2018 Batman by-election

A by-election for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Batman took place on 17 March 2018. The by-election was called because on 1 February 2018, backbench Australian Labor Party MP, David Feeney, left parliament because of the 2017–18 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis.

At the 2016 Australian federal election, the Australian Greens had come within 1% of winning the two-candidate preferred vote (TCP). Because of this, the campaign was mostly fought between the Labor candidate, former Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney, and the Greens candidate, social worker Alex Bhathal, who had run for the seat five times previously. The Liberal Party of Australia did not run a candidate. The campaign focused heavily on the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine and the environment. It also focused on refugee policy and Labor's proposed changes to tax policy.

Kearney won the seat with a 3.35% swing toward Labor (TCP), for a total of 54.38% of the final vote. The electorate of Batman was replaced with the Division of Cooper, which Kearney won at the 2019 and 2022 Australian federal elections.

 Background 

On 6 December 2017, during the citizenship crisis affecting several MPs, Labor MP David Feeney revealed that he could not prove he did not hold citizenship of the United Kingdom.  Section 44 of the Constitution of Australia states that people with multiple citizenships cannot be members of parliament, so Feeney referred himself to the High Court of Australia. By 19 January 2018, Feeney still could not prove he had given up his citizenship of the UK or Ireland. The High Court gave Feeney's legal team an extension to 1 February to let them continue to look for the relevant documents. At a press conference on 1 February 2018, Feeney announced he would resign from the seat and from politics immediately, choosing not to stand as a candidate at the by-election. The date for the by-election was set at 17 March 2018, the same day as the South Australian state election.

Batman had been a solidly Labor seat for the majority of its history. Since its creation in 1906, non-Labor members had only represented the electorate between 1906 and 1910, 1931–1934, and 1966–1969. The Greens, however, made significant gains in vote share in the decades prior to 2017, including receiving a 9.6% swing towards them in the 2016 federal election, placing them first in the primary vote. However, Greens candidate Alex Bhathal was defeated by Feeney on the two-candidate-preferred vote 51%-49% after preference distribution. It was the sixth time Bhathal had contested the seat, having previously run in 2001, 2004, 2010, 2013 and 2016.

The Australian Electoral Commission confirmed that 111,857 people were enrolled to vote in the by-election. The Liberal Party did not enter a candidate. Liberal President Michael Kroger publicly stated that the party should have run a candidate if they found evidence of antisemitism in the Greens.

 Campaign 
link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Batman_-StopAdani_Community_Survey_Photos-_James_Thomas.jpg|thumb|Doorknockers in Batman in February 2018, advocating against the Adani Carmichael coal mine, a significant topic during the by-election.
The environment, and specifically the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine, were focused on heavily by the Greens in the campaign. Labor leader Bill Shorten and Kearney both expressed their doubts about the project but did not rule it out completely. On the day of the by-election, an environmental protester dressed as a fish criticised Kearney and Shorten at a polling booth. The Australian Conservation Foundation campaigned by stating that only the Greens would "stop Adani's mine from going ahead", and Activist group GetUp! stated they would not assist Labor in campaigning due to Labor's position on the coal mine. Other issues that featured in the campaigning were Labor's proposed reforms to dividend imputation (also called franking credits), a method of reducing income tax, with Kearney and Shorten holding a town hall discussing the policy. The Greens also campaigned heavily on asylum seeker and refugee policy, which they thought was a weakness for Labor.

Divisions within the Greens' campaign assisted Kearney. During the by-election campaign, an internal complaint of bullying by Bhathal was leaked to the media. Members of the Greens' Darebin branch requested her expulsion from the party following Bhathal's support for Lidia Thorpe in the 2017 Northcote state by-election. Four Greens councillors were involved in campaigning to have Bhathal removed as the candidate. The ABC reported comments from Greens members stating they would prefer Bhathal lost, despite being in the same party.

Kearney's campaign received the personal endorsement of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who wrote a letter that was distributed to 36,000 houses within the electorate. Kearney was also endorsed by EMILY's List Australia, a Labor-aligned organisation that advocates for representation of women in parliament.

On 6 March, a candidates' forum was held to discuss climate change policy. Five of the candidates were invited (Kearney, Bhathal, Whitehead, Smith and McDonald), and invitations were not extended to the remaining candidates. In protest at not being invited, Lieshout protested outside the event with her mouth taped shut. On 14 March, Kearney's campaign issued an apology for printing campaign material in Greek under the heading "Macedonian". On polling day, reports were made of seniors receiving phone calls instructing them not to vote. In response, Labor campaigners rang seniors in the electorate to urge them to vote.

 Key dates 
Key dates for the by-election were:

 Thursday, 1 February 2018 – Speaker accepted Feeney's resignation from parliament
 Wednesday, 7 February 2018 – Issue of writ, the legal document that allows the election to happen
 Wednesday, 14 February 2018 – Close of electoral rolls (8pm)
 Thursday, 22 February 2018 – Close of nominations (12 noon)
 Friday, 23 February 2018 – Declaration of nominations (12 noon)
 Tuesday, 27 February 2018 – Start of early voting
 Saturday, 17 March 2018 – Polling day (8am to 6pm)
 Friday, 30 March 2018 – Last day for receipt of postal votes
 Friday, 18 May 2018 – Last day for return of writs

 Candidates 
+Candidates in ballot paper orderPartyCandidateBackground Rise UpYvonne GentleGentle is the National Secretary of Rise Up Australia and was the party's federal candidate for Dunkley in 2013 and Flinders in 2016. LaborGed KearneyOn 2 February 2018, Labor leader Bill Shorten formally announced that Ged Kearney, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), was Labor's candidate at the by-election. Kearney had previously been pre-selected for the state seat of Brunswick at the 2018 state election, but resigned from the candidacy to contest Batman. GreensAlex BhathalGreens leader Richard Di Natale confirmed to Guardian Australia on 2 February 2018 that Alex Bhathal would run for the seat as the Greens' candidate. A former social worker who has sat on the Darebin Ethnic Communities Council, Bhathal was the Greens' candidate for the seat 5 times previously. ConservativesKevin BaileyOn 20 February 2018, Australian Conservatives director Lyle Shelton announced that Kevin Bailey, a businessman and former SAS soldier, would be the party's candidate at the by-election. People'sTegan BurnsBurns is not believed to have run for office before and was described by the party as "highly passionate about youth and the criminal justice system". Liberty AllianceDebbie RobinsonRobinson is the president of the Australian Liberty Alliance and was the party's lead candidate for the Senate in Western Australia in 2016. IndependentTeresa van LieshoutPerennial candidate for eight state and federal elections, most recently the Canning by-election in 2015. Van Lieshout is a self-published author on social, religious and political issues and the founder of the unregistered Voter Rights Party. Adrian WhiteheadWhitehead is an environmentalist and the founder of the unregistered Save the Planet Party. He previously contested Corangamite at the 2013 federal election. Sustainable AustraliaMark McDonaldMcDonald is an IT engineer and lives in Preston. Animal JusticeMiranda SmithSmith previously contested the seat of Melbourne at the 2016 federal election.

 Results 

link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2018_Batman_by-election_alluvial.png|alt=Alluvial diagram showing the full preference distribution of results at the by-election.|left|thumb|600x600px|Alluvial diagram of the full preference distribution

 Polling 
+Batman by-election pollingDateFirmSamplePrimary voteTPP voteALPGRNOTHALPGRN2018 by-election43.1%39.5%17.4%54.4%45.6%18–20 Feb 2018Lonergan Research69340%39%16%53%47%2016 election35.3%36.2%28.5%51.0%49.0%

 Aftermath 
Kearney's election made her the first woman to represent Batman in the seat's 112-year history and made federal Labor's caucus 48% female. Opposition leader Bill Shorten described Kearney as the "Hero of Batman" for her victory. Following the 2018 by-election, the Australian Electoral Commission abolished Batman and created the Division of Cooper, which had similar boundaries. Kearney went on to contest Cooper at the 2019 Australian federal election and the 2022 Australian federal election, winning both times. Kearney's margin increased in 2019 to 64.65–35.35 (TCP) against the Greens' David Risstrom and was reduced in 2022 to 58.67–41.33 (TCP) against the Greens' Celeste Liddle.Cooper, VIC , Tally Room 2019, Australian Electoral Commission.Cooper, VIC , 2022 Tally Room, Australian Electoral Commission. The Labor party became the government at the 2022 federal election, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appointed Kearney as Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care in the Albanese government.

Both Bhathal and Greens leader Richard Di Natale stated on election night that Labor's use of "big money" had significantly contributed to Kearney's victory. Di Natale also stated that Labor's win was also helped by getting votes from conservatives. The day after the by-election, Di Natale stated that the campaign had been damaged by internal leaking and that traditional Greens voters had been "turned off by the leaking and sabotage from a few individuals with a destructive agenda". Divisions within the Greens that had hurt their campaign in the by-election continued following defeat. At the 2018 Victorian state election, the electoral district of Northcote was unexpectedly won by Labor's Kat Theophanous from the Greens' Lidia Thorpe. Internal analysis of the campaign found that some Greens members refused to campaign for Thorpe due to the Batman by-election fighting.

Bhathal had stated during the by-election campaign that if she lost she would contest the seat at the next federal election, but she announced in August 2018 that she would not be the candidate due to "sabotage" of her by-election campaign. In the same month, an internal Greens review dismissed the bullying allegations leaked about Bhathal during the campaign, and apologised to her. In 2019, Bhathal resigned from the Greens because of "relentless organisational bullying". A documentary was made about Bhathal's campaign, entitled The Candidate. The screening of the film in July 2019 was sabotaged, with the fire alarm being set off as soon as the film started. In 2024, Bhathal became a candidate for the West Ward at the Darebin City Council election, which will be held on 26 October 2024. She will be running against current Darebin Mayor Sussane Newton, who is one of the four Greens councillors who tried to remove Bhathal as the candidate for Batman in 2018.

The Liberal party stated they were not interested in the results, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison stating they did not think Labor winning in Batman meant they would win in the rest of the country.

An episode of Tonightly with Tom Ballard that aired during the campaign caused controversy by referring to John Batman, who the electorate is named after, and Australian Conservatives candidate Kevin Bailey as "cunts". Communications minister Mitch Fifield and Simon Birmingham both called for someone to be sacked from the ABC over the remarks. In August, the ABC found the remarks did not breach standards.

 Gallery 

 Related pages 

 1911 Batman by-election
 1962 Batman by-election
 2017 Northcote state by-election
 Electoral results for the Division of Batman
 List of Australian federal by-elections

 References 

 Other websites 

 2018 Batman by-election (ABC Elections)
 Interactive version of the alluvial diagram, showing the flow of votes

Category:2018 elections in Australia