has lost her seat in parliament after the High Court ruled she was ineligible to stand for the 2016 election because of her dual citizenship status.

Senator Gallagher had claimed she took all reasonable steps to renounce her British citizenship before the election, but was still a British citizen when the writs were issued.

The 48-year-old former Australian Capital Territory chief minister, who became the ACT's lone Labor senator in 2015, was born in Canberra in 1970 but her mother was born in Ecuador, which was a British colony at the time of her birth.

The High Court's decision puts a cloud over a number of other MPs, including first-term Labor members Susan Lamb and Justine Keay, who both hold marginal seats in outer Brisbane and western Tasmania and are possible dual British citizens.

The Turnbull Government was returned to power with a bare one-seat majority in July 2016 so a by-election in either of those two seats could help the Coalition boost its numbers in the House of Representatives.

The High Court ruling could also spark a by-election in the Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo, where the Nick Xenophon Team candidate Rebekha Sharkie defeated former Liberal minister Jamie Briggs.

Ms Sharkie, who is now with the Central Alliance, faces a strong challenge from the Liberal Party should her possible dual citizenship spark a by-election in the previous safe Liberal electorate once held by former foreign minister Alexander Downer.

In Fremantle, south of Perth, first-term Labor MP Josh Wilson is also a potential dual Brit, however this seat would be unlikely to be picked up by the Liberals if there were a by-election.

Since July last year, section 44 of the constitution, which bans dual citizens from being federal members of parliament, has ended the political careers of former Greens senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam.

The citizenship fiasco has also seen crossbench firebrand Jacqui Lambie kicked out of the Senate along with former deputy Nationals leader Fiona Nash, for being dual citizens of the United Kingdom by descent.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and Liberal MP John Alexander, a former tennis champion, resigned from the House of Representatives last year but were returned in December by-elections, after they discovered they had ties to New Zealand and Britain through their fathers. </s> West Australians in the federal electorates of Perth and Fremantle are encouraged to cast their vote this "Super Saturday" amid concern turnout could plunge to a record low.

In the first 10 days of pre-polling, early votes for Perth were down 41 per cent on the same time during the 2016 federal election.

In Fremantle, 3200 early votes were cast by Saturday, down 35 per cent compared to the general poll just over two years ago.

But with the Liberals not even bothering to contest the federal seats, publicity surrounding the campaigns has been thin.

"I'm concerned that pre-poll voting is low," Labor's candidate for Perth Patrick Gorman told reporters on Friday.

Mr Gorman is expected to easily win the seat, which was held by lawyer Tim Hammond , who resigned for family reasons, with a margin of 3.3 per cent.

The Perth by-election is the only one of the five Super Saturday polls not being held because of the dual citizenship fiasco,.

The party is tipped to win Fremantle even more convincingly with Josh Wilson, the port city's former deputy mayor who held the seat previously with a 7.5 per cent margin but had to resign over his dual citizenship.

Perth has previously been held by major Labor names including Stephen Smith and Alannah MacTiernan, while even bigger party greats such as Kim Beazley senior and former prime minster John Curtin held Fremantle. </s> Five new Australian parliamentarians have been ousted for holding dual citizenship when they were elected.

Last year, 10 MPs and senators were removed from office for violating a constitutional rule that prohibits federal political candidates from being dual nationals.

On Wednesday, Senator Katy Gallagher was ruled ineligible by a court in what was widely viewed as a fresh test case.

Four other politicians who were under scrutiny resigned after the verdict.

Ms Gallagher and lower house MPs Justine Keay, Josh Wilson and Susan Lamb are members of the opposition Labor party. The fifth MP, Rebekha Sharkie, is part of minor party Centre Alliance.

The dual citizenship saga has destabilised Australian politics since last July, at times threatening Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's majority in the House of Representatives.

Mr Turnbull could increase his majority if he wins any of the vacant lower house seats.

The High Court of Australia ruled that Ms Gallagher's seat would be filled by counting back votes from the 2016 federal election.

The other politicians are expected be replaced in the same way, or through a by-election.

Ms Gallagher had referred herself to the court last year after questions emerged over whether she had renounced her British citizenship in time to run for office.

"To the people of the [Australian Capital Territory], I'm very sorry that this disruption has occurred to one of your federal representatives," she said on Wednesday.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said three of the ousted MPs would seek re-election.

Mr Shorten said his party had relied on an older interpretation of Section 44(a), a much-debated rule in the constitution.

"The High Court has made the decision - these are the facts we've got to deal with," he said. </s> SYDNEY
• Australia faces a series of by-elections after the High Court ruled yesterday that an 11th lawmaker must leave Parliament, in a test-case decision that prompted four more lawmakers to quit amid a widening citizenship crisis.

The court found unanimously that opposition Labor Party Senator Katy Gallagher also held British citizenship at the time of her election, despite her attempts to renounce it, and so was ineligible to be elected to the federal parliament.

Dual citizens are blocked from national elected office under Australia's 117-year-old constitution. The decision prompted four other lawmakers in similar predicaments to resign, triggering by-elections for their lower-house seats.

Ms Gallagher and the other four are not members of Australia's ruling centre-right coalition, keeping its slender majority safe, but the resulting polls will be a litmus test of the public mood and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's popularity ahead of a general election due next year.

"By-elections are notoriously difficult things," Dr Nick Economou, a political scientist at Monash University in Melbourne, said.

He said the Queensland state seat of Longman, held by Labor's Susan Lamb on a knife-edge margin until her resignation yesterday, was a bellwether contest.

"If Labor was to lose that, it'd be a huge fillip for Turnbull," Dr Economou said.

"On the other hand, if Labor was to win with an increased majority, that would be a sign that there's a problem for the government," he said.

Ms Lamb said she intended to recontest her seat.

Labor MPs Josh Wilson and Justine Keay, and independent member Rebekha Sharkie, who also resigned yesterday, said they would do likewise in their separate electorates.

Dates for the by-elections have not been set officially but could be as early as mid-June.

Ms Gallagher, who said she was disappointed but accepted the court ruling, will be replaced by another Labor politician in the Senate.

"The High Court has adopted the strictest possible reading," said Dr George Williams, professor and Dean of Law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

"I'm surprised by the result. I think it delivers a proposition that is unworkable... because of how hard it will be to comply with these requirements now," he said.

In a nation in which half the population were either born overseas or have parents who were, the dual citizenship rule has cut a swathe through the national parliament.

It has prompted the departure of 15 lawmakers in total, and last year briefly left Mr Turnbull's Liberal-National coalition clinging to a minority government.

Ms Gallagher, who was born in Ecuador to British parents and was conferred British citizenship, filed paperwork and paid processing fees to renounce it more than two months before being elected in July 2016.

However, she did not get confirmation from the British Home Office that her renunciation had been processed until after she was elected, according to documents she disclosed to Parliament last year. </s> CANBERRA: Five Australian parliamentarians were ousted on Wednesday for holding dual citizenship when they were elected. It comes as fresh blow to Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull's majority in the House.

In what was widely viewed as a fresh test case, a high court ruled Senator Katy Gallagher ineligible, the BBC reported.

Four other politicians, who were also under scrutiny resigned after the verdict.

Gallagher and lower house MPs Justine Keay, Josh Wilson and Susan Lamb are members of the opposition Labor party. The fifth MP, Rebekha Sharkie, is part of minor party Centre Alliance.

In 2017, 10 MPs and senators were removed from office for violating a constitutional rule that prohibits federal political candidates from being dual nationals, the BBC report said.

The dual citizenship saga has destabilised Australian politics since July 2017, at times threatening Turnbull's majority in the House of Representatives.

Turnbull could increase his majority if he wins any of the vacant lower house seats, the BBC reported.

Gallagher was aware of her British passport as her father was born in England, so the court ruled that she did not take "all reasonable steps" to relinquish her British links, Xinhua news agency reported.

The High Court of Australia ruled that Gallagher's seat would be filled by counting back votes from the 2016 federal election.

The other politicians are expected be replaced in the same way, or through a by-election.

Gallagher had referred herself to the court in 2017 after questions emerged over whether she had renounced her British citizenship in time to run for office.

"To the people of the (Australian Capital Territory), I'm very sorry that this disruption has occurred to one of your federal representatives," she said on Wednesday.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said three of the ousted MPs would seek re-election.

Shorten said his party had relied on an older interpretation of Section 44(a), a much-debated rule in the constitution, that says members of parliament cannot continue to have citizenship in another country, and must prove they took "all reasonable steps" to renounce the other citizenship before being elected. </s> VOTERS in the former-blue ribbon seat of Mayo will have the chance to return the electorate to the Liberal fold at Saturday’s by-election.

But candidate Georgina Downer would need to discredit consecutive polls to take the seat from Centre Alliance MP-turned-candidate Rebekha Sharkie. Voting booths in the seat centred on the Adelaide Hills are now open, in one of the five Super Saturday by-elections mostly forced by the dual citizenship fiasco.

The by-election was triggered after Ms Sharkie - who won Mayo for the Nick Xenophon Team in 2016 - became caught up in the dual citizenship saga and was forced to resign.

She was the first non-Liberal to hold the seat since its 1984 creation and is hoping to repeat the result.

Her opponent, Ms Downer, is the daughter of Howard government foreign minister Alexander, who held the seat for the Liberal Party for 24 years. A recent poll in The Advertiser put her ahead 59-41 on a two-party basis while a ReachTEL poll of more than 700 voters returned a similar result on Wednesday night.

Despite the stark result, neither candidate has been willing to give weight to the poll.

“My intention is to be successful tomorrow and, of course, run next year for re- election as the member for Mayo,” Ms Downer said.

“I expected this would be a difficult campaign but it’s been a really fantastic time out here in Mayo and I’ve had a great reception in the community.” Ms Sharkie, the clear favourite, denied she was in a “unlosable position”. “I am so nervous here today,” she told reporters on Friday.

“The poll that counts is the poll (on Saturday).” Counting will start after polling closes at 6pm local time.

Rebekah Sharkie says she’s both nervous and hopeful of being returned to federal parliament as the member for Mayo with voting underway in Saturday’s by- election.

The Central Alliance MP-turned-candidate joined her parents at Mt Torrens, in the Adelaide HIlls, casting the first ballot at now-closed Lutheran school in the town.

She says while it’s been a long campaign, she and her team have done all they could and she wouldn’t change a thing.

“This has been a wonderful way to bring my community together,” she said. “My team of volunteers, we’ve given this everything we possibly can. “You can only be hopeful. You can only be optimistic but ultimately we’ll know the result at the end of today.” Ms Sharkie first won Mayo from the Liberals in 2016 but was forced to resign when caught up in the dual citizenship saga.

Opinion polls have her well in front of Liberal candidate Georgina Downer despite Ms Downer enjoying strong support in recent weeks from a string of high- profile party figures, including two visits from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and one from former PM John Howard.

She is also the daughter of former foreign minister Alexander who held Mayo for 24 years from 1984, though the family connection may have played against her in the end.

Ms Downer also battled criticism that she was something of a blow-in after spending most of the past 20 years living interstate or overseas. Ms Sharkie played up her own local credentials as someone deeply involved in the area for many years.

“I love my community. That is why I put my hand up two years ago. That is why I put a second mortgage on our house two year ago,” she said.

“People said that was crazy but I just felt I had to do it.” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged Mayo residents to vote for Ms Downer, who he said had run a campaign in tough circumstances.

“The message in Mayo is very clear that Rebekha Sharkie - she is not a Labor candidate but most of the time she votes for the Labor Party,” he said while campaigning in Tasmania.

Counting will start in Mayo after polling closes at 6pm local time. - AAP </s> The Experts

SA Election: Will Xenophon be king-maker?

Malcolm Mackerras

Friday, March 09, 2018

Having made near-perfectly-correct predictions for Tasmania’s recent election “Island politics: Spotlight on Tasmania’s election” I am emboldened now to chance my arm on South Australia whose general election will occur on Saint Patrick’s Day, Saturday March 17. I begin by noting that I have already predicted this election result – more than a year ago. In my article “Leadership Shakeup for WA and SA?” (published on Thursday February 9, 2017) I correctly predicted the Labor win in Western Australia and went on to write: “By way of contrast, the opposite will happen in South Australia in March 2018. The Labor government there will be defeated and replaced by a government composed of one party only, the Liberal Party. Labor’s Jay Weatherill will lose the office of Premier to Steven Marshall”.

That, of course, was written long before Nick Xenophon decided to resign from the Senate in order to contest the state seat of Hartley in the SA House of Assembly. So, do I stick to that prediction? Or do I change it, asking to be excused my change of mind by using Xenophon’s decision as my excuse? As explained in detail below I have decided to stick to the prediction that Marshall will be Premier in a majority Liberal government.

In the outgoing lower house, Labor held 24 seats: Ashford, Cheltenham, Colton, Croydon, Elder, Enfield, Fisher, Florey, Giles, Kaurna, Lee, Light, Little Para, Mawson, Napier, Newland, Playford, Port Adelaide, Ramsay, Reynell, Taylor, Torrens, West Torrens and Wright. The Liberal Party held 21 seats: Adelaide, Bragg, Bright, Chaffey, Davenport, Dunstan, Finniss, Flinders, Goyder, Hammond, Hartley, Heysen, Kavel, MacKillop, Mitchell, Morialta, Morphett, Mount Gambier, Schubert, Stuart and Unley.

That left two others, both seats which would normally be won by the Liberal Party. They were Frome, based on Port Pirie, and Waite, in Adelaide’s salubrious southern suburbs. Port Pirie is a Labor town but the surrounding countryside (which is almost entirely to its south) votes solidly Liberal. It would be a Liberal seat except that it has a popular Independent member who won the seat as an Independent but supported the Labor government. Waite is blue-ribbon Liberal but its member, Martin Hamilton-Smith, decided to be a minister in the Labor government. My predictions begin by asserting that both Frome and Waite will be won by the Liberal Party.

The big problem lies with SA Best, Xenophon’s party. However, I chance my arm on saying there will be two such members in the House of Assembly. They will be Xenophon himself in Hartley, taken from the Liberal Party, and one other member in Giles, a gain from Labor. Giles takes in the steel-making city of Whyalla plus a third of South Australia’s area to Whyalla’s west. It is Labor’s only regional seat.

At the general election held on Saturday March 15, 2014, the two-party preferred vote was distributed 53-47 in favour of the Liberal Party, which party lost the election! Due to the obvious unfairness of such a result there has been a redistribution of seats which creates a notional result (on the new boundaries) of 27 Liberals to 20 seats for Labor.

Having studied all the seats and much opinion poll information I now predict these 24 seat will be won by the Liberal Party: Adelaide, Bragg, Chaffey, Colton, Davenport, Dunstan, Elder, Finniss, Flinders, Frome, Gibson, Hammond, Heysen, Kavel, MacKillop, Mawson, Morialta, Morphett, Mount Gambier, Narungga, Schubert, Stuart, Unley and Waite.

The 21 seats I predict will be won by Labor are Badcoe, Black, Cheltenham, Croydon, Elizabeth, Enfield, Florey, Hurtle Vale, Kaurna, King, Lee, Light, Newland, Playford, Port Adelaide, Ramsay, Reynell, Taylor, Torrens, West Torrens and Wright.

If all the above is correct, then Xenophon will be very disappointed – but not devastated. I say that because there are plenty of pundits who think he will not win Hartley. For that seat to be won by the Liberal sitting member or the Labor former member would be devastating for Xenophon. So I do not think it will happen. On the other hand I am not predicting he will be king-maker. Since that is the aim of his quixotic decision to leave the Senate my predicted result, if proven as correct as my Western Australian, Queensland and Tasmanian predicted results, would leave Xenophon very disappointed indeed.

Two by-elections will be held on the SA general election day, March 17. One is very easy to predict. The Liberal Party will retain blue-ribbon Liberal Cottesloe (WA), the seat resigned by the former premier, Colin Barnett, who has retired from politics.

By contrast, Batman (Victoria) is interesting. Once again my prediction is on the record. In my article here (show “Who’s to blame for the citizenship scandal?” in blue) I wrote that “Labor will lose Batman to The Greens at the next election whenever that election is held”. Do I stick to that? I give an affirmative answer. The Greens candidate, Alex Bhathal, will be elected for Batman.

(Malcolm Mackerras is Honorary Fellow of Australian Catholic University. malcolm.mackerras@acu.edu.au)

Published: Friday, March 09, 2018

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Five separate by-elections are held for five seats in the Australian House of Representatives, namely Braddon, Fremantle, Longman, Mayo and Perth, four of which were triggered by the dual citizenship crisis.